Post by Robert Waller on Jan 15, 2024 0:45:39 GMT
Original profile by Merseymike, boundary change paragraph by Pete Whitehead, extensive updates and additions by myself
On being selected for Eccles for the 1987 election after losing the marginal Slough seat where she had been MP, Joan Lestor remarked that Eccles was a safe seat, something ‘Slough could never be’. Yet now, Slough is remarkable in being a safe Labour seat in one of the Home Counties, albeit far from the bucolic image that might be formed from that location. Amusingly, Slough had remained a Labour seat for most of the post-war era when paired with Eton, but when the stand-alone seat based just on the borough was created in 1983, the Conservatives won, and continued to hold the seat until 1997. But since then Labour have never looked like losing – their weakest result was in 2010 where the majority slipped to 5,523, but the last two elections have seen five figure majorities and 63% and 57 % vote shares for Labour and its MP, Tan Dhesi, the first turbaned Sikh in the House of Commons.
As the Boundary Commission started the work that led to its 2023 report, Berkshire is entitled to nine seats and a new seat is created in the centre of the county, in the Reading suburbs. Most of the remaining constituencies remain more or less intact but with varying degrees of changes to accommodate the new seat. Slough itself is well over-quota and donates two wards to Windsor in the form of Foxborough and Langley Kedermister. These wards are, on aggregate, a little whiter and a little more Conservative than Slough as a whole but still would have put Labour clearly ahead. Thus the result is a notionally reduced numerical 2019 majority, but a slightly increased percentage lead.
Slough’s population, though perhaps not yet its electorate, sees it classed as a ‘minority-majority’ seat, and with the Sikh population at 10% of the population, is one of the ten highest concentrations in Britain. The Muslim, mostly British-born population is the fastest growing. The seat consists of wards entirely within the borough of Slough, and all but one ward of the borough are in this seat. The changing ethnic mix of the borough has meant that some of the central wards which were once Tory-leaning, are now generally strongly Labour, and other wards with large ethnic minority populations are also safely Labour at local level. The wards where the Conservatives have been most competitive are the safe Haymill ward, where they have held all three councillors continuously since 2014, and the two Langley wards and those in the Upton neighbourhood, which have nevertheless been won by Labour other than in a good year for the Tories. All of those wards are whiter, though in the case of Langley, not necessarily more middle class. The remainder of the wards have normally been safe Labour at a local level, and in recent elections, nationally as well.
The reason why the judgments in the wards in the previous paragraph have been qualified by words such as ‘generally’ and ‘normally’ is that there was a very abnormal set of council elections in Slough in May 2023, when at a time when the Conservatives were in retreat across most of the country, and lost over 1,000 council seats net, they enjoyed their best results here since 1976 – as then, the Tories returned 27 councillors, which represented a gain of 15, while Labour lost 17 and plummeted to a new total of 18, their lowest since 2004. The reason is clear – the Labour run council had been declared bankrupt in 2021, and 2023 was an all-out election on new ward boundaries, which offered the opportunity for a thorough expression of local views.
The only wards that Labour retained outright were ‘the’ Britwell - site of the largest and predominantly white social housing estate in the borough, at the northern edge of Slough – and also Farnham, Manor Park & Stoke, Baylis & Salt Hill (all in north east Slough), Herschel Park (just south of the town centre and more generally regarded as part of Upton, as it includes Upton Hospital and Upton Park Road) and Langley Foxborough which is being moved to Windsor in the boundary changes. Labour did win one seat out of two in several wards which were close enough for representation to be divided: the new wards of Cippenham Manor and Northborough shared with the Tories, and Cippenham Village shared with the Liberal Democrats. However, the Lib Dems did gain both seats in Elliman ward, their first ever victories there. On the other hand, the Tories gained some wards where they have had almost no previous success: Cippenham Green for the first time since 2004, Chalvey (first since 2008), Slough Central (2007) and Wexham Court (no previous win in at least the last 50 years).
Overall, the May 2023 local election results add up to 43.9% Conservative and 42.2% Labour. However, no one really expects a 2024 general election to repeat this pattern, which was clearly a verdict on the Labour council, not on the Conservative national government.
The parts of Slough that are most heavily Asian in the 2021 Census findings are in its north and north eastern quadrants (if we take Langley, which is at the east end of the borough, as a separate community from Slough itself). The highest figure in an MSOA is that for Wexham Road, 64.7%. There are also majority Asian populations in Baylis & Stoke (63.7%), Elliman due north of the town centre (55%), the town centre itself (Central Slough & Upton Court (53%), Wexham Lea (55%) and Chalvey south of the A4 (52%). The most consistent Conservative area, Haymill & Lynch Mill, at the far west end of Slough town towards Burnham, is also the one of least Asian (28%), although even fewer are to be found in one of the most consistent Labour areas, Britwell (north west corner) at 26%. Britwell is, however the only MSOA with more than 10% black residents (10.9%). Generally speaking, Muslims and Sikhs live in the same census areas, so no MSOA recorded more than 50% Muslims in 2021, the highest figure being 48.8% in Baylis & Stoke, though there was some favouring by Sikhs of the Manor Park area, which recorded the highest number (16.6%) though even there more Muslims (32%) were to be found.
