Post by iang on May 22, 2020 18:48:01 GMT
This is literally a seat of two halves – or, to be pedantic, 4/7ths and 3/7ths. The slightly larger part comes from the borough of Dudley, the slightly smaller “half” (three wards to four) from the neighbouring borough of Sandwell. It is the only substantially cross-borough seat in the West Midlands, the solution to the problem that Sandwell and Dudley were worth seven parliamentary seats between them.
This has helped create a seat with many borders. At various points, it borders all the other three Dudley seats and Warley and West Bromwich West from Sandwell, but its most extensive boundaries are to Bromsgrove in the south and Birmingham Edgbaston to the east – the Sandwell, Dudley and Birmingham borders almost join at the edge of Quinton. The Halesowen elements of the seat are not dissimilar to Bromsgrove, especially Halesowen South, which sticks down into the Bromsgrove seat in a little salient of its own. Halesowen is, apparently, one of the largest towns in the UK to lack a railway station. It rather lacks a shopping centre too, the town centre being a mostly pedestrianised “triumph” of 1960s architecture which like many such centres has been reduced to a mixture of estate agents and charity shops, no doubt in part as a result of the pull of Merry Hill, the pioneer “shopping mall” in nearby Brierley Hill. Not that Blackheath is any better as a shopping centre in the Sandwell part of the constituency.
It is not just geographically that the seat is divided. In many years – though not always as we shall see – the Dudley section has returned four Conservative councillors to Dudley authority, and the Sandwell side has sent three Labour councillors to sit in the Town Hall in Oldbury. As this suggests, the Dudley element of the constituency is far more middle-class than the Sandwell side. Indeed, the Halesowen South ward is the least deprived ward in Dudley, and Dudley is much the least deprived of the Black Country boroughs, so Halesowen South is very affluent indeed. This division is reflected in the history of the seat, which was only created in 1997, from Conservative Halesowen and Stourbridge and Labour Warley West. It was comfortably Labour in the Blair landslide of 1997, when Sylvia Heal, formerly the Mid Staffs MP, won a plurality of the vote and a majority of over 20%. This steadily fell until in 2010, James Morris took the seat for the Conservatives on a swing of 7%. Like several other Black Country seats, Mr Morris has been able to consolidate subsequently, with the Conservative vote growing by precisely 8.6% both from 2015 to 2017, and again from 2017 to 2019, leaving him with a thumping 28% majority and a 60% share of the vote in December’s General Election. The Labour vote is now marginally lower than the Conservative vote was in 1997.
It is not, for all that, an obviously middle-class seat in many respects. In terms of qualifications, as many as 31% lack any formal qualifications, putting it as high as 61st in the list of English and Welsh constituencies. The three Sandwell wards bring this percentage up, being all between 35 and 38% for residents without any qualifications. Conversely, it ranks at number 483 for degree qualifications, with just 14% possessing this level of educational attainment, only 2% more than solidly working-class Walsall North. In terms of employment, 9% of the residents are in managerial occupations and 13% professional, just straddling the 400 mark in our list of constituencies – again, not an obvious sign of being middle class. Where it is above average is in the proportion of residents who work in administrative or secretarial employment – 14%, the 35th highest such constituency. 20% of residents across the constituency are in socially rented housing – not on the scale of some neighbouring Sandwell or Walsall seats, but significant enough nevertheless. Again, unsurprisingly, this is raised by the Rowley part of the constituency, where the three wards range between 26% and 29% in socially rented housing. What does seem significant is that by West Midlands standards, this is another very white seat. It is 89% white, above the national average, let alone the regional one, 6% Asian and approaching 2% black. And what is noticeable here is that is NOT divided across the two components of the constituency – if anything, the more affluent Dudley side is slightly less white than the Sandwell side. Halesowen North at 83% white is by a reasonably significant margin the most diverse ward in the seat, followed by Blackheath and Cradley on the Sandwell side, which are 88% white. All other wards, on both sides of the Borough boundary, are 90% white or more. We have seen elsewhere in this region how a constituency’s ethnic make-up can give a clue to its political behaviour, and this would seem to be a factor here.
As stated above, at local level elections are often unexciting. In 2007, the Conservatives won all four Dudley wards, Labour all three Sandwell wards, a state of affairs repeated in 2010, 2011 and on two other occasions since. Most wards are secure for the dominant party, but one at least is more erratic in both sections. In the Halesowen end, Halesowen North seemed securely Conservative in the days of Labour government, but has only seen intermittent Conservative success since 2011. Only in 2015 and 2018 have the Conservatives won it since then. Belle Vale can also see occasional Labour wins, although the last one was in 2014. That year was in fact the biggest threat to Conservative dominance – UKIP performed extremely well in Dudley Borough, as elsewhere in the Black Country, and it was the Kippers’ surge that handed Belle Vale to Labour, the Conservatives finishing third. UKIP also won the volatile Halesowen North, and most remarkably were a mere 22 votes behind the Conservatives in rock solid Hayley Green. Over in Sandwell, it is Blackheath ward that has given the Conservatives hope. Local market trader Mary Docker finished top of the poll in the 2004 all ups, although she could not carry her two colleagues with her. The Conservatives won the ward again in 2006 and 2008, and in that latter year, captured Cradley Heath as well, giving the Conservatives six from seven wards within the constituency. Sandwell has been hegemonically Labour since 2014, but even in 2019, the Conservatives were just 5% behind Labour in Blackheath, and would surely have won without 30% of the vote going to UKIP and a localist splinter party. As the UKIP challenge has faded, the Conservatives have presumably been able to lay claim to most of those votes. The challenge for the Conservatives across the Black Country will be to secure those voters in the longer term, as many of them must have once been Labour. With Halesowen the dominant part of the cross-border seat, and a Tory foothold in Blackheath as well, the task of James Morris in doing so may well prove rather more straightforward than that of some of his colleagues.
