Post by Robert Waller on Aug 17, 2023 22:31:01 GMT
August 2022 marked 100 years since the birth of Philip Larkin, noted curmudgeon and very fine poet. Although born in Coventry and working in his day career for periods in Wellington (Shropshire), Leicester and Belfast, Larkin is most strongly associated with Hull, where he was head Librarian at the university from 1955 until his death in 1985. The university is situated in Hull North constituency, which is also where Larkin resided, first in a top floor flat overlooking Pearson Park (“High Windows”) and later on Newland Park road. Superficially Hull North might seem an odd constituency to associate with a man of noted right wing opinions (apart possibly from his love of jazz), as it has elected Labour MPs since its most recent Conservative victory in 1959. However, Larkin did in the main like ‘his’ Hull and certainly found it an inspiration for work which manages to be both profound and accessible – and its university connections may well have influenced its electoral behaviour recently.
As officially named by the Commission, the present Kingston upon Hull North is a seat of demographic contrasts. It includes the most extensive, and rather attractive, middle class owner occupied residential area within the boundaries of the city. As in the case of some similar sized urban units like Nottingham and Leicester, a substantial middle class population lives outside the borders, in the bloc to the west around Cottingham, Willerby, Anlaby and Kirkella and West Ella, now known in electoral terms collectively as Haltemprice. Other relatively affluent people who work in Hull live further north in the splendid and historic small town of Beverley. But within the North constituency lie the neighbourhood known as ‘The Avenues’, appropriately enough in Avenue ward (it also includes Pearson Park), Newland & Beverley, and Bricknell ward - which elected a Conservative councillor as recently as 2016 and shares Larkin’s Newland Park with University ward. The figures for these wards show some highly owner occupied (Bricknell over 72%) and others (Avenue and University) more privately rented but with high proportions of university students and academics and some other professionals.
On the other hand North also includes some of the largest solidly working class social housing estates in the whole of Hull. Further north than the university is to be found the 1930s North Hull Estate based on Greenwood Avenue, with its ‘classic’ geometrical and radial layout of standard interwar semi detached council houses. Beyond that is Orchard Park, where construction began in 1963. Originally Orchard Park featured several tower block but these were all demolished in the early 2010s, having become a byword for crime and multiple social deprivation. Nor is that the end of it. In the north east corner of the seat is Bransholme, even more recent as a social housing development than Orchard Park (being mainly developed in the 1970s) and in some ways even more notorious. Certainly it is one of the places in England where one is most likely to see boarded up houses, this in the low rise sections – there was an area of maisonettes known as Alcatraz , and lofty tower blocks still survive here
ukhousing.fandom.com/wiki/Bransholme
uk-tower-blocks.fandom.com/wiki/Bransholme
Larkin would have loathed the modern housing (“The Building” was his cry against Brutalism in architecture). All in all, the northern estates offer the impression of one of the most stark and unrelieved townscapes anywhere in Britain. Further beyond Bransholme there is yet one other bloc of housing, 21st century owner occupied estates at first sometimes called North Bransholme but now collectively known as Kingswood (perhaps because the Bransholme label was seen as far from attractive). Flooding in 2007 did not prevent this area from being scheduled for further developments, those through the late 2010s and those still in the planning process.
Overall, despite the variety, Hull North’s demographics are decidedly slanted towards a working class majority. It is in the bottom 50 seats for professional and managerial residents, making chief librarian Larkin a member of a small minority. As the holder of a first class degree in English from St John’s College Oxford, he would also have been in a minority as far as educational achievement is concerned, for fewer than 25% of residents in the latest available census in 2021 held a degree of any kind. The current Hull North is one of the rare seats in the United Kingdom that have a proportion over 25% of both social rented and private rented housing, which means that less than 50% were owner occupiers – though this figure would also be reduced by the 16% of full time students, just outside the top 50 for all constituencies. It also has a very high proportion of the long term unemployed, who would have no reason to complain of Larkin’s ‘Toad’ (work) - squatting on his life, though, in Toads Revisited, helping him 'down Cemetery Road'.
