Post by Pete Whitehead on Dec 26, 2023 17:57:28 GMT
The industrial town of Luton grew in Victorian times largely on the back of the hat industry – straw hats were made from the byproducts of the surrounding agricultural area – hence the nickname of the local football team, ‘The Hatters’. Straw hats went out of fashion in the early 20th century, but the town got a new lease of economic life with the establishment of the Vauxhall car plant in 1907. In the inter-war years, Luton was one of those towns (like Slough, Coventry and Oxford) which boomed while many places reliant on older industries suffered in the depression.
Luton North consists mostly of residential areas which were developed in the inter-war years together with further post-war additions. There is little housing here which was built before the First World War – all the Victorian terraced housing, the main industrial areas (including the now ex- Vauxhall plant) and the airport which is now the towns largest employer, are in Luton South (as well as the town centre and the football ground).
The parliamentary boundaries caught up with these developments 50 years ago when Luton acquired a second seat. The new seat was Luton West and most of it had previously been in the South Bedfordshire constituency where it had contributed to occasional Labour victories (in 1950 and 1966) with just the Dallow ward coming in from the old Luton seat, renamed Luton East. Luton West was comfortably won by Labour’s Brian Sedgmore (later a longstanding MP in Hackney) in its first contests but was gained on a very large swing (and with a small majority) by Conservative John Carlisle in 1979.
Luton West was the more marginal of the two Conservative gains in Luton in 1979 but the boundary changes ahead of the 1983 election transformed the situation.
The change of boundary between the two Luton seats themselves was not that drastic. Dallow and Saints wards were added to Luton East (which became Luton South). The more dramatic intervention came from the addition of over 15,000 voters from Mid and South Bedfordshire in villages like Barton-le-Clay, Toddington, Streatley and the large, expanded commuter village (almost New Town) of Flitwick. The new Luton North was reckoned to have provided a Conservative majority of over 7,000 in 1979 and as its existence coincided with a run of Conservative victories nationally, this had the appearance of a safe Conservative seat – the majority never fell below 5 figures and in 1983 the Labour candidate, one Kelvin Hopkins, almost dropped to third place behind the SDP.
The boundary changes ahead of the 1997 election almost completely reversed the earlier changes with all the extraneous territory removed to new version of Mid Bedfordshire and the Saints ward returned from Luton South – only the name and the absence of Dallow distinguished it from the old Luton West. Still the Conservatives went into that election defending a notional majority of over 7,000, which indicates that this part of Luton itself had moved some way to the Conservatives since 1979.
But in 1997 Kelvin Hopkins, contesting the seat for the second time after a 14-year gap, achieved a swing of over 17% and gained the seat by not much under 10,000 voters. It has never been close since then. In 2001 the Labour share in Luton North surpassed that in South and that has been sustained at every subsequent election.
What accounts for such a transformation? Part of it was an unwinding of what was arguably an unnaturally strong Tory position. Afterall this seat would only very narrowly have voted Conservative in 1979 but by 1992, when the national lead was similar, the lead had extended to 14%. This is the kind of unglamourous Southern urban area which had reacted very favourably to Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative party. Coinciding with their general election victories, the Conservatives also controlled Luton council for a solid 15 years from 1976 to 1991, often with large majorities, and this was a result of being able to win most of the wards in this constituency.
And of course, a seat like this was packed with the kind of skilled working class and lower middle class swing voters who defected in their droves to Tony Blair’s Labour party. But that doesn’t account for the lack of any tangible Conservative recovery from 2010 (when the seat was virtually unchanged) onwards. The reason for this is the massive change in the ethnic composition of the population – like several Outer London constituencies which the Conservatives won in 1992 but have not come close since. This seat was over 80% white when the Conservatives last won here – it is now less than 50% and barely over a third ‘White British’. This now has a higher non-white proportion than Luton South which was originally much higher as it includes the South Asian ghetto of Bury Park. Bury Park is to the North of Luton town centre, so its population has spread out largely to the North and West, along the Dunstable and New Bedford Roads.