Generally there was something of a relationship between White residence and the social housing tenure sector – the highest concentration of which is 39% in Britwell, though there are still substantial blocs in Wexham Lea (26%) and the departing Langley Kedermister (27%). The private rented sector grew in most parts of England and Wales between the 2011 and 2021 censuses, but Slough as a whole recorded one of the higher increases. This is most apparent in the town centre, where in 2021 nearly half of all housing was privately rented: 49% in Elliman MSOA, 48% in Chalvey, 43% in Central Slough & Upton court (but much more in the first named part).
A majority of households were deprived in at least one dimension everywhere except for Langley St Mary’s, with the highest figures being 66% in Baylis & Stoke, and 64% in Chalvey and Manor Park. Overall Slough is into the bottom quartile for professional and managerial workers, with the highest numbers being in Langley St Mary’s (38%, for example in the detached housing along Sutton Avenue) and Central Slough & Upton Court (34%, boosted by the latter section, especially the Lascelles Road - Quaves Road - Park Lane triangle in Upton Court). It is worth taking a tour along these roads (if necessary by Google street view) if one thinks Slough entirely consists of being a dump. It might also be noted that 60% to 80% of the residents of these favoured roads are Asian.
Also, those familiar with the Asian communities’ stress on education will not be surprised to find that these most upmarket areas of Slough also report around 50% with Level 4 educational qualifications - at least degree level. Overall Langley St Mary’s and Central Slough & Upton Court have the highest levels of such graduates across the whole MSOA, both around 45%. By comparison that in the most affluent white area, Haymill & Lynch Hill, is 35%. There are no areas of Slough with a conspicuously low terminal education age, and the seat as a whole is well into the top half as far as higher educational qualifications are concerned. This has, of course, recently been another indicator that correlates with national Labour party support.
Undoubtedly the changing ethnic make-up of Slough has had an influence on its politics. Its days as a marginal suggested that there was a strong presence of working class Conservatives in the seat, and the wards where they remain in contention suggest that has not changed, but that the greater propensity of the BME population to vote Labour both locally and nationally has and continues to provide Labour with its comfortable majority.
Slough has been somewhat the butt of a variety of forms of the arts and entertainment: not just the famous line of Betjeman in 1937, but chosen as the location of The Office by Ricky Gervais and as a running gag in Mick Herron’s successful and highly skilful series of spy novels about failed and rejected agents (‘slow horses’) whose workplace is contemptuously known as Slough House. Slough is not a pretty place – it is one of the few places whose industrial and trading estate (which is massive and well known for iconic buildings such as the Mars chocolate factory) runs through the centre of the town – and it has a very workmanlike and functional ‘feel’. Indeed, it is far more like some of its nearby London seats in its composition. Its politics are also likely to remain closer to the Labour seats of west London, than the nearby Berks and Bucks seats, for the foreseeable future.
2021 Census, new boundaries
Age 65+ 9.7% 546/575
Owner occupied 50.0% 504/575
Private rented 31.7% 58/575 large increase since 2011
Social rented 18.3% 196/575
White 35.1% 562/575
Black 7.5% 89/575
Asian 47.8% 10/575
White British 23.0% 558/575
'White Other' 11.0% 70/575
Muslim 31.1% 19/575
Sikh 11.4% 8/575
Managerial & professional 27.3% 442/575
Routine & Semi-routine 24.7% 251/575
Degree level 34.9% 210/575
No qualifications 20.4% 173/575
Students 8.5%, 139/575
General Election 2019: Slough
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Labour Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi 29,421 57.6 -5.3
Conservative Kanwal Toor Gill 15,781 30.9 -0.7
Liberal Democrats Aaron Chahal 3,357 6.6 +4.2
Brexit Party Delphine Grey-Fisk 1,432 2.8 New
Green Julian Edmonds 1,047 2.1 New
Lab Majority 13,640 26.7 -4.6
2019 electorate 87,632
Turnout 51,038 58.2 -7.2
Labour hold Swing -2.3
Boundary Changes
Slough consists of
89.4% of Slough
Map
boundarycommissionforengland.independent.gov.uk/review2023/9bc0b2ea-7915-4997-9d4a-3e313c0ceb51/south-east/South%20East_359_Slough_Landscape.pdf
Notional result 2019 (Rallings & Thrasher)
On being selected for Eccles for the 1987 election after losing the marginal Slough seat where she had been MP, Joan Lestor remarked that Eccles was a safe seat, something ‘Slough could never be’. Yet now, Slough is remarkable in being a safe Labour seat in one of the Home Counties, albeit far from the bucolic image that might be formed from that location. Amusingly, Slough had remained a Labour seat for most of the post-war era when paired with Eton, but when the stand-alone seat based just on the borough was created in 1983, the Conservatives won, and continued to hold the seat until 1997. But since then Labour have never looked like losing – their weakest result was in 2010 where the majority slipped to 5,523, but the last two elections have seen five figure majorities and 63% and 57 % vote shares for Labour and its MP, Tan Dhesi, the first turbaned Sikh in the House of Commons.