North is now the most working class seat in Hull. Both Hull East (with one of the highest proportions anywhere for routine and semi-routine workers) and West & Hessle have some more extreme socio-economic characteristics. Yet in December 2019 for the first time for many decades those two seats looked vulnerable to the Conservative surge, while North did not. Diana Johnson held on relatively comfortably, with a majority of over 7,500 and a negative swing of 8% - high but nowhere near as severe as that in East where the Labour majority dropped off a precipice to just 1,239; John Prescott had won East by 29,000 to 5,500 in 1997, for example. Why did North suddenly look like the safe Labour seat in Hull? The clue lies in the Brexit vote: 73% in East, 69% in West/Hessle, under 60% in North. And why was that? Because of that middle class and student population. The Guardian might try to connect Philip Larkin with the ethos of Brexit
www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/aug/08/romance-brexit-philip-larkin-industrial-suburbia-leave-vote-elite-london-working-class
but he would not have been typical of the middle class and academic section of North, which was more likely to turn out in the referendum than the working class estates.
In local elections in Hull Labour have also been under severe pressure for decades, including in the wards that make up North, and in May 2022 they lost control of the city council. Newly in power were the Liberal Democrats, who in May 2023 again beat Labour in almost all the wards within the division except for Avenue, Orchard Park and North Carr (covering part of Bransholme). They also romped home in the new estates of the Kingswood ward in 2023 with over 74% of the vote. Across the constituency, this is one of the most spectacular examples of disparity between local and Westminster contests, as the Liberal Democrats only polled 6% in December 2019.
Hull North has had low turnouts in all elections and fewer than the average number of voters, so the Boundary Commission in its revised and final proposals after the process of inquiry has recommended a significant expansion, to take in the whole of the large suburban 'village' of Cottingham - previously in the Haltemprice and Howden constituency and in the East Riding of Yorkshire local authority. This was a suggestion that originated with the Liberal Democrats, although in the most recent local elections in May 2023 they did not perform particularly strongly in Cottingham, as they share the representation of the North ward there with Labour, and it was Labour who took the South ward from the Tories. In the Final Report, the Commission did not alter the boundaries but did add Cottingham to the name, in line with their policy in many other cases.
The electoral effect on the constituency looks like it will be to make it even clearer that this is now the most middle class seat in Hull, and it may be a slightly less safe seat for Labour; it is as well for the incumbent party that North was so clearly their best in the city in 2019, so it could have absorbed Cottingham's impact even in a very poor year nationally. The demographics overall include a lower proportion of routine and semi routine occupations , the social rented housing percentage drops, and it becomes less ‘studenty’ overall. But on all of these indicators it will still be well towards the end of the spectrum that has traditionally favoured the Labour party in a ‘normal’ year.
Hull North and Cottingham, like its predecessor, will have a diverse and interesting mixture of neighbourhoods, but one which does not seem to threaten Labour dominance in parliamentary terms in the immediate future, even given their continuing disasters on the city council – though only one of Larkin’s ‘Old Fools’ might try to predict long term developments here.
2021 Census, new boundaries
Age 65+ 15.6% 429/575
Owner occupied 52.7% 480/575
Private rented 25.3% 106/575
Social rented 22.0% 111/575
White 89.5% 299/575
Black 2.4% 213/575
Asian 3.7% 311/575
Managerial & professional 23.5% 517/575
Routine & Semi-routine 30.7% 65/575
Degree level 26.8% 441/575
No qualifications 22.0% 114/575
Students 11.2% 73/650
2019 General Election: Kingston upon Hull North
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Labour Diana Johnson 17,033 49.8 −14.0
Conservative Holly Whitbread 9,440 27.6 +2.4
Brexit Party Derek Abram 4,771 13.9 New
Liberal Democrats Mike Ross 2,084 6.1 +1.1
Green Richard Howarth 875 2.6 +1.0
Lab Majority 7,593 22.2 −16.4
Turnout 34,203 52.2 −5.2
Registered electors 65,515
Labour hold
Swings
8.2 Lab to C
13.9 Lab to Brexit
Boundary Changes
The new Hull North and Cottingham will consist of
84.9% of Hull North
19.3% of Haltemprice and Howden
7.9% of Hull West and Hessle
3.8% of Hull East
Map
boundarycommissionforengland.independent.gov.uk/review2023/9bc0b2ea-7915-4997-9d4a-3e313c0ceb51/yorkshire-and-the-humber/Yorkshire%20and%20the%20Humber%20Region_511_Kingston%20upon%20Hull%20North%20and%20Cottingham_Landscape.pdf
2019 Notional results on new boundaries (Rallings & Thrasher)
As officially named by the Commission, the present Kingston upon Hull North is a seat of demographic contrasts. It includes the most extensive, and rather attractive, middle class owner occupied residential area within the boundaries of the city. As in the case of some similar sized urban units like Nottingham and Leicester, a substantial middle class population lives outside the borders, in the bloc to the west around Cottingham, Willerby, Anlaby and Kirkella and West Ella, now known in electoral terms collectively as Haltemprice. Other relatively affluent people who work in Hull live further north in the splendid and historic small town of Beverley. But within the North constituency lie the neighbourhood known as ‘The Avenues’, appropriately enough in Avenue ward (it also includes Pearson Park), Newland & Beverley, and Bricknell ward - which elected a Conservative councillor as recently as 2016 and shares Larkin’s Newland Park with University ward. The figures for these wards show some highly owner occupied (Bricknell over 72%) and others (Avenue and University) more privately rented but with high proportions of university students and academics and some other professionals.
