Post by Pete Whitehead on Jul 11, 2023 22:18:19 GMT
The development of the cathedral city of St Albans has always been heavily influenced by its proximity to London. This was true of the Roman city of Verulamium and in Medieval times when St Albans was an important coaching station. Today, with fast trains to London St Pancras, St Albans is a major dormitory for London with a high proportion of London commuters. There is considerable wealth and the city has exceptionally high proportions of graduates and of those in the higher managerial and professional occupation groups.
St Albans Abbey is the oldest site of continuous Christian worship in Britain and though the current building dates back to the Normans the original Abbey was founded by King Offa of Mercia.
The borough of St Albans was represented in Parliament between the 1550s and the 1850s when it was disfranchised due to corruption but the county seat of the name dates back to 1885.
Back then it was a vast seat covering a large swathe of Mid-Herts – from Kensworth in the North (now in Bedfordshire) to Barnet in the South (now in Greater London) and including most of the area now covered by Welwyn Hatfield.
Harpenden and Radlett were removed in 1918 and St Albans was one of a small number of seats divided for the 1945 election when Barnet became the basis for a new constituency. Prior to this the Conservatives had won St Albans at every general election, though the Liberals won in a 1904 by-election and Labour came surprisingly close in a by-election in 1919 which was their first contest in the seat. Labour did narrowly win the redrawn seat in 1945 (though it cannot be said that the removal of Barnet facilitated this as they won that seat also).
In 1950 Hatfield was removed and in 1955 Welwyn Garden City was removed leaving the boundaries as fairly similar to those in force today, though between 1974 and 1997 Harpenden was again included in the seat, which helped stave off Liberal challenges in 1974 and 1983 while Labour posed no serious threat since losing the seat in 1950.
Then in 1997 the constituency was redrawn in a fairly radical way, taking on the boundaries it still has today.
Harpenden was removed and the seat shifted south to take London Colney from Hertsmere, St Stephen parish from Watford and the Three Rivers ward of Bedmond & Primrose Hill from SW Herts. The removal of Harpenden was reckoned to threaten the Conservative position sufficiently for the MP, Peter Lilley to follow it out of this seat, though opposition was divided with both Labour and Lib Dems polling at around a quarter of the vote on the notional 1992 results.
One would have thought the Lib Dems would be the main challengers but this was one of the seats that the Guardian identified as one where tactical anti-Conservative votes should go for Labour and in the context of a national landslide Labour gained the seat surprisingly comfortably and increased their lead further in 2001. The effect of tactical voting (or a lack of it) in an electorate with a seemingly permanent anti-Conservative majority has dictated the destiny of the seat ever since.
The Conservatives gained the seat in 2005 more as a result of the Lib Dems advancing at Labour expense than as a consequence of their own advance. In 2010 the Lib Dems advanced further and ran the Conservatives close themselves. They in turn collapsed in 2015 but staged a strong recovery in the first Brexit election of 2017, though they were hampered then by the solidity of the Labour vote. The writing was on the wall for 2019 though. The Lib Dems had made massive advances in local elections in the area. Anne Maine had taken a principled pro-Brexit stance but this was at odds with a majority of her electorate and with the Lib Dems able to affect a massive squeeze on the Labour vote they won the seat by a very comfortable margin and look secure here for the foreseeable future. The Liberal Democrats dominate now in most of the wards at a local level and in 2019 won all the wards within the city itself.
The only ward won by the Conservatives in May 2019 (and possibly also in December) was St Stephen which covers the very affluent commuter villages of Chiswell Green and Bricket Wood.
Park Street is a little more mixed, including some council estates but is generally affluent as well and had been trending Conservative recently, relative to the core city. However, the Conservatives lost all their seats in these wards in the 2022 all-outs.
The best Conservative ward within the city has traditionally been Verulam which includes the Abbey and some wealthy areas near the city centre together with swathes of detached suburban housing on the other side of Verulamium Park (the site of the old Roman city).
