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Post by John Chanin on Aug 24, 2023 15:04:42 GMT
This seat sits to the west of the river Lea and the Walthamstow marshes, with Tottenham to the north, and Highbury to the west. It is best known for the large population of Haredi Jews who amount to a third of the population in the three northern wards, and provide much of the Conservative vote in the seat, including the only regular opposition on Hackney Council, which is otherwise solidly Labour. The private housing here is mostly Victorian, but there are extensive council estates. The seat has one of the highest percentages of social housing tenants in the country, and is one of a handful of seats, almost all in London, where owner-occupiers form less than a third of households. However this is not to assume that it is solidly working class. Like other seats in this corner of London there are a lot of professional and managerial households, many of whom rent privately. Educational qualifications are high in what is a very young seat. While socially polarized it is also very mixed on the ground. Much of the Victorian housing is very desirable and very expensive. Like all the other seats in this part of London this one is significantly oversized. The Boundary Commission has brought in the Kings Park ward alongside the Lea instead of smaller Dalston in order to keep the electorate in Hackney South within the required limit, and has moved two wards covering Finsbury Park and Woodberry Down to Tottenham, where they sit somewhat uneasily. The west side of the constituency contains a large Victorian park - Clissold Park - north of Stoke Newington High Street with its bars and restaurants, and east of here the large and peaceful Abney Park cemetery. South of the park, stretching down to Newington Green there is a large Kurdish and Turkish Cypriot population. Clissold ward, along with the centre of Stoke Newington, has higher owner-occupation and is up market of the rest of the seat. The north, running up to the boundary with Tottenham at Stamford Hill, with its Haredi population, contains the large Springfield Park (yes it is literally a field full of springs), and is notably low in owner-occupation, managerial jobs, and degree qualifications. The orthodox Jewish community tends to be introspective and has its own rather different ideas of education. Alongside the river Lea in the east, where once there was a large timber yard, there is a good deal of new housing development, all private. Added to the seat in the boundary changes is an extensive area alongside the Lea south of the Lea Bridge Road, which contains the large Clapton Park and Kingsmead housing estates, still over 50% council tenants, and lower on managerial jobs and educational qualifications. To the south of the seat is another extensive open space, Hackney Downs. The former run down tower block Nightingale Estate to its north has been demolished and redeveloped. It was best known for its pirate radio stations. Social housing tenants are still over 40% here, and in Shacklewell to the west of the park, between Stoke Newington and Dalston. Overall this surprisingly leafy seat is majority white, and has a low asian population for inner London, concentrated in the east of the seat. There is a large black population, particularly in the south of the seat, and over a third in the newly added Kings Park ward, and evenly divided between those of African and Caribbean descent. As usual for inner London the occupational and educational status looks high in a very young population, but there is also a lot of poverty, both on the council estates, and in private housing subdivided and rented privately. All in all a typical very cosmopolitan London mix. Politically this makes for a very safe Labour seat. Current MP is Diane Abbott, former leadership candidate, first elected in 1987 when she was the first black female MP. Worth noting is the substantial and long standing Green vote here, often linked with socially liberal inner city seats where there is little other opposition to Labour. The Greens nearly trebled their vote share in 2024. Census data: Owner-occupied 31% (560/575 in England & Wales), private rented 32% (52nd), social rented 37% (10th). : White 55%(522nd), Black 19%(21st), South Asian 8%(133rd), Mixed 6%(33rd), Other 11%(52nd) : Managerial & professional 50% (68th), Routine & Semi-routine 21% (477th) : Degree 49% (39th), Minimal qualifications 25% (382nd) : Students 9% (115th), Over 65: 8% (558th) : Jewish 13%(5th) Boundaries : The new seat is made up of 87% from Hackney N & Stoke Newington and 13% from Hackney S & Shoreditch 76% of the old seat is in the new one, with 15% going to Tottenham, and 9% to Hackney S & Shoreditch
| 2017 | % | 2019 | % | Notional | % | 2024 | % | | Labour | 42,265 | 75.1 | 39,972 | 70.3 | 35,856 | 69.8 | 24,355 | 59.5 | | Conservative | 7,126 | 12.7 | 6,784 | 11.9 | 6,694 | 13.0 | 3,457 | 8.4 | | Liberal Democrat | 3,817 | 6.8 | 4,283 | 7.5 | 3,973 | 7.7 | 1,562 | 3.8 | | Brexit/Reform |
| | 609 | 1.1 | 489 | 1.0 | 1,283 | 3.1 | | Green | 2,606 | 4.6 | 4,989 | 8.8 | 4,117 | 8.0 | 9,275 | 22.6 | | Other | 484 | 0.9 | 227 | 0.4 | 227 | 0.4 | 1,027 | 2.5 | | Majority | 35,139 | 62.4 | 33,188 | 58.4 | 29,162 | 56.8 | 15,080 | 36.8 |
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Post by Deleted on Aug 24, 2023 17:37:18 GMT
Good. I’d add that Diane’s predecessor Ernie Roberts was deselected in 1987, and that she recently had the Labour whip removed. Another thing is that Hackney was IIRC, a Labour full house in 1964, but demographic change helped the Tories bed in in Springfield and Stamford Hill West. The only marginal wards are Cazenove (the Lib Dems’ easiest route back on to the council), Dalston and Hackney Downs.
