County Greater London European Parliament constituency London Number of members 1 | Electorate 62,153 (December 2010) Member of parliament Justine Greening | |
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Replaced by Wandsworth (abolished, divided into four) Created from Wandsworth (abolished, divided into four) | ||
Putney is a constituency created in 1918 represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2005 by Justine Greening of the Conservative Party, who has served as Secretary of State for Education since 14 July 2016.
Contents
The Putney constituency is usually among the earliest to return a result on many general election nights.
Boundaries
1918-1950: The Metropolitan Borough of Wandsworth wards of Putney and Southfields.
1950-1974: As above plus Fairfield ward.
1983-2010: The London Borough of Wandsworth wards of East Putney, Parkside, Roehampton, Southfields, Thamesfield, West Hill, and West Putney.
2010–present: As above less Parkside ward.
History
When created in 1918 the constituency was carved out of the west of the abolished seat Wandsworth. The rest of the latter formed Wandsworth Central, Balham and Tooting and Streatham. As across the country, the largely neglected four-or-five-word anachronism The Putney Divions of Wandsworth was officially abolished in 1983 on boundary alterations and replaced by the more commonplace shorthand, Putney.
The seat was Conservative until 1964, eschewing the Liberal Party in 1918 and the Labour marginal wins in the 1920s and landslide victory in 1945 and narrower win in 1950. The fairly narrow Heath ministry win of 1970 failed to tip the seat back to the Conservative Party, seeing instead 14 years of unbroken Labour party representation, by Hugh Jenkins.
Putney was next held by Conservative Secretary of State for National Heritage David Mellor from 1979 until 1997 during the party's national administrations; the 1997 Labour landslide saw Putney gained by Tony Colman (Lab) and a signal early-declared result as the landslide unfolded.
Putney was the first Conservative gain on election night in 2005, when Justine Greening took back the seat from Labour on a two-party swing (Lab-Con) of 6.5%. The 2015 result gave the seat the 148th most marginal majority of the Conservative Party's 331 seats by percentage of majority, similar to the 2010 result.
Constituency profile
Putney has long had many desirable properties of South-West London with Southfields to the south and the River Thames to the north with Fulham lying across the river.
The majority of the area as in the 19th century is covered by mid-to-high income neighbourhoods whereas the eastern boundary of the seat eating into Wandsworth town centre is more mixed, and Roehampton which has its University consists of, in terms of housing, by a small majority, a diverse council stock that owing to its cost has only fractionally been acquired under the Right to Buy — much of this ward remains in one form or another reliant on social housing.
The local council is not a bellwether of who will win the Putney seat, and for a considerable time has imposed the lowest council tax in the country. Between 1998 and 2005 Putney had a unique attribute of being the only seat in the country where every single component ward elected a full slate of Conservative councillors, yet the constituency had a Labour MP, Tony Colman.