Camberwell & Peckham

[iang]

There were local government / local election related stories in relatively recent times in both Coronation Street and Eastenders as I recall (wasn't Ian Beale elected to, I presume, Walford London Borough Council?). And Call the Midwife has had a running local government story over the last couple of series

[belvoir]

The King's Avenue, a copy of the Bishop's Avenue, where Boycie and Marlene live is IIRC in Lewisham (in which case it has to be in or around Blackheath). Cassandra drops Rodney off there on the way from the Peckham Adult Education Centre to her own parents' house in Blackheath.

When they make their millions Rodney and Cassandra move to a Thames-side flat which was almost certainly in Southwark and Bermondsey (about to become North Southwark and Bermondsey).

[Robert Waller]

2011 Census

Age 65+ 7.8% 638/650
Owner-occupied 27.1% 643/650
Private rented 19.4% 138/650
Social rented 50.6% 1/650
White 44.8% 633/650
Black 37.4% 1/650
Asian 7.6% 162/650
Passports held - Africa 8.5% 2/650
Managerial & professional 31.4%
Routine & Semi-routine 21.8%
Degree level 37.6% 72/650
No qualifications 18.3% 524/650
Students 13.7% 70/650


2021 Census

Owner occupied 30.9% 557/573
Private rented 23.4% 139/573
Social rented 45.7% 2/573
White 44.8%
Black 33.5%
Asian 7.7%
Managerial & professional 38.3% 142/573
Routine & Semi-routine 20.4% 406/573
Degree level 51.7% 29/573
No qualifications 15.5% 406/573





General Election 2019: Camberwell and Peckham

Party Candidate Votes %

Labour Harriet Harman 40,258 71.3 -6.5
Conservative Peter Quentin 6,478 11.5 -1.3
Liberal Democrats Julia Ogiehor 5,087 9.0 +3.1
Green Claire Sheppard 3,501 6.2 +3.4
Brexit Party Claude Cass-Horne 1,041 1.8
Workers Revolutionary Joshua Ogunleye 127 0.2

Lab Majority 33,780 59.8 -5.2

Turnout 56,492 63.4 -3.7

Registered electors 89,042

Labour hold
Swing 2.6 Lab to C

[iain]

This could do with more info on different areas of the seat, but hey ho:

Camberwell & Peckham was created for the 1997 election, though it is a very clear successor to the Peckham seat from 1950 onwards. In that time, despite big demographic changes, and a slow shift to take in comparatively more Conservative-friendly areas such as Peckham Rye, it has always been a very safe Labour seat - only once in the past 70 years has the majority fallen under 20%, in the 1982 by-election which saw its current incumbent elected, the so-called ‘Mother of the House, Harriet Harman. On the current boundaries the margin of victory has been over 50% more often than not.



Much political commentary on recent elections has tended to focus on an apparent reversal of traditional British electoral trends - supposedly inexorable Conservative advances into poorer areas, with the Labour Party doomed to become a party of graduates and middle-class ‘elites’. Of course such simplistic analysis can rarely stand up to scrutiny, and this constituency can be presented as exhibit-A in any counter argument. Few seats have such working class bona fides as this one, and yet Labour is as strong here as it has ever been - indeed, Harriet Harman, won a larger majority in her party’s annus horribilis of 2019 than she did in the historic landslide of 1997.



This seat has been such a Labour bastion that challenges even at council level have been few and far between. Historically, what little opposition they have faced has been in the north of the seat, due to spillover from Liberal Democrat successes in Bermondsey. However, this has faded to virtually nothing in recent years, and the most threatening opponents look to be the Greens, who did hold a single councillor between 2006 and 2010. What little Conservative strength there was in the constituency would have been concentrated in Peckham Rye, but this area now looks just as out of reach for them as any other.



Despite significant regeneration efforts in recent years, the north of the constituency in particular is covered with large council estates. Southwark Council is the fourth largest council-landlord in the UK, and Camberwell & Peckham is now the only constituency in the country where a majority of residents are social renters. That is concentrated in this area, with social renters still making up over two thirds of the population in some wards.



Conservative advances into council estates have often been driven by older owner-occupiers, who have bought their ex-council houses under the ‘right to buy’ initiative, rather than current tenants. Though, of course, Camberwell & Peckham has not been immune from ‘right to buy’ there is no other area in the nation which retains such high numbers of social tenants.



What’s more, the private rental sector has been growing, due both to buy-to-let landlords renting out ex-council properties and the increasing trend of large Victorian and Georgian terraces in South Camberwell and Peckham Rye being converted into flats. Though Camberwell & Peckham does not have a particularly large private-rental sector by Inner London’s standards, it is still above the national average, and is an important factor in Labour’s strength. The rapid rise in housing costs, and decreasing prospects of home ownership, have resulted in even ostensibly high earners, particularly younger people, feeling a large squeeze on their income, and thus pushed them towards parties of the left.



This growth, combined with the durability of social tenancies in the area, contributes to the fact that barely a quarter of the electorate here are owner-occupiers. In fact, the constituency has the 8th lowest proportion of owner occupiers in the country; and the 4th lowest proportion of those who own their homes outright. Given modern political trends, that puts the Conservative Party’s electoral ceiling at an extremely low level.



Equally salient to Labour’s dominance is the constituency’s ethnic mix. A far cry from the overwhelmingly white world presented in ‘Only Fools and Horses’, Peckham is now sometimes dubbed ‘Little Lagos’ due to its large Nigerian community. In fact, it is the only ward in the UK where the population is over 50% black, and many of the neighbouring wards are plurality black. This contributes to Camberwell & Peckham having, by a large margin, the highest black population of any constituency, including the highest population of Black African origin (37% and 22% respectively). Only in the two most southerly wards in the seat, Champion Hill (South Camberwell) and Peckham Rye, does the white population make up a majority.



British politics is far more volatile than has historically been the case - after all, just two years ago, the Labour Party finished third and the Conservatives fifth in a national election. What’s more, the current seat of Camberwell & Peckham will not survive the boundary review, as it is too large. However, whatever the eventual form of the constituency, and whatever new circumstances the national political scene throws up, the chances of Camberwell & Peckham becoming even remotely competitive are approximately zero.

[The Bishop]

I would say "Exhibit A" in the counter-argument you describe is Knowsley (not least because it is much more white)

But yes, this seat would also be high up there.

[iain]

Nov 20, 2021 12:19:16 GMT The Bishop said:

I would say "Exhibit A" in the counter-argument you describe is Knowsley (not least because it is much more white)

But yes, this seat would also be high up there.

Exhibit B doesn’t quite have the same ring to it though

[Pete Whitehead]

Camberwell & Peckham is some 10,000 voters over quota on current boundaries and the initial proposals, as well as realigning the seat with new ward boundaries, removed the Camberwell Green ward and the Camberwell name to the proposed 'Vauxhall & Camberwell'. In the revised proposals the North Walworth ward is added from Bermondsey and additionally the wards of Champion Hill (South Camberwell) and Peckham Rye are removed from the southern edge of the seat. This will increase the level of social housing in the constituency even further.
Though parts of Camberwell are still included, the name is shortened to 'Peckham'

Notional result 2019 on the proposed new boundaries

Lab	30001	72.1%
Con	4467	10.7%
LD	4008	9.6%
Grn	2327	5.6%
BxP	719	1.7%
Oth	84	0.2%
Majority	25534	61.4%

[Pete Whitehead]

The end of days at the Aylesbury estate