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Post by Pete Whitehead on Aug 24, 2023 18:19:09 GMT
Good. I’d add that Diane’s predecessor Ernie Roberts was deselected in 1987, and that she recently had the Labour whip removed. Another thing is that Hackney was IIRC, a Labour full house in 1964, but demographic change helped the Tories bed in in Springfield and Stamford Hill West. The only marginal wards are Cazenove (the Lib Dems’ easiest route back on to the council), Dalston and Hackney Downs. What demographic change? |
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Post by finsobruce on Aug 24, 2023 18:36:47 GMT
Good. I’d add that Diane’s predecessor Ernie Roberts was deselected in 1987, and that she recently had the Labour whip removed. Another thing is that Hackney was IIRC, a Labour full house in 1964, but demographic change helped the Tories bed in in Springfield and Stamford Hill West. The only marginal wards are Cazenove (the Lib Dems’ easiest route back on to the council), Dalston and Hackney Downs. Hackney in 1964 was indeed a one party council, with three wards uncontested (Chatham, Kingsmead and Northwold) and another (Rectory) where the only opposition to the two Labour candidates was a Communist - the turnout there was a magnificent 9.7%!
The highest turnout was only 20% (in Defoe ward).
There were a large number of Liberal candidates presumably on the back of their early 60s revival, finishing second in seven wards.
1968 must have been a fun count with enormous Tory gains, but most of the results quite close. There were again , counterintuitively, two uncontested wards, but different ones to 1964 - Haggerston and Wenlock. Northwold was contested but only by a single Communist, with the same position in Moorfields. Wick was a split ward!
Turnouts were much improved in general with Haggerston registering a rather modern looking 31%, but again, there was a sub ten per cent turn out with Moorfields only managing 9.8%.
1971 saw more Communist candidates than either 1964 or 1968 and a rather behind the times Union Movement candidate in Queensbridge.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 24, 2023 18:38:11 GMT
Good. I’d add that Diane’s predecessor Ernie Roberts was deselected in 1987, and that she recently had the Labour whip removed. Another thing is that Hackney was IIRC, a Labour full house in 1964, but demographic change helped the Tories bed in in Springfield and Stamford Hill West. The only marginal wards are Cazenove (the Lib Dems’ easiest route back on to the council), Dalston and Hackney Downs. What demographic change? Hasn’t the north of this seat got more Jewish over time? I may be wrong. batman may know better. Has the Stamford Hill area been Haredi Jewish for decades? If you go back to the 40s, Tower Hamlets had a sizeable Jewish component. |
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Post by finsobruce on Aug 24, 2023 18:41:47 GMT
Hasn’t some of the north of this seat become more Jewish over time? I may be wrong. The area in general has had a large Jewish population for a long time, the change is that some of the Northernmost wards have large orthodox and Ultra Orthodox Jewish communities who have tended to favour the Conservatives, providing several councillors. The wards in the South became more affluent due to their proximity to the City and of course, the whole borough in general has become more affluent over the years, providing great contrasts of wealth and poverty close together.
There has been comment in other threads about the Orthodox Jewish community in Canvey Island. A lot of the growth there is down to people moving from areas like Hackney as the housing is no longer as 'reasonable' as it was forty/fifty years ago.