There are three broad areas in Luton North as it has been drawn from 1997 onwards. The first is the inner section, which is to say the area about halfway out from the town centre, which is dominated by fairly modest owner-occupied inter-war housing. Saints ward which includes part of the Biscot area is now 70% Asian and 65% Muslim. Challney, a little further out, is also majority Asian while Limbury still has a larger White minority – it is a minority nonetheless. The Conservatives were able to win all these wards back in the day but have not come close for many years.
In the East of the constituency, following the route of New Bedford Road is Luton’s main middle-class residential area. The southernmost ward, starting just North of Wardown Park is Barnfield which is objectively the most upmarket ward in Luton with by some way the highest proportion of graduates and of professional and managerial workers. There are some good quality detached houses here, especially around Old Bedford Road and further out it includes most of the large private estate of Bushmead. Nevertheless, the Conservatives have never won this ward since it was carved out of the larger Icknield ward over 20 years ago – rather this has been a rare outpost in this constituency for the Lib Dems, although Labour have managed to elect the occasional councillor here. Again, the ethnic composition must be the major factor here – Barnfield is 44% Asian and only 34% White British.
Icknield to the North is a little more socially mixed but also Whiter and had been the main Conservative stronghold in Luton for decades. The Conservatives only just clung onto both seats here in May 2019 but then lost one to Labour in a byelection a few months later in what turned out to be the last contest in the ward (There were new ward boundaries ahead of the May 2023 local elections and Icknield was divided between Barnfield and Bramingham. Because the older set of wards are the building blocks used for the new parliamentary boundaries and because the census data relates to these, my references are to those wards rather than the new ones).
Further North still and on the edge of the town is the one remaining Conservative stronghold in the constituency. Bramingham, not coincidentally, still has a substantial white majority and was the only ward in Luton where a majority (just) recorded a Christian affiliation in the latest census. It consists of late post-war owner-occupied housing, much of it detached. In 2023 the expanded ward was the only one won by the Conservatives – they weren’t even close anywhere else.
The third element is a group of wards in the North West of the town which are to varying degrees influenced by council estates. The most notorious of these is the Marsh Farm estate which dominates the Northwell ward (still a third council housing in 2021 – the highest figure in Luton). There is a large black population spread across Luton but there is a particular concentration in Marsh Farm which has high crime rates and has been the scene of occasional riots. There are other large estates such as Hockwell Ring in Leagrave ward – a cluster of tower blocks next to the M1 and Lewsey Farm on the other side of the motorway, closer to the centre of Dunstable than that of Luton, has always sustained a safe Labour ward. Leagrave includes some better areas in the South and the Conservatives were able to win there in the distant past while Sundon Park has been an anomalous area of longstanding Lib Dem strength in local elections.
All these wards are solidly Labour now in general elections.
Both Luton seats were undersized and to remedy this the Stopsley ward is added to this seat from Luton South forcing that seat further out into rural South Bedfordshire. An alternative would have been to add Houghton Regis or part of Dunstable to this seat with which they form a contiguous urban area, but this has been proposed before and encountered considerable opposition from residents of those settlements who like to imagine they have nothing to do with Luton.
Stopsley doesn’t really fit into any of the three categories defined above. It borders on Barnfield ward but is only connected to it by a country lane. It forms part of a block of wards north of the airport which form a coherent unit and its separation from that block is illogical. Stopsley has been a very longstanding Lib Dem stronghold in local elections but would tend to favour the Conservatives over Labour in general elections – at least when the Conservatives are doing well. It is not a high-status area by any means, but it is heavily owner-occupied and it is the Whitest ward in Luton at over 80%. It doesn’t appear likely that the Conservatives will be ‘doing well’ at the next election, but in any event its presence in this seat would make only a dent in Labour’s now impregnable margin in this constituency.
