Luton South & South Bedfordshire
Dec 27, 2023 22:50:45 GMT
Robert Waller, andrewp, and 1 more like this
Post by Pete Whitehead on Dec 27, 2023 22:50:45 GMT
This is an unwieldy name for what some may think an unsatisfactory constituency. In fact, though the area is increased greatly, the number of electors moved is not that great and this is recognisably a slightly modified version of Luton South – around 5,000 are lost in Stopsley and around 6,000 voters are gained in rural areas west of the A5.
Both Luton seats were below quota but Luton South in itself would have been brought into quota simply by realigning with new ward boundaries, that is to say the rural Caddington ward of Central Bedfordshire had itself expanded to include several villages west of the A5.
The problem was that Luton North was also undersized. The traditional remedy for this was to add parts of Dunstable or Houghton Regis to that seat but previous attempts have garnered massive opposition – it appears that on this occasion the Boundary Commission gave up on the idea and instead brought Luton North into quota by adding Stopsley ward from Luton South. This necessitated further expansion of that seat into rural territory, in this case the Eaton Bray ward which is on the other side of Dunstable and reaches the outskirts of Leighton Buzzard.
Perhaps the more genteel residents of this area were less vociferous in their opposition to being included in a Luton seat.
There are indeed some very pleasant and indeed wealthy villages in this area. Caddington itself and Slip End, which have been in this seat since 1983, are fairly functional villages, just across the M1 from Luton itself, but strongly Conservative nonetheless. The part of Caddington ward west of the A5 includes wealthy villages like Studham and Kensworth and attractions such as Whipsnade Zoo and the Dunstable Downs in attractive Chiltern countryside. Eaton Bray is similar and together these ‘South Bedfordshire’ areas provide a strongly Conservative counterbalance to ‘Luton South’ – but there are just over 11,000 rural voters against nearly 60,000 in Luton itself and the latter is strongly Labour now so this will remain a safe Labour seat.
Luton South dates to 1983 but was based on the former Luton East which in turn was based on the single Luton seat which existed before 1974 (almost all the pre-74 Luton seat is now in this one). Luton was almost a bellwether – Conservative (actually National Liberal) from 1950 until Labour gained the seat in a 1963 by-election, then Labour until 1970, Conservative again until 1974. Luton East was Labour in both 1974 elections and gained by the Conservatives in 1979. Luton South continued the tradition being marginally Conservative until 1997 when Labour gained the seat easily and have now held it ever since, only appearing marginal in the rather peculiar circumstances of 2010.
Luton South contains all the areas most associated with the town in the public imagination – the airport, the now ex- Vauxhall motor plant and the (also former) Arndale Centre. Luton boomed in the inter-war years with the growth of the motor industry and attracted migrants from across the country and since WW2 has attracted immigrants from around the world. There is a large Irish population and since the 1950s largescale immigration from the Caribbean and especially South Asia. This has been augmented in the 21st Century by a considerable East European population.
As of the 2021 census a majority of Luton’s population are non-white and less than a third are White British – less than the 37% who are Asian. The Asian population has now spread across the whole town but there remains a significant concentration in the Bury Park area North and West of the town centre – the wards of Biscot and Dallow. Here 70% of the population is Asian – mostly Pakistani and Bangladeshi and two-thirds are muslim (only 7.5% of the population is White British – compare with over 90% in Eaton Bray). This is a deprived area with most of the population living in dingy Victorian terraced housing, a mix of owner-occupied and privately rented. These two wards are usually overwhelmingly Labour in general elections – usually in local elections too, although given their nature Labour can face occasional challenges from ‘community’ based Independents and the Lib Dems did well here following the Iraq war.
The other wards surrounding the town centre are more genuinely diverse. Farley ward to the West includes some areas of Victorian terraced housing close to the town centre followed by some inter war semis a little further out. Further out still is the large post-war council estate of Farley Hill and beyond that, hard against the M1 the new Newlands Park development. This diversity of housing types is also reflected in the ethnic composition. White British are the largest group but at only just over 30% with Asians just below 30% and large numbers of ‘White Others’, Blacks and others. Farley Hill itself dominates the ward politically and this has always been a very safe Labour ward. In May 2023 no other party even contested the ward.