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Post by Pete Whitehead on Aug 24, 2023 19:15:00 GMT
Hasn’t the north of this seat got more Jewish over time? I may be wrong. batman may know better. Has the Stamford Hill area been Haredi Jewish for decades? If you go back to the 40s, Tower Hamlets had a sizeable Jewish component. It's been a Jewish area for decades. What happened was that for various reasons, Jewish voters switched rather en masse to the Conservatives at some stage during the 1970s. Don't forget that Springfield was one of the wards that withstood the Conservative landslide in 1968, electing mainly Jewish Labour councillors (Joe Lobenstein won in New River as a Liberal that year though) |
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Post by batman on Aug 24, 2023 19:28:01 GMT
Stoke Newington itself has become a less Jewish area over the years, though there are still quite a lot of Jews. Some of these are strictly-Orthodox, others are much more secular. One or two of the Labour councillors have a secular or non-Orthodox Jewish background. Stamford Hill & parts of Clapton however, while they have been areas with a strong Jewish population for generations, has actually seen a distinct further rise in the Jewish population, basically because strictly-Orthodox families tend to be very large. Although these voters tend to vote Conservative in local elections in the two wards which have Conservative councillors, in Cazenove they tend to be more pro-Liberal Democrat; the reasons for this are largely parochial and mostly not really related that much to national politics. One of the most prominent Orthodox Rabbis in the constituency, Herschel Gluck, has mostly Labour sympathies and has maintained generally very good relations with local Muslim communities. It is, however, not at all clear that strictly-Orthodox Jews vote predominantly Conservative in general elections. There is some evidence that in fact many of them, contrary to more common electoral practice, cast their ballots in local elections but not so readily in national ones. The 2010 general election took place on the same day as the borough elections, and there appears to have been some ticket-splitting with some strictly-Orthodox Jews voting for local Conservative councillors but for Diane Abbott in the general election - at that time she enjoyed fairly good relations with local Jewish communities, though that is definitely less the case now. Voting patterns amongst strictly-Orthodox Jews are distinctly complicated and even many other Jews find them hard to understand. There is a misconception that these voters have an anti-Zionist outlook, but although there are quite a lot who support the broadly anti-Zionist Satmar and a very small number who support the even more fiercely anti-Zionist Neturei Karta, they don't generally represent the majority of the strictly-Orthodox community. Secular & less orthodox Jews in the constituency tend to be highly educated and Labour-inclined in their politics, the latter more so than in for example some outer London boroughs.
Are we really sure, however, that the constituency is chiefly known for its Jewish community?
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Post by Deleted on Aug 24, 2023 19:41:49 GMT
Stoke Newington itself has become a less Jewish area over the years, though there are still quite a lot of Jews. Some of these are strictly-Orthodox, others are much more secular. One or two of the Labour councillors have a secular or non-Orthodox Jewish background. Stamford Hill & parts of Clapton however, while they have been areas with a strong Jewish population for generations, has actually seen a distinct further rise in the Jewish population, basically because strictly-Orthodox families tend to be very large. Although these voters tend to vote Conservative in local elections in the two wards which have Conservative councillors, in Cazenove they tend to be more pro-Liberal Democrat; the reasons for this are largely parochial and mostly not really related that much to national politics. One of the most prominent Orthodox Rabbis in the constituency, Herschel Gluck, has mostly Labour sympathies and has maintained generally very good relations with local Muslim communities. It is, however, not at all clear that strictly-Orthodox Jews vote predominantly Conservative in general elections. There is some evidence that in fact many of them, contrary to more common electoral practice, cast their ballots in local elections but not so readily in national ones. The 2010 general election took place on the same day as the borough elections, and there appears to have been some ticket-splitting with some strictly-Orthodox Jews voting for local Conservative councillors but for Diane Abbott in the general election - at that time she enjoyed fairly good relations with local Jewish communities, though that is definitely less the case now. Voting patterns amongst strictly-Orthodox Jews are distinctly complicated and even many other Jews find them hard to understand. There is a misconception that these voters have an anti-Zionist outlook, but although there are quite a lot who support the broadly anti-Zionist Satmar and a very small number who support the even more fiercely anti-Zionist Neturei Karta, they don't generally represent the majority of the strictly-Orthodox community. Secular & less orthodox Jews in the constituency tend to be highly educated and Labour-inclined in their politics, the latter more so than in for example some outer London boroughs. Are we really sure, however, that the constituency is chiefly known for its Jewish community? Excellent. |
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Post by Merseymike on Aug 24, 2023 19:56:35 GMT
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Post by batman on Aug 24, 2023 20:19:05 GMT
he is definitely strictly-Orthodox! He must be the first strictly-Orthodox Labour councillor for quite a few years. (The term strictly-Orthodox seems to be the one mostly used in Jewish newspapers etc. at present). I suspect that his presence on the ballot-paper improved Labour's performance amongst Haredi voters.