They had done well in Marshalswick South* too. This includes probably the wealthiest area in St Albans in Marshalswick itself together with more mixed areas around Bernards Heath. Like all other wards in the city it has swung sharply back to the Lib Dems since the 2016 referendum. The Conservatives were also able to win on occasion in St Peters ward which covers the city centre, though this was more due to the divided nature of the opposition. This area, which includes the station is a typical inner-urban ward comprising mostly older terraced housing but much gentrified and with an exceptionally high proportion of graduates and London commuters. The ward has been won by Labour, Green, Conservative and Lib Dem this century but is now clearly a Lib Dem/Green marginal.
The Lib Dems have long enjoyed strong local support in the wards in the East of the town – especially Clarence, a mostly upmarket inner-urban ward based around the park of that name and the centre of Fleetville. Ashley and Cunningham are relatively downmarket and include mixtures of council estates, some old industrial areas and terraced housing and some good residential areas, but these are usually reliably Lib Dem at the local level (though they will clearly have contributed heavily to Labour’s victories in the Blair elections). Beyond these Colney Heath is a part rural, part suburban ward and is another local Lib Dem stronghold with part of the ward having had continuous Liberal representation on the council since 1973. The Lib Dems have also dominated for decades in Marshalswick North, a suburban middle-class area which technically lies outside the city boundary (in Sandridge parish) but is to all intents and purposes part of the core city.
Labour’s areas of strength are more limited. Within the city itself they could usually count on the wards of Sopwell, dominated by the Cottonmill council estate and with a substantial Asian, mostly Bangladeshi, population, and Batchwood which is also heavily influenced by council estates – Batchwood itself and the peripheral New Greens.
Both wards include more mixed and upmarket owner-occupied areas closer to the city centre however and the Lib Dems were able to win them in good years and did so in May 2019. Since then they have converted these into massive strongholds as Labour has been wiped out locally.
The only ward Labour won in 2019 was London Colney which is quite distinct from the rest of the constituency. This is an oversized village and is largely working class with significant numbers of council-built properties and a substantial non-white population. No doubt there were substantial numbers of Labour tactical votes for the Lib Dems here in 2019 but this may not have been enough to carry the ward over the Conservatives for this, together with Park Street, was also the most strongly Leave voting part of St Albans district, both being more or less 50/50 in the referendum (while the core city was over 70% Remain and up to 80% in wards like Clarence and St Peters.)
In the Blair elections, these three wards would have been overwhelmingly for Labour and they would also have carried Ashley, Cunningham and St Peters and been competitive in several other wards.
In the landslide Lib Dem victory in the all-out elections to St Albans council, Labour lost their last seats here with the ward electing two Lib Dems and one Conservative. It is ironic but perhaps fitting that the sole Conservative councillor in this constituency is a bus driver representing the most downmarket ward.
The rather anomalous Three Rivers part of the seat -Bedmond & Primrose Hill, forming the northern parts of the Abbots Langley & Bedmond and Gade Valley wards respectively is removed from this seat to join the rest of its district in SW Herts. These areas look more to Watford and (especially) Hemel Hempstead than to St Albans and it is moot how much the Lib Dem surge based in that city would have carried over here. Paradoxically this area is as strongly Lib Dem in local elections as anywhere in St Albans but also most likely voted Leave. This minor boundary change makes the seat more compact and coherent but will have negligible partisan impact.
Overall, the St Albans constituency now looks very much like a ‘natural’ Lib Dem constituency, very middle-class and highly educated and with one of the highest Remain votes in England outside of London and the University cities. They are likely to be entrenched here for some time.
*The building blocks used to draw the constituency boundaries were the wards as at December 2021. As mentioned there were all out elections on new ward boundaries in 2022 and some of the wards mentioned above (eg Marshalswick South, Ashley) no longer exist. Most of the new wards correspond to the old wards of the same names, but a couple have been changed significantly. Additionally one new ward - Marshalswick East & Jersey Farm is divided between this seat and Harpenden & Berkhamsted (Marshalswick East being in this seat, Jersey Farm in that one). Small parts of the Marshalswick West and Verulam wards are also in Harpenden & Berkhamsted. It seems most appropriate to discuss the wards as they existed when the seat was created, but this may create problems and is going to be an issue in numerous other constituencies so affected.