As the Boundary Commission started the work that led to its 2023 report, Berkshire is entitled to nine seats and a new seat is created in the centre of the county, in the Reading suburbs. Most of the remaining constituencies remain more or less intact but with varying degrees of changes to accommodate the new seat. Slough itself is well over-quota and donates two wards to Windsor in the form of Foxborough and Langley Kedermister. These wards are, on aggregate, a little whiter and a little more Conservative than Slough as a whole but still would have put Labour clearly ahead. Thus the result is a notionally reduced numerical 2019 majority, but a slightly increased percentage lead.
Slough’s population, though perhaps not yet its electorate, sees it classed as a ‘minority-majority’ seat, and with the Sikh population at 10% of the population, is one of the ten highest concentrations in Britain. The Muslim, mostly British-born population is the fastest growing. The seat consists of wards entirely within the borough of Slough, and all but one ward of the borough are in this seat. The changing ethnic mix of the borough has meant that some of the central wards which were once Tory-leaning, are now generally strongly Labour, and other wards with large ethnic minority populations are also safely Labour at local level. The wards where the Conservatives have been most competitive are the safe Haymill ward, where they have held all three councillors continuously since 2014, and the two Langley wards and those in the Upton neighbourhood, which have nevertheless been won by Labour other than in a good year for the Tories. All of those wards are whiter, though in the case of Langley, not necessarily more middle class. The remainder of the wards have normally been safe Labour at a local level, and in recent elections, nationally as well.
The reason why the judgments in the wards in the previous paragraph have been qualified by words such as ‘generally’ and ‘normally’ is that there was a very abnormal set of council elections in Slough in May 2023, when at a time when the Conservatives were in retreat across most of the country, and lost over 1,000 council seats net, they enjoyed their best results here since 1976 – as then, the Tories returned 27 councillors, which represented a gain of 15, while Labour lost 17 and plummeted to a new total of 18, their lowest since 2004. The reason is clear – the Labour run council had been declared bankrupt in 2021, and 2023 was an all-out election on new ward boundaries, which offered the opportunity for a thorough expression of local views.
The only wards that Labour retained outright were ‘the’ Britwell - site of the largest and predominantly white social housing estate in the borough, at the northern edge of Slough – and also Farnham, Manor Park & Stoke, Baylis & Salt Hill (all in north east Slough), Herschel Park (just south of the town centre and more generally regarded as part of Upton, as it includes Upton Hospital and Upton Park Road) and Langley Foxborough which is being moved to Windsor in the boundary changes. Labour did win one seat out of two in several wards which were close enough for representation to be divided: the new wards of Cippenham Manor and Northborough shared with the Tories, and Cippenham Village shared with the Liberal Democrats. However, the Lib Dems did gain both seats in Elliman ward, their first ever victories there. On the other hand, the Tories gained some wards where they have had almost no previous success: Cippenham Green for the first time since 2004, Chalvey (first since 2008), Slough Central (2007) and Wexham Court (no previous win in at least the last 50 years).
Overall, the May 2023 local election results add up to 43.9% Conservative and 42.2% Labour. However, no one really expects a 2024 general election to repeat this pattern, which was clearly a verdict on the Labour council, not on the Conservative national government.
The parts of Slough that are most heavily Asian in the 2021 Census findings are in its north and north eastern quadrants (if we take Langley, which is at the east end of the borough, as a separate community from Slough itself). The highest figure in an MSOA is that for Wexham Road, 64.7%. There are also majority Asian populations in Baylis & Stoke (63.7%), Elliman due north of the town centre (55%), the town centre itself (Central Slough & Upton Court (53%), Wexham Lea (55%) and Chalvey south of the A4 (52%). The most consistent Conservative area, Haymill & Lynch Mill, at the far west end of Slough town towards Burnham, is also the one of least Asian (28%), although even fewer are to be found in one of the most consistent Labour areas, Britwell (north west corner) at 26%. Britwell is, however the only MSOA with more than 10% black residents (10.9%). Generally speaking, Muslims and Sikhs live in the same census areas, so no MSOA recorded more than 50% Muslims in 2021, the highest figure being 48.8% in Baylis & Stoke, though there was some favouring by Sikhs of the Manor Park area, which recorded the highest number (16.6%) though even there more Muslims (32%) were to be found.