The next-door South ward also has a range of housing types and ethnic groups. In the far South of the ward around Capability Green is a quite wealthy residential area. Heading along London Road towards the town centre it goes downhill rapidly, both literally and figuratively. The New Town area contains industrial parks dispersed amongst Victorian terraced housing and Park Town is an inner-city neighbourhood which combines similar areas with grim tower block estates. Here the White British population is barely a quarter of the population and is outnumbered by White Other but also with a sizeable Asian minority and the largest Black population in Luton South. Within the ring road, South also includes the whole of the town centre, which is actually reasonably presentable all things considered (at the time of writing there is a new Central ward covering this area but for these purposes we will discuss the pre-existing wards as these are the building blocks which were used to create this constituency).
The final ward abutting the town centre is High Town which lies to the East and North. This was historically the middle class and Conservative end of the town and there are still some very pleasant residential areas in the north of the ward around Wardown park. Most of High Town itself is grotty now though and includes Luton’s main red-light area. Close to the railway there is again a mixture of Victorian terraces and council flats. The ethnic composition is similar to that of South ward. The Conservatives have not won here for decades now.
The remaining area of Luton South is quite different to that so far discussed. This is the area roughly to the East of Hitchin Road and to the North of the airport and covering the wards of Crawley, Round Green and Wigmore (before the latest boundary changes it also included Stopsley). There is a lot of industry here – the former Vauxhall works is in Crawley ward and the airport in Wigmore, but the residential parts of those wards are in general middle of the road suburbia. Round Green includes the council estate of Tin Town (so called because it is a prefab estate with corrugated metal cladding) but most of the housing in this area is owner occupied. These are not in general upmarket neighbourhoods, but it is generally respectable – skilled working class and lower middle class with the housing ranging from inter-war semis further in to post war housing further out especially in Wigmore. All these wards have a significant White majority (though Wigmore is the only one of the Luton wards in this seat where White British are still in a majority (63%). Wigmore contains quite a bit of newer (1980s) private housing.
Politically these areas differ from the rest of the seat in that this whole area has been one of very longstanding Lib Dem strength in local elections. Wigmore and the departing Stopsley ward are overwhelmingly strong for them – even voting easily for them in 2015. It must be the case that a large number of those who vote Lib Dem locally here vote Conservative nationally – at least when the Conservatives were able to win this seat, they will have drawn a heavy vote from wards like Wigmore and Stopsley.
Of course, they have not won this seat for over 30 years now and are not likely to anytime soon. Labour came under some pressure here in 2005 following the Iraq war and even more so in 2010 when Margaret Moran, the MP since 1997 was guilty of expenses fraud. There was a wide array of challengers that year, with the BBC naturally focussing mainly on their own employee, Esther Rantzen who stood as an Independent. The voters here had other ideas about her relevance however and she lost her deposit. The Lib Dems maintained their fairly strong share from 2005 (more so perhaps by eating into Labour’s muslim support base than by mobilising their local election vote from wards like Wigmore) and the Conservatives came in a fairly close second behind the new Labour MP Gavin Shuker.
Gavin Shuker won the following two elections easily before himself resigning the Labour whip in protest at Corbyn’s leadership. Having gone through various different changes of label, he finished up defending his seat as an Independent with Lib Dem endorsement but failed to get as much as 10% of the vote as Rachel Hopkins (daughter of the former Luton North MP) retook the seat easily.
It appears that defection or expulsion is the only way to get rid of Labour MPs in Luton these days. Both Rachel Hopkins and Sarah Owens in Luton North resigned from the Labour front bench over Gaza and we have seen here and elsewhere the convulsions that may be caused amongst Muslim voters when their foreign policy interests override domestic concerns. But even so there is no other likely challengers here. The Conservatives who could win this seat in the 1980s and 1990s have shown no signs of recovery, flatlining at around the same 31% they won in 1997 in every subsequent election.
