County Greater London Created 1945 European Parliament constituency London Number of members 1 | Electorate 69,135 (December 2010) Created from Harrow and Hendon Member of parliament Gareth Thomas Replaced by Harrow, Hendon | |
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Harrow West is a constituency created in 1945 represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament and which has returned the Labour Co-operative MP Gareth Thomas in the five General Elections from 1997 having previously returned Conservative MPs.
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Political history
The Labour Party have held the seat since 1997 with the Conservative Party second-placed in each election. The 2015 result makes the seat the 215th safest of the party's 232 seats (by majority percentage) thus 16th most marginal seat. Similarly the incumbent's majority has not exceeded 13.2% but has been lower at 2.3% in 1997.
Boundaries
The constituency was created for the 1945 General Election when the Harrow constituency was split into new seats of Harrow East and Harrow West. It was reduced in size for the 1950 General Election when a third Harrow seat, Harrow Central, was created. The Boundary Commission review before the 1983 General Election saw the London Borough of Harrow contained in two seats, resulting in Harrow West gaining parts of the abolished Harrow Central.
Unlike Harrow East, it had always been won by the Conservative Party until Labour's landslide in 1997 when a swing of 17.5% was the eighth highest swing in that election, and it was the safest Conservative seat to be lost to Labour. The constituency produced another better than average result for Labour in 2001 with a swing from Conservative to Labour of 5.4% or 5.5%, a pro-Labour swing bettered in only four seats and in 2005 a challenge by Mike Freer produced a pro-Conservative swing of 4.5%.
The area has the largely Georgian conservation area on a stand-alone partly park-lined hill which hosts Harrow School and includes more urban Harrow town centre and suburban streets of homes with good-sized gardens and well-kept small parklands. The seat has fast London Underground links to the city centre and rail services as well as few dual carriageways or high speed roads. Labour incumbent Tony McNulty lost the neighbouring Harrow East in 2010 to the Conservative Party, but Gareth Thomas retained his seat in Harrow West with a reduced majority.
Latest boundary review
Following their review of parliamentary representation in North London, the Boundary Commission for England have created a modified Harrow West constituency to reflect parts of Greater London where population has increased more. The western border district, town or neighbourhood of Pinner has been moved to a new constituency, Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner, making Harrow West based on 2005 ward voting statistics, and on local elections, a stronger Labour seat at the expense of the Conservatives than in 2005 — both two leading parties won fewer votes in 2010. Harrow West saw a notional swing in favour of the Conservative Party's Rachel Joyce of 5.7% in the election.