St Albans Abbey is the oldest site of continuous Christian worship in Britain and though the current building dates back to the Normans the original Abbey was founded by King Offa of Mercia.
The borough of St Albans was represented in Parliament between the 1550s and the 1850s when it was disfranchised due to corruption but the county seat of the name dates back to 1885.
Back then it was a vast seat covering a large swathe of Mid-Herts – from Kensworth in the North (now in Bedfordshire) to Barnet in the South (now in Greater London) and including most of the area now covered by Welwyn Hatfield.
Harpenden and Radlett were removed in 1918 and St Albans was one of a small number of seats divided for the 1945 election when Barnet became the basis for a new constituency. Prior to this the Conservatives had won St Albans at every general election, though the Liberals won in a 1904 by-election and Labour came surprisingly close in a by-election in 1919 which was their first contest in the seat. Labour did narrowly win the redrawn seat in 1945 (though it cannot be said that the removal of Barnet facilitated this as they won that seat also).
In 1950 Hatfield was removed and in 1955 Welwyn Garden City was removed leaving the boundaries as fairly similar to those in force today, though between 1974 and 1997 Harpenden was again included in the seat, which helped stave off Liberal challenges in 1974 and 1983 while Labour posed no serious threat since losing the seat in 1950.
Then in 1997 the constituency was redrawn in a fairly radical way, taking on the boundaries it still has today.
Harpenden was removed and the seat shifted south to take London Colney from Hertsmere, St Stephen parish from Watford and the Three Rivers ward of Bedmond & Primrose Hill from SW Herts. The removal of Harpenden was reckoned to threaten the Conservative position sufficiently for the MP, Peter Lilley to follow it out of this seat, though opposition was divided with both Labour and Lib Dems polling at around a quarter of the vote on the notional 1992 results.
One would have thought the Lib Dems would be the main challengers but this was one of the seats that the Guardian identified as one where tactical anti-Conservative votes should go for Labour and in the context of a national landslide Labour gained the seat surprisingly comfortably and increased their lead further in 2001. The effect of tactical voting (or a lack of it) in an electorate with a seemingly permanent anti-Conservative majority has dictated the destiny of the seat ever since.
The Conservatives gained the seat in 2005 more as a result of the Lib Dems advancing at Labour expense than as a consequence of their own advance. In 2010 the Lib Dems advanced further and ran the Conservatives close themselves. They in turn collapsed in 2015 but staged a strong recovery in the first Brexit election of 2017, though they were hampered then by the solidity of the Labour vote. The writing was on the wall for 2019 though. The Lib Dems had made massive advances in local elections in the area. Anne Maine had taken a principled pro-Brexit stance but this was at odds with a majority of her electorate and with the Lib Dems able to affect a massive squeeze on the Labour vote they won the seat by a very comfortable margin and look secure here for the foreseeable future. The Liberal Democrats dominate now in most of the wards at a local level and in 2019 won all the wards within the city itself.
The only ward won by the Conservatives in May 2019 (and possibly also in December) was St Stephen which covers the very affluent commuter villages of Chiswell Green and Bricket Wood.
Park Street is a little more mixed, including some council estates but is generally affluent as well and had been trending Conservative recently, relative to the core city. However, the Conservatives lost all their seats in these wards in the 2022 all-outs.
The best Conservative ward within the city has traditionally been Verulam which includes the Abbey and some wealthy areas near the city centre together with swathes of detached suburban housing on the other side of Verulamium Park (the site of the old Roman city).