Generally there was something of a relationship between White residence and the social housing tenure sector – the highest concentration of which is 39% in Britwell, though there are still substantial blocs in Wexham Lea (26%) and the departing Langley Kedermister (27%). The private rented sector grew in most parts of England and Wales between the 2011 and 2021 censuses, but Slough as a whole recorded one of the higher increases. This is most apparent in the town centre, where in 2021 nearly half of all housing was privately rented: 49% in Elliman MSOA, 48% in Chalvey, 43% in Central Slough & Upton court (but much more in the first named part).
A majority of households were deprived in at least one dimension everywhere except for Langley St Mary’s, with the highest figures being 66% in Baylis & Stoke, and 64% in Chalvey and Manor Park. Overall Slough is into the bottom quartile for professional and managerial workers, with the highest numbers being in Langley St Mary’s (38%, for example in the detached housing along Sutton Avenue) and Central Slough & Upton Court (34%, boosted by the latter section, especially the Lascelles Road - Quaves Road - Park Lane triangle in Upton Court). It is worth taking a tour along these roads (if necessary by Google street view) if one thinks Slough entirely consists of being a dump. It might also be noted that 60% to 80% of the residents of these favoured roads are Asian.
Also, those familiar with the Asian communities’ stress on education will not be surprised to find that these most upmarket areas of Slough also report around 50% with Level 4 educational qualifications - at least degree level. Overall Langley St Mary’s and Central Slough & Upton Court have the highest levels of such graduates across the whole MSOA, both around 45%. By comparison that in the most affluent white area, Haymill & Lynch Hill, is 35%. There are no areas of Slough with a conspicuously low terminal education age, and the seat as a whole is well into the top half as far as higher educational qualifications are concerned. This has, of course, recently been another indicator that correlates with national Labour party support.
Undoubtedly the changing ethnic make-up of Slough has had an influence on its politics. Its days as a marginal suggested that there was a strong presence of working class Conservatives in the seat, and the wards where they remain in contention suggest that has not changed, but that the greater propensity of the BME population to vote Labour both locally and nationally has and continues to provide Labour with its comfortable majority.
Slough has been somewhat the butt of a variety of forms of the arts and entertainment: not just the famous line of Betjeman in 1937, but chosen as the location of The Office by Ricky Gervais and as a running gag in Mick Herron’s successful and highly skilful series of spy novels about failed and rejected agents (‘slow horses’) whose workplace is contemptuously known as Slough House. Slough is not a pretty place – it is one of the few places whose industrial and trading estate (which is massive and well known for iconic buildings such as the Mars chocolate factory) runs through the centre of the town – and it has a very workmanlike and functional ‘feel’. Indeed, it is far more like some of its nearby London seats in its composition. Its politics are also likely to remain closer to the Labour seats of west London, than the nearby Berks and Bucks seats, for the foreseeable future.
2021 Census, new boundaries
Age 65+ 9.7% 546/575
Owner occupied 50.0% 504/575
Private rented 31.7% 58/575 large increase since 2011
Social rented 18.3% 196/575
White 35.1% 562/575
Black 7.5% 89/575
Asian 47.8% 10/575
White British 23.0% 558/575
'White Other' 11.0% 70/575
Muslim 31.1% 19/575
Sikh 11.4% 8/575
Managerial & professional 27.3% 442/575
Routine & Semi-routine 24.7% 251/575
Degree level 34.9% 210/575
No qualifications 20.4% 173/575
Students 8.5%, 139/575
General Election 2019: Slough
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Labour Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi 29,421 57.6 -5.3
Conservative Kanwal Toor Gill 15,781 30.9 -0.7
Liberal Democrats Aaron Chahal 3,357 6.6 +4.2
Brexit Party Delphine Grey-Fisk 1,432 2.8 New
Green Julian Edmonds 1,047 2.1 New
Lab Majority 13,640 26.7 -4.6
2019 electorate 87,632
Turnout 51,038 58.2 -7.2
Labour hold Swing -2.3
Boundary Changes
Slough consists of
89.4% of Slough
Map
boundarycommissionforengland.independent.gov.uk/review2023/9bc0b2ea-7915-4997-9d4a-3e313c0ceb51/south-east/South%20East_359_Slough_Landscape.pdf
Notional result 2019 (Rallings & Thrasher)
| Lab | 26790 | 58.8% |
| Con | 13443 | 29.5% |
| LD | 3099 | 6.8% |
| BxP | 1280 | 2.8% |
| Grn | 948 | 2.1% |
| Majority | 13347 | 29.3% |