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Post by batman on Aug 24, 2023 20:24:31 GMT
Stoke Newington itself has become a less Jewish area over the years, though there are still quite a lot of Jews. Some of these are strictly-Orthodox, others are much more secular. One or two of the Labour councillors have a secular or non-Orthodox Jewish background. Stamford Hill & parts of Clapton however, while they have been areas with a strong Jewish population for generations, has actually seen a distinct further rise in the Jewish population, basically because strictly-Orthodox families tend to be very large. Although these voters tend to vote Conservative in local elections in the two wards which have Conservative councillors, in Cazenove they tend to be more pro-Liberal Democrat; the reasons for this are largely parochial and mostly not really related that much to national politics. One of the most prominent Orthodox Rabbis in the constituency, Herschel Gluck, has mostly Labour sympathies and has maintained generally very good relations with local Muslim communities. It is, however, not at all clear that strictly-Orthodox Jews vote predominantly Conservative in general elections. There is some evidence that in fact many of them, contrary to more common electoral practice, cast their ballots in local elections but not so readily in national ones. The 2010 general election took place on the same day as the borough elections, and there appears to have been some ticket-splitting with some strictly-Orthodox Jews voting for local Conservative councillors but for Diane Abbott in the general election - at that time she enjoyed fairly good relations with local Jewish communities, though that is definitely less the case now. Voting patterns amongst strictly-Orthodox Jews are distinctly complicated and even many other Jews find them hard to understand. There is a misconception that these voters have an anti-Zionist outlook, but although there are quite a lot who support the broadly anti-Zionist Satmar and a very small number who support the even more fiercely anti-Zionist Neturei Karta, they don't generally represent the majority of the strictly-Orthodox community. Secular & less orthodox Jews in the constituency tend to be highly educated and Labour-inclined in their politics, the latter more so than in for example some outer London boroughs. Are we really sure, however, that the constituency is chiefly known for its Jewish community? Excellent. thank you. I should perhaps explain that although I don't know the constituency as intimately as some, my mother was brought up here & lived here with my father in their early married life, and I had two great-uncles who both lived in the borough with their families (one in each constituency). Sadly they were not on speaking terms for over 50 years and were never reconciled  I don't think I have family here at present,though. I was closer to Uncle Sam than his elder brother Nat and it was the latter who lived here, in the Woodberry Down estate, and I didn't see all that much of him although I attended his golden wedding, and his second marriage party after his first wife passed away. Uncle Sam was a council tenant too, in a block which was transferred from the GLC to Hackney Council. |
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Post by gerrardwinstanley on Sept 14, 2023 13:53:58 GMT
Has Abbott confirmed whether she will stand as an independent?
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Post by batman on Sept 14, 2023 15:23:17 GMT
No, I'm quite sure that she would prefer to be readmitted to the Labour Party, and making such an announcement would preclude that.
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Post by gerrardwinstanley on Sept 14, 2023 18:36:02 GMT
No, I'm quite sure that she would prefer to be readmitted to the Labour Party, and making such an announcement would preclude that. The chances of Starmer readmitting Abbott must be close to zero. |
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Post by batman on Sept 14, 2023 20:26:09 GMT
It isn't Starmer's decision. He can decide in cases of whether an MP loses the Labour Whip, but he cannot (and indeed should not) decide whether she is readmitted as a Labour Party member. I did think her suspension was absolutely right, and I say that with much sadness as I have been very supportive of her in the past. Whether she gets readmitted depends on what she now does.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 15, 2023 11:02:19 GMT
It’s unfortunate. She was one or the first three Black British MPs after all, along with Bernie Grant and Paul Boateng. Of course Corbyn and Abbott have been MPs for forever.
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Post by greatkingrat on Sept 15, 2023 11:05:46 GMT
Maybe there will be some quiet backroom deal that if Corbyn goes quietly and doesn't stand as an independent, Abbott will be allowed to stand for Labour?
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The Bishop
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Post by The Bishop on Sept 15, 2023 11:26:21 GMT
Whatever else you say about Corbyn, he seems to be in pretty good health for someone his age.
Abbott, not so much (and this is well known)
Maybe quietly standing down next time is the best option.
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Sibboleth
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Post by Sibboleth on Sept 15, 2023 11:33:15 GMT
The exact issues are a little murky, but it's fairly clear that she is no longer capable.
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I don't think I have family here at present,though. I was closer to Uncle Sam than his elder brother Nat and it was the latter who lived here, in the Woodberry Down estate, and I didn't see all that much of him although I attended his golden wedding, and his second marriage party after his first wife passed away. Uncle Sam was a council tenant too, in a block which was transferred from the GLC to Hackney Council.