Since 1997 this seat has been far more stable than its southern neighbour which has seen assorted challenges and with its previous MP standing against the party as an Independent. Kelvin Hopkins also lost the Labour whip in the previous parliament but this seat was passed on without any fuss to the new Labour candidate Sarah Owens who claims to be the first female MP of Chinese descent. Assuming she avoids some of the pitfalls encountered by other recent Luton MPs, she can count on a long career representing this seat.
Luton North consists mostly of residential areas which were developed in the inter-war years together with further post-war additions. There is little housing here which was built before the First World War – all the Victorian terraced housing, the main industrial areas (including the now ex- Vauxhall plant) and the airport which is now the towns largest employer, are in Luton South (as well as the town centre and the football ground).
The parliamentary boundaries caught up with these developments 50 years ago when Luton acquired a second seat. The new seat was Luton West and most of it had previously been in the South Bedfordshire constituency where it had contributed to occasional Labour victories (in 1950 and 1966) with just the Dallow ward coming in from the old Luton seat, renamed Luton East. Luton West was comfortably won by Labour’s Brian Sedgmore (later a longstanding MP in Hackney) in its first contests but was gained on a very large swing (and with a small majority) by Conservative John Carlisle in 1979.
Luton West was the more marginal of the two Conservative gains in Luton in 1979 but the boundary changes ahead of the 1983 election transformed the situation.
The change of boundary between the two Luton seats themselves was not that drastic. Dallow and Saints wards were added to Luton East (which became Luton South). The more dramatic intervention came from the addition of over 15,000 voters from Mid and South Bedfordshire in villages like Barton-le-Clay, Toddington, Streatley and the large, expanded commuter village (almost New Town) of Flitwick. The new Luton North was reckoned to have provided a Conservative majority of over 7,000 in 1979 and as its existence coincided with a run of Conservative victories nationally, this had the appearance of a safe Conservative seat – the majority never fell below 5 figures and in 1983 the Labour candidate, one Kelvin Hopkins, almost dropped to third place behind the SDP.
The boundary changes ahead of the 1997 election almost completely reversed the earlier changes with all the extraneous territory removed to new version of Mid Bedfordshire and the Saints ward returned from Luton South – only the name and the absence of Dallow distinguished it from the old Luton West. Still the Conservatives went into that election defending a notional majority of over 7,000, which indicates that this part of Luton itself had moved some way to the Conservatives since 1979.
But in 1997 Kelvin Hopkins, contesting the seat for the second time after a 14-year gap, achieved a swing of over 17% and gained the seat by not much under 10,000 voters. It has never been close since then. In 2001 the Labour share in Luton North surpassed that in South and that has been sustained at every subsequent election.
What accounts for such a transformation? Part of it was an unwinding of what was arguably an unnaturally strong Tory position. Afterall this seat would only very narrowly have voted Conservative in 1979 but by 1992, when the national lead was similar, the lead had extended to 14%. This is the kind of unglamourous Southern urban area which had reacted very favourably to Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative party. Coinciding with their general election victories, the Conservatives also controlled Luton council for a solid 15 years from 1976 to 1991, often with large majorities, and this was a result of being able to win most of the wards in this constituency.
And of course, a seat like this was packed with the kind of skilled working class and lower middle class swing voters who defected in their droves to Tony Blair’s Labour party. But that doesn’t account for the lack of any tangible Conservative recovery from 2010 (when the seat was virtually unchanged) onwards. The reason for this is the massive change in the ethnic composition of the population – like several Outer London constituencies which the Conservatives won in 1992 but have not come close since. This seat was over 80% white when the Conservatives last won here – it is now less than 50% and barely over a third ‘White British’. This now has a higher non-white proportion than Luton South which was originally much higher as it includes the South Asian ghetto of Bury Park. Bury Park is to the North of Luton town centre, so its population has spread out largely to the North and West, along the Dunstable and New Bedford Roads.
There are three broad areas in Luton North as it has been drawn from 1997 onwards. The first is the inner section, which is to say the area about halfway out from the town centre, which is dominated by fairly modest owner-occupied inter-war housing. Saints ward which includes part of the Biscot area is now 70% Asian and 65% Muslim. Challney, a little further out, is also majority Asian while Limbury still has a larger White minority – it is a minority nonetheless. The Conservatives were able to win all these wards back in the day but have not come close for many years.