On the other hand North also includes some of the largest solidly working class social housing estates in the whole of Hull. Further north than the university is to be found the 1930s North Hull Estate based on Greenwood Avenue, with its ‘classic’ geometrical and radial layout of standard interwar semi detached council houses. Beyond that is Orchard Park, where construction began in 1963. Originally Orchard Park featured several tower block but these were all demolished in the early 2010s, having become a byword for crime and multiple social deprivation. Nor is that the end of it. In the north east corner of the seat is Bransholme, even more recent as a social housing development than Orchard Park (being mainly developed in the 1970s) and in some ways even more notorious. Certainly it is one of the places in England where one is most likely to see boarded up houses, this in the low rise sections – there was an area of maisonettes known as Alcatraz , and lofty tower blocks still survive here
ukhousing.fandom.com/wiki/Bransholme
uk-tower-blocks.fandom.com/wiki/Bransholme
Larkin would have loathed the modern housing (“The Building” was his cry against Brutalism in architecture). All in all, the northern estates offer the impression of one of the most stark and unrelieved townscapes anywhere in Britain. Further beyond Bransholme there is yet one other bloc of housing, 21st century owner occupied estates at first sometimes called North Bransholme but now collectively known as Kingswood (perhaps because the Bransholme label was seen as far from attractive). Flooding in 2007 did not prevent this area from being scheduled for further developments, those through the late 2010s and those still in the planning process.
Overall, despite the variety, Hull North’s demographics are decidedly slanted towards a working class majority. It is in the bottom 50 seats for professional and managerial residents, making chief librarian Larkin a member of a small minority. As the holder of a first class degree in English from St John’s College Oxford, he would also have been in a minority as far as educational achievement is concerned, for fewer than 25% of residents in the latest available census in 2021 held a degree of any kind. The current Hull North is one of the rare seats in the United Kingdom that have a proportion over 25% of both social rented and private rented housing, which means that less than 50% were owner occupiers – though this figure would also be reduced by the 16% of full time students, just outside the top 50 for all constituencies. It also has a very high proportion of the long term unemployed, who would have no reason to complain of Larkin’s ‘Toad’ (work) - squatting on his life, though, in Toads Revisited, helping him 'down Cemetery Road'.
North is now the most working class seat in Hull. Both Hull East (with one of the highest proportions anywhere for routine and semi-routine workers) and West & Hessle have some more extreme socio-economic characteristics. Yet in December 2019 for the first time for many decades those two seats looked vulnerable to the Conservative surge, while North did not. Diana Johnson held on relatively comfortably, with a majority of over 7,500 and a negative swing of 8% - high but nowhere near as severe as that in East where the Labour majority dropped off a precipice to just 1,239; John Prescott had won East by 29,000 to 5,500 in 1997, for example. Why did North suddenly look like the safe Labour seat in Hull? The clue lies in the Brexit vote: 73% in East, 69% in West/Hessle, under 60% in North. And why was that? Because of that middle class and student population. The Guardian might try to connect Philip Larkin with the ethos of Brexit
www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/aug/08/romance-brexit-philip-larkin-industrial-suburbia-leave-vote-elite-london-working-class
but he would not have been typical of the middle class and academic section of North, which was more likely to turn out in the referendum than the working class estates.
