Post by Deleted on Jul 11, 2023 7:11:17 GMT
The ancient city of dreaming spires began life with the oxen 'ford' and gained city status in 1951, while this seat dates from the 1983 boundary changes. Oxford first elected a Labour MP in the form of Evan Luard in 1966, and the area has veered leftwards inexorably since then. The Conservatives last won a majority on Oxford City Council in 1976; they got a Councillor elected in this seat in 2000, with a few near misses since. The city of Oxford last likely voted for the Tories as a whole in 1987, given that this seat contains Labour's best areas.
Oxford University is said to have begun teaching in 1096. The first colleges were Univ (1249), Balliol (1263) and Merton (1264). Balliol produced four Prime Ministers (Asquith, Macmillan, Heath and Johnson), while Univ educated Clement Attlee and Bill Clinton.
Oxford diversified its intake in recent years, with a sizeable proportion of its undergraduate body coming from the state sector. Since 1992, the city also has Oxford Brookes University, an ex-polytechnic near Headington Hill just beyond South Park.
Beyond the city centre, the seat moves east down the Cowley and Iffley Roads towards the eponymous settlements. Cowley has an industrial heritage, with the Mini built in Oxford. Cowley Road hosts many of the city's more popular nightlife destinations, including O2 Academy Oxford and The Bullingdon (no, not that one).
Iffley Road also hosts the famous Iffley Road running track, where Sir Roger Bannister set his record in the early 1950s.
Many surrounding streets here date from the 19th-century industrial growth of the ancient city.
The seat also contains several hospitals, including Churchill and John Radcliffe, to name two. Public sector employment dominates Oxford, possibly more so than anywhere in the UK, and the NHS is a significant employer in the city.
Headington Hill was one of the more Tory wards in this city, and they probably won there in the 1980s, but the hospital, among other things, probably assists Labour in this ward despite much of its upscale housing. Headington is also famous for the private school of the same name and the Headington shark. The area is a network of Victorian terraces and is popular with university staff (those who can still live in the city but can't afford North Oxford).
Further east, you have Rose Hill, Iffley, and the Blackbird Leys estate. Oxford East began life in 1983 from the old Oxford constituency, and Labour's Andrew Smith narrowly came up short in the Thatcher landslide. He was a Councillor for Blackbird Leys, and that ward almost certainly counted for all of his 1987 majority and then some. Blackbird Leys is monolithically Labour, more so than demographically similar wards in other parts of the UK. There are many recent migrants employed by the university colleges here, including arrivals from Romania and other Eastern European nations.
Although there was much speculation that Littlemore and Northfield Brook wards voted to Leave the EU - that hasn't helped the Conservatives here, and Labour seems to portray themselves as the party of town. It is the central wards and, to a lesser extent, Donnington and Headington where the non-Labour parties win seats. South and East Oxford are solid Labour territory.
That said, you do often get idiosyncratic results here, such as the Tories winning Marston in 2000 (supposedly due to a backlash against the construction of the Oxford Islamic studies centre and its mosque) and the Independent Working Class Association giving Oxford Labour a run for their money in the 2000s. The Conservatives won the Old Marston & Risinghurst area back in 1991, but other than that, this area is solid for Labour.
Labour's post-1983 nadir came here in 2005 when Lib Dem Councillor Steve Goddard got within 1,000 votes of Andrew Smith. After 2005, Labour re-established its position somewhat, gaining the council from No Overall Control in 2008, and Smith quadrupled his majority over Goddard in 2010. Andrew Smith retired after 30 years as Oxford East's man in Westminster in 2017 when Annelise Dodds became this seat's first and the city's second female MP. Annelise Dodds won this seat by a deafening margin in both of her elections and later ended up as Keir Starmer's Shadow Chancellor before Rachel Reeves took up that post.
The vast majority of people here aren't students. The seat has also had diverse populations for decades (as the 1971 census results here would show you). Oxford's industries and the university have been a magnet for migrants from the rest of the UK and the wider world. This seat's cosmopolitan character likely means Oxford East stays a Labour seat, with non-negligible Lib Dem and Green votes, for the foreseeable future.
Oxford University is said to have begun teaching in 1096. The first colleges were Univ (1249), Balliol (1263) and Merton (1264). Balliol produced four Prime Ministers (Asquith, Macmillan, Heath and Johnson), while Univ educated Clement Attlee and Bill Clinton.
Oxford diversified its intake in recent years, with a sizeable proportion of its undergraduate body coming from the state sector. Since 1992, the city also has Oxford Brookes University, an ex-polytechnic near Headington Hill just beyond South Park.
Beyond the city centre, the seat moves east down the Cowley and Iffley Roads towards the eponymous settlements. Cowley has an industrial heritage, with the Mini built in Oxford. Cowley Road hosts many of the city's more popular nightlife destinations, including O2 Academy Oxford and The Bullingdon (no, not that one).
Iffley Road also hosts the famous Iffley Road running track, where Sir Roger Bannister set his record in the early 1950s.
Many surrounding streets here date from the 19th-century industrial growth of the ancient city.
The seat also contains several hospitals, including Churchill and John Radcliffe, to name two. Public sector employment dominates Oxford, possibly more so than anywhere in the UK, and the NHS is a significant employer in the city.
Headington Hill was one of the more Tory wards in this city, and they probably won there in the 1980s, but the hospital, among other things, probably assists Labour in this ward despite much of its upscale housing. Headington is also famous for the private school of the same name and the Headington shark. The area is a network of Victorian terraces and is popular with university staff (those who can still live in the city but can't afford North Oxford).
Further east, you have Rose Hill, Iffley, and the Blackbird Leys estate. Oxford East began life in 1983 from the old Oxford constituency, and Labour's Andrew Smith narrowly came up short in the Thatcher landslide. He was a Councillor for Blackbird Leys, and that ward almost certainly counted for all of his 1987 majority and then some. Blackbird Leys is monolithically Labour, more so than demographically similar wards in other parts of the UK. There are many recent migrants employed by the university colleges here, including arrivals from Romania and other Eastern European nations.
Although there was much speculation that Littlemore and Northfield Brook wards voted to Leave the EU - that hasn't helped the Conservatives here, and Labour seems to portray themselves as the party of town. It is the central wards and, to a lesser extent, Donnington and Headington where the non-Labour parties win seats. South and East Oxford are solid Labour territory.
That said, you do often get idiosyncratic results here, such as the Tories winning Marston in 2000 (supposedly due to a backlash against the construction of the Oxford Islamic studies centre and its mosque) and the Independent Working Class Association giving Oxford Labour a run for their money in the 2000s. The Conservatives won the Old Marston & Risinghurst area back in 1991, but other than that, this area is solid for Labour.
Labour's post-1983 nadir came here in 2005 when Lib Dem Councillor Steve Goddard got within 1,000 votes of Andrew Smith. After 2005, Labour re-established its position somewhat, gaining the council from No Overall Control in 2008, and Smith quadrupled his majority over Goddard in 2010. Andrew Smith retired after 30 years as Oxford East's man in Westminster in 2017 when Annelise Dodds became this seat's first and the city's second female MP. Annelise Dodds won this seat by a deafening margin in both of her elections and later ended up as Keir Starmer's Shadow Chancellor before Rachel Reeves took up that post.
The vast majority of people here aren't students. The seat has also had diverse populations for decades (as the 1971 census results here would show you). Oxford's industries and the university have been a magnet for migrants from the rest of the UK and the wider world. This seat's cosmopolitan character likely means Oxford East stays a Labour seat, with non-negligible Lib Dem and Green votes, for the foreseeable future.
