Islington South & Finsbury
Apr 14, 2020 13:01:37 GMT
Pete Whitehead, Robert Waller, and 3 more like this
Post by John Chanin on Apr 14, 2020 13:01:37 GMT
This highly compact seat, unaltered since 1983, can be divided into 3 parts. Finsbury sits to the south of Pentonville and City Roads, although the old borough also covered the north side of Pentonville Road which is lined by council estates. Finsbury extends south to the borders of the city, including some fine Georgian housing in Clerkenwell. Clerkenwell Square is a pleasant open space with the Marx Memorial Library alongside the bars and restaurants, and the City University is based in Clerkenwell. Most of Finsbury is however social housing - a number of large private estates were bought by Islington Council in the 1970s, and renovated rather than redeveloped. A lot of this property has slipped back into private ownership, but more is private rented than owner-occupied. North of the Angel is very mixed. There is a lot of very expensive and grand Victorian property in Barnsbury and Canonbury, interspersed with many council and housing association estates, some quite run down. In the far east there is a lot of new development around the City Road basin on the Grand Union Canal. Through the middle runs Upper Street - the now very trendy shopping centre, which includes the Camden Market, and the old Chapel Street open market, both only distantly related to their plebeian origins. Highbury Corner at the northern end is a major transport interchange for road and rail. The west side of the seat is based around Caledonian Road, and is more down market, although as you head north from Kings Cross it gets better, and there are more large Victorian houses in Holloway. This part of the seat also contains the gaunt walls of Pentonville prison, and the old Caledonian cattle market, now a park with its famous clock in the middle.
Despite this variety the seat is fairly uniform socially (perhaps I should say uniformly polarised between rich and poor). It remains a white seat by inner London standards, with a larger Chinese population than Indian, most unusually. There is a higher black population in the Caledonian Road sector. As elsewhere in inner London, despite the enclaves of poverty, managerial employment is very high, and routine employment low, although again rather less so along the Caledonian Road, and associated with this, educational qualifications are among the highest in the country. Owner-occupation is low everywhere, and social housing still accounts for nearly half of households.
You might think that this would make it a safe Labour seat, but it has a much more marginal history. The Labour MP George Cunningham defected to the SDP in 1982, and at the subsequent general election lost by less than 400 votes to Chris Smith, and the majority remained in 3 figures in 1987. However victories were more comfortable subsequently, and Smith was a cabinet minister in the Blair government, as well as the first openly gay MP. The SDP also took control of Islington Council in 1982, and the Liberal Democrats remained a local force, winning every ward here in 2002, and splitting them evenly in 2006. Following the coalition Labour have recovered and now hold all the wards, although the 2019 general election result shows there is still a substantial underlying Liberal Democrat vote here. The present MP is lawyer Emily Thornberry, who succeeded Chris Smith in 2005, and is a Labour shadow cabinet member, and former leadership candidate.
The constituency is a fraction under the minimum size according to the new rules. The Boundary Commission’s original idea was to add the City of London, much of whose residential population lives on the border of Islington. This did not meet with much approval, and instead the De Beauvoir ward of Hackney has been added to the seat, not unreasonable as it is very similar to Canonbury on the other side of Southgate Road. This will make no political difference to what is now a safe Labour seat.
Census data: owner-occupied 28% (568/573 in England & Wales), private rented 27% (51st), social rented 44% (3rd).
:White 69%, Black 11%, Sth Asian 5%, Mixed 6%, Other 9%
: Managerial & professional 57% (12th), Routine & Semi-routine 19% (530th)
: Degree 47% (17th), Minimal qualifications 25% (528th)
: Students 13% (44th), Over 65: 9% (549th)
Despite this variety the seat is fairly uniform socially (perhaps I should say uniformly polarised between rich and poor). It remains a white seat by inner London standards, with a larger Chinese population than Indian, most unusually. There is a higher black population in the Caledonian Road sector. As elsewhere in inner London, despite the enclaves of poverty, managerial employment is very high, and routine employment low, although again rather less so along the Caledonian Road, and associated with this, educational qualifications are among the highest in the country. Owner-occupation is low everywhere, and social housing still accounts for nearly half of households.
You might think that this would make it a safe Labour seat, but it has a much more marginal history. The Labour MP George Cunningham defected to the SDP in 1982, and at the subsequent general election lost by less than 400 votes to Chris Smith, and the majority remained in 3 figures in 1987. However victories were more comfortable subsequently, and Smith was a cabinet minister in the Blair government, as well as the first openly gay MP. The SDP also took control of Islington Council in 1982, and the Liberal Democrats remained a local force, winning every ward here in 2002, and splitting them evenly in 2006. Following the coalition Labour have recovered and now hold all the wards, although the 2019 general election result shows there is still a substantial underlying Liberal Democrat vote here. The present MP is lawyer Emily Thornberry, who succeeded Chris Smith in 2005, and is a Labour shadow cabinet member, and former leadership candidate.
The constituency is a fraction under the minimum size according to the new rules. The Boundary Commission’s original idea was to add the City of London, much of whose residential population lives on the border of Islington. This did not meet with much approval, and instead the De Beauvoir ward of Hackney has been added to the seat, not unreasonable as it is very similar to Canonbury on the other side of Southgate Road. This will make no political difference to what is now a safe Labour seat.
Census data: owner-occupied 28% (568/573 in England & Wales), private rented 27% (51st), social rented 44% (3rd).
:White 69%, Black 11%, Sth Asian 5%, Mixed 6%, Other 9%
: Managerial & professional 57% (12th), Routine & Semi-routine 19% (530th)
: Degree 47% (17th), Minimal qualifications 25% (528th)
: Students 13% (44th), Over 65: 9% (549th)
2010 | % | 2015 | % | 2017 | % | 2019 | % | |
Labour | 18,407 | 42.3% | 22,547 | 50.9% | 30,188 | 62.8% | 26,897 | 56.3% |
Conservative | 8,449 | 19.4% | 9,839 | 22.2% | 9,925 | 20.7% | 8,045 | 16.8% |
Liberal Democrat | 14,838 | 34.1% | 4,829 | 10.9% | 5,809 | 12.1% | 9,569 | 20.0% |
UKIP/Brexit | 701 | 1.6% | 3,375 | 7.6% | 929 | 1.9% | 1,136 | 2.4% |
Green | 710 | 1.6% | 3,371 | 7.6% | 1,198 | 2.5% | 1,987 | 4.2% |
Others | 450 | 1.0% | 309 | 0.7% | 182 | 0.4% | ||
Majority | 3,569 | 8.2% | 12,708 | 28.7% | 20,263 | 42.2% | 17,328 | 36.2% |
