Battersea (UK Parliament constituency)

Boundaries

1885-1918: Wards 2 and 3 of Battersea Parish, and that part of No. 4 Ward bounded on the south by Battersea Rise, and on the east by St John's Road.

1983-2010: The London Borough of Wandsworth wards of Balham, Fairfield, Latchmere, Northcote, Queenstown, St John, St Mary's Park, and Shaftesbury.

2010–present: As above, with the exclusion of St John.

Less densely populated with adult electors than late Victorian times and covering the north-eastern third of the London Borough of Wandsworth, Battersea as drawn and redrawn since 1983 includes central Wandsworth and in the same way as Chelsea on the opposite bank, adjoins the Thames before flowing through central London.

It takes in all of the district of Battersea including its large Battersea Park which hosts frequent live entertainment events and seasonal festivals, riverside and London Heliport and stretches eastwards to include Nine Elms and surrounding the Park: Queenstown; generally widely known large neighbourhoods of Battersea Town; and westwards to include most of Wandsworth town, including the riverside, Town Hall and East Hill. Battersea also stretches south between Wandsworth Common and Clapham Common to include Balham Ward, the eastern end of Balham (the west for General Elections being placed since 1983 in Tooting).

Constituency profile

From as early as 1892 the Liberal-Labour (UK) party prominent national politician John Burns represented the area in Parliament and the area was noted for affluent streets alongside Clapham Common counterbalanced by slum clearances in the early and mid twentieth century, accelerated by the Blitz which like Camberwell, Lambeth and Southwark destroyed a moderate number of buildings in the area and led to a marked redistribution of poor to social housing in Outer London and beyond.

Council housing of unaesthetic high-rise flats is concentrated by the South West Main Line some of them prefabricated buildings however a majority of the housing stock is privately owned or rented. While in the early 20th century Battersea was among the most secure Labour safe seat, since the 1970s the constituency has been home to a majority of wealthy or middle-income professionals, and tradespeople, and the Conservatives lacking an MP in the area since 1964 gained John Bowis in 1987 who served the area until 1997. A considerable majority returned to Labour for the elections of 1997, 2001 but only a very marginal majority in 2005 and the Conservative Party's Jane Ellison won the seat in Parliament in 2010 with a majority of 5977 votes, increasing her majority to over 8000 in 2015. As, like the government, the seat did not fall to a Conservative Party candidate in 2005 (unlike, for example, Putney) but fell to a member of that party in 2010 (unlike, for example, Tooting), Battersea is a national bellwether constituency since 1987.

From 1997 to 2010, the seat was bordered by the constituencies of:

History

The Redistribution of Seats Act 1885 provided that the Constituency was to consist of-

Battersea constituency was originally created in 1885. From 1892 to 1918 the seat was held by trade union leader John Burns who served as a Minister (of the Crown) in the Liberal Cabinets of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman and H. H. Asquith from 1905 until 1914.

The constituency was split in 1918 into:

The two constituencies were rejoined in 1983, although some areas of Battersea South became part of the adjoining Tooting constituency. Alf Dubs (L) before the election incumbent for Battersea South, won the constituency in 1983. Conservative John Bowis won in the next elections, 1987 and 1992. Martin Linton stole it back within the Labour Party in 1997 and held the seat until 2010.

Trivia

In 2001, the candidate T.E Barber used the candidate description "No fruit out of context party", and advocated the end of, amongst other crimes against food, pineapples on pizza. (David Boothroyd)

In the book "Things Can Only Get Better: Eighteen Miserable Years in the Life of a Labour Supporter," John O'Farrell describes his experiences of being the secretary of Queenstown Branch of the Battersea Labour party, during which time Labour lost every election in which they participated, and in 1987 their MP, Alf Dubs.

Benefiting from an exclusivity arrangement, the old Battersea North seat was one of two seats in London to have had a Communist MP: Shapurji Saklatvala represented the area from 1922 to 1929. A wealthy aristocratic Indian he was among the five Communists elected to the national chamber in its history and was the third of the young Socialist Labour/Communist/Labour parties from an ethnic minority background. At first, Saklatvala had local Labour party support and was also a member of that party but then stood as a Communist in 1924 with local Labour party backing. The head office of the less radical Labour party mandated an official Labour candidate stand against him in 1929. The Battersea Labour Club (a drinking club not directly connected with the political party) had a notice on its notice board up until the 1980s banning Communists from admission to the club.