This has helped create a seat with many borders. At various points, it borders all the other three Dudley seats and Warley and West Bromwich West from Sandwell, but its most extensive boundaries are to Bromsgrove in the south and Birmingham Edgbaston to the east – the Sandwell, Dudley and Birmingham borders almost join at the edge of Quinton. The Halesowen elements of the seat are not dissimilar to Bromsgrove, especially Halesowen South, which sticks down into the Bromsgrove seat in a little salient of its own. Halesowen is, apparently, one of the largest towns in the UK to lack a railway station. It rather lacks a shopping centre too, the town centre being a mostly pedestrianised “triumph” of 1960s architecture which like many such centres has been reduced to a mixture of estate agents and charity shops, no doubt in part as a result of the pull of Merry Hill, the pioneer “shopping mall” in nearby Brierley Hill. Not that Blackheath is any better as a shopping centre in the Sandwell part of the constituency.
It is not just geographically that the seat is divided. In many years – though not always as we shall see – the Dudley section has returned four Conservative councillors to Dudley authority, and the Sandwell side has sent three Labour councillors to sit in the Town Hall in Oldbury. As this suggests, the Dudley element of the constituency is far more middle-class than the Sandwell side. Indeed, the Halesowen South ward is the least deprived ward in Dudley, and Dudley is much the least deprived of the Black Country boroughs, so Halesowen South is very affluent indeed. This division is reflected in the history of the seat, which was only created in 1997, from Conservative Halesowen and Stourbridge and Labour Warley West. It was comfortably Labour in the Blair landslide of 1997, when Sylvia Heal, formerly the Mid Staffs MP, won a plurality of the vote and a majority of over 20%. This steadily fell until in 2010, James Morris took the seat for the Conservatives on a swing of 7%. Like several other Black Country seats, Mr Morris has been able to consolidate subsequently, with the Conservative vote growing by precisely 8.6% both from 2015 to 2017, and again from 2017 to 2019, leaving him with a thumping 28% majority and a 60% share of the vote in December’s General Election. The Labour vote is now marginally lower than the Conservative vote was in 1997.
It is not, for all that, an obviously middle-class seat in many respects. In terms of qualifications, as many as 31% lack any formal qualifications, putting it as high as 61st in the list of English and Welsh constituencies. The three Sandwell wards bring this percentage up, being all between 35 and 38% for residents without any qualifications. Conversely, it ranks at number 483 for degree qualifications, with just 14% possessing this level of educational attainment, only 2% more than solidly working-class Walsall North. In terms of employment, 9% of the residents are in managerial occupations and 13% professional, just straddling the 400 mark in our list of constituencies – again, not an obvious sign of being middle class. Where it is above average is in the proportion of residents who work in administrative or secretarial employment – 14%, the 35th highest such constituency. 20% of residents across the constituency are in socially rented housing – not on the scale of some neighbouring Sandwell or Walsall seats, but significant enough nevertheless. Again, unsurprisingly, this is raised by the Rowley part of the constituency, where the three wards range between 26% and 29% in socially rented housing. What does seem significant is that by West Midlands standards, this is another very white seat. It is 89% white, above the national average, let alone the regional one, 6% Asian and approaching 2% black. And what is noticeable here is that is NOT divided across the two components of the constituency – if anything, the more affluent Dudley side is slightly less white than the Sandwell side. Halesowen North at 83% white is by a reasonably significant margin the most diverse ward in the seat, followed by Blackheath and Cradley on the Sandwell side, which are 88% white. All other wards, on both sides of the Borough boundary, are 90% white or more. We have seen elsewhere in this region how a constituency’s ethnic make-up can give a clue to its political behaviour, and this would seem to be a factor here.
As stated above, at local level elections are often unexciting. In 2007, the Conservatives won all four Dudley wards, Labour all three Sandwell wards, a state of affairs repeated in 2010, 2011 and on two other occasions since. Most wards are secure for the dominant party, but one at least is more erratic in both sections. In the Halesowen end, Halesowen North seemed securely Conservative in the days of Labour government, but has only seen intermittent Conservative success since 2011. Only in 2015 and 2018 have the Conservatives won it since then. Belle Vale can also see occasional Labour wins, although the last one was in 2014. That year was in fact the biggest threat to Conservative dominance – UKIP performed extremely well in Dudley Borough, as elsewhere in the Black Country, and it was the Kippers’ surge that handed Belle Vale to Labour, the Conservatives finishing third. UKIP also won the volatile Halesowen North, and most remarkably were a mere 22 votes behind the Conservatives in rock solid Hayley Green. Over in Sandwell, it is Blackheath ward that has given the Conservatives hope. Local market trader Mary Docker finished top of the poll in the 2004 all ups, although she could not carry her two colleagues with her. The Conservatives won the ward again in 2006 and 2008, and in that latter year, captured Cradley Heath as well, giving the Conservatives six from seven wards within the constituency. Sandwell has been hegemonically Labour since 2014, but even in 2019, the Conservatives were just 5% behind Labour in Blackheath, and would surely have won without 30% of the vote going to UKIP and a localist splinter party. As the UKIP challenge has faded, the Conservatives have presumably been able to lay claim to most of those votes. The challenge for the Conservatives across the Black Country will be to secure those voters in the longer term, as many of them must have once been Labour. With Halesowen the dominant part of the cross-border seat, and a Tory foothold in Blackheath as well, the task of James Morris in doing so may well prove rather more straightforward than that of some of his colleagues.