The addition of a few thousand rural voters in ‘South Bedfordshire’ will boost their percentage a little but is in no way enough to put them in contention again.
Both Luton seats were below quota but Luton South in itself would have been brought into quota simply by realigning with new ward boundaries, that is to say the rural Caddington ward of Central Bedfordshire had itself expanded to include several villages west of the A5.
The problem was that Luton North was also undersized. The traditional remedy for this was to add parts of Dunstable or Houghton Regis to that seat but previous attempts have garnered massive opposition – it appears that on this occasion the Boundary Commission gave up on the idea and instead brought Luton North into quota by adding Stopsley ward from Luton South. This necessitated further expansion of that seat into rural territory, in this case the Eaton Bray ward which is on the other side of Dunstable and reaches the outskirts of Leighton Buzzard.
Perhaps the more genteel residents of this area were less vociferous in their opposition to being included in a Luton seat.
There are indeed some very pleasant and indeed wealthy villages in this area. Caddington itself and Slip End, which have been in this seat since 1983, are fairly functional villages, just across the M1 from Luton itself, but strongly Conservative nonetheless. The part of Caddington ward west of the A5 includes wealthy villages like Studham and Kensworth and attractions such as Whipsnade Zoo and the Dunstable Downs in attractive Chiltern countryside. Eaton Bray is similar and together these ‘South Bedfordshire’ areas provide a strongly Conservative counterbalance to ‘Luton South’ – but there are just over 11,000 rural voters against nearly 60,000 in Luton itself and the latter is strongly Labour now so this will remain a safe Labour seat.
Luton South dates to 1983 but was based on the former Luton East which in turn was based on the single Luton seat which existed before 1974 (almost all the pre-74 Luton seat is now in this one). Luton was almost a bellwether – Conservative (actually National Liberal) from 1950 until Labour gained the seat in a 1963 by-election, then Labour until 1970, Conservative again until 1974. Luton East was Labour in both 1974 elections and gained by the Conservatives in 1979. Luton South continued the tradition being marginally Conservative until 1997 when Labour gained the seat easily and have now held it ever since, only appearing marginal in the rather peculiar circumstances of 2010.
Luton South contains all the areas most associated with the town in the public imagination – the airport, the now ex- Vauxhall motor plant and the (also former) Arndale Centre. Luton boomed in the inter-war years with the growth of the motor industry and attracted migrants from across the country and since WW2 has attracted immigrants from around the world. There is a large Irish population and since the 1950s largescale immigration from the Caribbean and especially South Asia. This has been augmented in the 21st Century by a considerable East European population.
As of the 2021 census a majority of Luton’s population are non-white and less than a third are White British – less than the 37% who are Asian. The Asian population has now spread across the whole town but there remains a significant concentration in the Bury Park area North and West of the town centre – the wards of Biscot and Dallow. Here 70% of the population is Asian – mostly Pakistani and Bangladeshi and two-thirds are muslim (only 7.5% of the population is White British – compare with over 90% in Eaton Bray). This is a deprived area with most of the population living in dingy Victorian terraced housing, a mix of owner-occupied and privately rented. These two wards are usually overwhelmingly Labour in general elections – usually in local elections too, although given their nature Labour can face occasional challenges from ‘community’ based Independents and the Lib Dems did well here following the Iraq war.
The other wards surrounding the town centre are more genuinely diverse. Farley ward to the West includes some areas of Victorian terraced housing close to the town centre followed by some inter war semis a little further out. Further out still is the large post-war council estate of Farley Hill and beyond that, hard against the M1 the new Newlands Park development. This diversity of housing types is also reflected in the ethnic composition. White British are the largest group but at only just over 30% with Asians just below 30% and large numbers of ‘White Others’, Blacks and others. Farley Hill itself dominates the ward politically and this has always been a very safe Labour ward. In May 2023 no other party even contested the ward.