In the East of the constituency, following the route of New Bedford Road is Luton’s main middle-class residential area. The southernmost ward, starting just North of Wardown Park is Barnfield which is objectively the most upmarket ward in Luton with by some way the highest proportion of graduates and of professional and managerial workers. There are some good quality detached houses here, especially around Old Bedford Road and further out it includes most of the large private estate of Bushmead. Nevertheless, the Conservatives have never won this ward since it was carved out of the larger Icknield ward over 20 years ago – rather this has been a rare outpost in this constituency for the Lib Dems, although Labour have managed to elect the occasional councillor here. Again, the ethnic composition must be the major factor here – Barnfield is 44% Asian and only 34% White British.
Icknield to the North is a little more socially mixed but also Whiter and had been the main Conservative stronghold in Luton for decades. The Conservatives only just clung onto both seats here in May 2019 but then lost one to Labour in a byelection a few months later in what turned out to be the last contest in the ward (There were new ward boundaries ahead of the May 2023 local elections and Icknield was divided between Barnfield and Bramingham. Because the older set of wards are the building blocks used for the new parliamentary boundaries and because the census data relates to these, my references are to those wards rather than the new ones).
Further North still and on the edge of the town is the one remaining Conservative stronghold in the constituency. Bramingham, not coincidentally, still has a substantial white majority and was the only ward in Luton where a majority (just) recorded a Christian affiliation in the latest census. It consists of late post-war owner-occupied housing, much of it detached. In 2023 the expanded ward was the only one won by the Conservatives – they weren’t even close anywhere else.
The third element is a group of wards in the North West of the town which are to varying degrees influenced by council estates. The most notorious of these is the Marsh Farm estate which dominates the Northwell ward (still a third council housing in 2021 – the highest figure in Luton). There is a large black population spread across Luton but there is a particular concentration in Marsh Farm which has high crime rates and has been the scene of occasional riots. There are other large estates such as Hockwell Ring in Leagrave ward – a cluster of tower blocks next to the M1 and Lewsey Farm on the other side of the motorway, closer to the centre of Dunstable than that of Luton, has always sustained a safe Labour ward. Leagrave includes some better areas in the South and the Conservatives were able to win there in the distant past while Sundon Park has been an anomalous area of longstanding Lib Dem strength in local elections.
All these wards are solidly Labour now in general elections.
Both Luton seats were undersized and to remedy this the Stopsley ward is added to this seat from Luton South forcing that seat further out into rural South Bedfordshire. An alternative would have been to add Houghton Regis or part of Dunstable to this seat with which they form a contiguous urban area, but this has been proposed before and encountered considerable opposition from residents of those settlements who like to imagine they have nothing to do with Luton.
Stopsley doesn’t really fit into any of the three categories defined above. It borders on Barnfield ward but is only connected to it by a country lane. It forms part of a block of wards north of the airport which form a coherent unit and its separation from that block is illogical. Stopsley has been a very longstanding Lib Dem stronghold in local elections but would tend to favour the Conservatives over Labour in general elections – at least when the Conservatives are doing well. It is not a high-status area by any means, but it is heavily owner-occupied and it is the Whitest ward in Luton at over 80%. It doesn’t appear likely that the Conservatives will be ‘doing well’ at the next election, but in any event its presence in this seat would make only a dent in Labour’s now impregnable margin in this constituency.
Since 1997 this seat has been far more stable than its southern neighbour which has seen assorted challenges and with its previous MP standing against the party as an Independent. Kelvin Hopkins also lost the Labour whip in the previous parliament but this seat was passed on without any fuss to the new Labour candidate Sarah Owens who claims to be the first female MP of Chinese descent. Assuming she avoids some of the pitfalls encountered by other recent Luton MPs, she can count on a long career representing this seat.