In local elections in Hull Labour have also been under severe pressure for decades, including in the wards that make up North, and in May 2022 they lost control of the city council. Newly in power were the Liberal Democrats, who in May 2023 again beat Labour in almost all the wards within the division except for Avenue, Orchard Park and North Carr (covering part of Bransholme). They also romped home in the new estates of the Kingswood ward in 2023 with over 74% of the vote. Across the constituency, this is one of the most spectacular examples of disparity between local and Westminster contests, as the Liberal Democrats only polled 6% in December 2019.
Hull North has had low turnouts in all elections and fewer than the average number of voters, so the Boundary Commission in its revised and final proposals after the process of inquiry has recommended a significant expansion, to take in the whole of the large suburban 'village' of Cottingham - previously in the Haltemprice and Howden constituency and in the East Riding of Yorkshire local authority. This was a suggestion that originated with the Liberal Democrats, although in the most recent local elections in May 2023 they did not perform particularly strongly in Cottingham, as they share the representation of the North ward there with Labour, and it was Labour who took the South ward from the Tories. In the Final Report, the Commission did not alter the boundaries but did add Cottingham to the name, in line with their policy in many other cases.
The electoral effect on the constituency looks like it will be to make it even clearer that this is now the most middle class seat in Hull, and it may be a slightly less safe seat for Labour; it is as well for the incumbent party that North was so clearly their best in the city in 2019, so it could have absorbed Cottingham's impact even in a very poor year nationally. The demographics overall include a lower proportion of routine and semi routine occupations , the social rented housing percentage drops, and it becomes less ‘studenty’ overall. But on all of these indicators it will still be well towards the end of the spectrum that has traditionally favoured the Labour party in a ‘normal’ year.
Hull North and Cottingham, like its predecessor, will have a diverse and interesting mixture of neighbourhoods, but one which does not seem to threaten Labour dominance in parliamentary terms in the immediate future, even given their continuing disasters on the city council – though only one of Larkin’s ‘Old Fools’ might try to predict long term developments here.
2021 Census, new boundaries
Age 65+ 15.6% 429/575
Owner occupied 52.7% 480/575
Private rented 25.3% 106/575
Social rented 22.0% 111/575
White 89.5% 299/575
Black 2.4% 213/575
Asian 3.7% 311/575
Managerial & professional 23.5% 517/575
Routine & Semi-routine 30.7% 65/575
Degree level 26.8% 441/575
No qualifications 22.0% 114/575
Students 11.2% 73/650
2019 General Election: Kingston upon Hull North
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Labour Diana Johnson 17,033 49.8 −14.0
Conservative Holly Whitbread 9,440 27.6 +2.4
Brexit Party Derek Abram 4,771 13.9 New
Liberal Democrats Mike Ross 2,084 6.1 +1.1
Green Richard Howarth 875 2.6 +1.0
Lab Majority 7,593 22.2 −16.4
Turnout 34,203 52.2 −5.2
Registered electors 65,515
Labour hold
Swings
8.2 Lab to C
13.9 Lab to Brexit
Boundary Changes
The new Hull North and Cottingham will consist of
84.9% of Hull North
19.3% of Haltemprice and Howden
7.9% of Hull West and Hessle
3.8% of Hull East
Map
boundarycommissionforengland.independent.gov.uk/review2023/9bc0b2ea-7915-4997-9d4a-3e313c0ceb51/yorkshire-and-the-humber/Yorkshire%20and%20the%20Humber%20Region_511_Kingston%20upon%20Hull%20North%20and%20Cottingham_Landscape.pdf
2019 Notional results on new boundaries (Rallings & Thrasher)
| Lab | 20959 | 46.6% |
| Con | 15037 | 33.5% |
| Brexit | 4857 | 10.8% |
| LD | 2915 | 6.5% |
| Green | 1173 | 2.6% |
| Lab Majority | 5922 | 13.2% |