The next-door South ward also has a range of housing types and ethnic groups. In the far South of the ward around Capability Green is a quite wealthy residential area. Heading along London Road towards the town centre it goes downhill rapidly, both literally and figuratively. The New Town area contains industrial parks dispersed amongst Victorian terraced housing and Park Town is an inner-city neighbourhood which combines similar areas with grim tower block estates. Here the White British population is barely a quarter of the population and is outnumbered by White Other but also with a sizeable Asian minority and the largest Black population in Luton South. Within the ring road, South also includes the whole of the town centre, which is actually reasonably presentable all things considered (at the time of writing there is a new Central ward covering this area but for these purposes we will discuss the pre-existing wards as these are the building blocks which were used to create this constituency).
The final ward abutting the town centre is High Town which lies to the East and North. This was historically the middle class and Conservative end of the town and there are still some very pleasant residential areas in the north of the ward around Wardown park. Most of High Town itself is grotty now though and includes Luton’s main red-light area. Close to the railway there is again a mixture of Victorian terraces and council flats. The ethnic composition is similar to that of South ward. The Conservatives have not won here for decades now.
The remaining area of Luton South is quite different to that so far discussed. This is the area roughly to the East of Hitchin Road and to the North of the airport and covering the wards of Crawley, Round Green and Wigmore (before the latest boundary changes it also included Stopsley). There is a lot of industry here – the former Vauxhall works is in Crawley ward and the airport in Wigmore, but the residential parts of those wards are in general middle of the road suburbia. Round Green includes the council estate of Tin Town (so called because it is a prefab estate with corrugated metal cladding) but most of the housing in this area is owner occupied. These are not in general upmarket neighbourhoods, but it is generally respectable – skilled working class and lower middle class with the housing ranging from inter-war semis further in to post war housing further out especially in Wigmore. All these wards have a significant White majority (though Wigmore is the only one of the Luton wards in this seat where White British are still in a majority (63%). Wigmore contains quite a bit of newer (1980s) private housing.
Politically these areas differ from the rest of the seat in that this whole area has been one of very longstanding Lib Dem strength in local elections. Wigmore and the departing Stopsley ward are overwhelmingly strong for them – even voting easily for them in 2015. It must be the case that a large number of those who vote Lib Dem locally here vote Conservative nationally – at least when the Conservatives were able to win this seat, they will have drawn a heavy vote from wards like Wigmore and Stopsley.
Of course, they have not won this seat for over 30 years now and are not likely to anytime soon. Labour came under some pressure here in 2005 following the Iraq war and even more so in 2010 when Margaret Moran, the MP since 1997 was guilty of expenses fraud. There was a wide array of challengers that year, with the BBC naturally focussing mainly on their own employee, Esther Rantzen who stood as an Independent. The voters here had other ideas about her relevance however and she lost her deposit. The Lib Dems maintained their fairly strong share from 2005 (more so perhaps by eating into Labour’s muslim support base than by mobilising their local election vote from wards like Wigmore) and the Conservatives came in a fairly close second behind the new Labour MP Gavin Shuker.
Gavin Shuker won the following two elections easily before himself resigning the Labour whip in protest at Corbyn’s leadership. Having gone through various different changes of label, he finished up defending his seat as an Independent with Lib Dem endorsement but failed to get as much as 10% of the vote as Rachel Hopkins (daughter of the former Luton North MP) retook the seat easily.
It appears that defection or expulsion is the only way to get rid of Labour MPs in Luton these days. Both Rachel Hopkins and Sarah Owens in Luton North resigned from the Labour front bench over Gaza and we have seen here and elsewhere the convulsions that may be caused amongst Muslim voters when their foreign policy interests override domestic concerns. But even so there is no other likely challengers here. The Conservatives who could win this seat in the 1980s and 1990s have shown no signs of recovery, flatlining at around the same 31% they won in 1997 in every subsequent election.
The addition of a few thousand rural voters in ‘South Bedfordshire’ will boost their percentage a little but is in no way enough to put them in contention again.