They had done well in Marshalswick South* too. This includes probably the wealthiest area in St Albans in Marshalswick itself together with more mixed areas around Bernards Heath. Like all other wards in the city it has swung sharply back to the Lib Dems since the 2016 referendum. The Conservatives were also able to win on occasion in St Peters ward which covers the city centre, though this was more due to the divided nature of the opposition. This area, which includes the station is a typical inner-urban ward comprising mostly older terraced housing but much gentrified and with an exceptionally high proportion of graduates and London commuters. The ward has been won by Labour, Green, Conservative and Lib Dem this century but is now clearly a Lib Dem/Green marginal.
The Lib Dems have long enjoyed strong local support in the wards in the East of the town – especially Clarence, a mostly upmarket inner-urban ward based around the park of that name and the centre of Fleetville. Ashley and Cunningham are relatively downmarket and include mixtures of council estates, some old industrial areas and terraced housing and some good residential areas, but these are usually reliably Lib Dem at the local level (though they will clearly have contributed heavily to Labour’s victories in the Blair elections). Beyond these Colney Heath is a part rural, part suburban ward and is another local Lib Dem stronghold with part of the ward having had continuous Liberal representation on the council since 1973. The Lib Dems have also dominated for decades in Marshalswick North, a suburban middle-class area which technically lies outside the city boundary (in Sandridge parish) but is to all intents and purposes part of the core city.
Labour’s areas of strength are more limited. Within the city itself they could usually count on the wards of Sopwell, dominated by the Cottonmill council estate and with a substantial Asian, mostly Bangladeshi, population, and Batchwood which is also heavily influenced by council estates – Batchwood itself and the peripheral New Greens.
Both wards include more mixed and upmarket owner-occupied areas closer to the city centre however and the Lib Dems were able to win them in good years and did so in May 2019. Since then they have converted these into massive strongholds as Labour has been wiped out locally.
The only ward Labour won in 2019 was London Colney which is quite distinct from the rest of the constituency. This is an oversized village and is largely working class with significant numbers of council-built properties and a substantial non-white population. No doubt there were substantial numbers of Labour tactical votes for the Lib Dems here in 2019 but this may not have been enough to carry the ward over the Conservatives for this, together with Park Street, was also the most strongly Leave voting part of St Albans district, both being more or less 50/50 in the referendum (while the core city was over 70% Remain and up to 80% in wards like Clarence and St Peters.)
In the Blair elections, these three wards would have been overwhelmingly for Labour and they would also have carried Ashley, Cunningham and St Peters and been competitive in several other wards.
In the landslide Lib Dem victory in the all-out elections to St Albans council, Labour lost their last seats here with the ward electing two Lib Dems and one Conservative. It is ironic but perhaps fitting that the sole Conservative councillor in this constituency is a bus driver representing the most downmarket ward.
The rather anomalous Three Rivers part of the seat -Bedmond & Primrose Hill, forming the northern parts of the Abbots Langley & Bedmond and Gade Valley wards respectively is removed from this seat to join the rest of its district in SW Herts. These areas look more to Watford and (especially) Hemel Hempstead than to St Albans and it is moot how much the Lib Dem surge based in that city would have carried over here. Paradoxically this area is as strongly Lib Dem in local elections as anywhere in St Albans but also most likely voted Leave. This minor boundary change makes the seat more compact and coherent but will have negligible partisan impact.
Overall, the St Albans constituency now looks very much like a ‘natural’ Lib Dem constituency, very middle-class and highly educated and with one of the highest Remain votes in England outside of London and the University cities. They are likely to be entrenched here for some time.
*The building blocks used to draw the constituency boundaries were the wards as at December 2021. As mentioned there were all out elections on new ward boundaries in 2022 and some of the wards mentioned above (eg Marshalswick South, Ashley) no longer exist. Most of the new wards correspond to the old wards of the same names, but a couple have been changed significantly. Additionally one new ward - Marshalswick East & Jersey Farm is divided between this seat and Harpenden & Berkhamsted (Marshalswick East being in this seat, Jersey Farm in that one). Small parts of the Marshalswick West and Verulam wards are also in Harpenden & Berkhamsted. It seems most appropriate to discuss the wards as they existed when the seat was created, but this may create problems and is going to be an issue in numerous other constituencies so affected.
