County Warwickshire Created 1950 Number of members One | Electorate 69,108 (December 2010) Number of members One | |
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Member of parliament Nadhim Zahawi (Conservative) | ||
Stratford-on-Avon is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2010 by Nadhim Zahawi, a Conservative.
Contents
Boundaries
1885-1918: The Municipal Boroughs of Leamington, Stratford-upon-Avon, and Warwick, the Sessional Divisions of Alcester, Brailes, Henley, Stratford, Snitterfield, and Warwick, and the part of the Sessional Division of Kenilworth in the Parliamentary Borough of Warwick and Leamington.
1950-1983: The Municipal Borough of Stratford-upon-Avon, and the Rural Districts of Alcester, Shipston-on-Stour, Southam, and Stratford-on-Avon.
1983-1997: The District of Stratford-on-Avon.
1997-2010: All the wards of the District of Stratford-on-Avon except the wards of Henley, Tanworth, and Tanworth Earlswood.
2010-present: The District of Stratford-on-Avon wards of Alcester, Aston Cantlow, Bardon, Bidford and Salford, Brailes, Claverdon, Ettington, Henley, Kinwarton, Long Compton, Quinton, Sambourne, Shipston, Snitterfield, Stratford Alveston, Stratford Avenue and New Town, Stratford Guild and Hathaway, Stratford Mount Pleasant, Studley, Tanworth, Tredington, Vale of the Red Horse, and Welford.
The constituency consists of relatively widely spaced rural villages, inhabited largely by commuters, with its boundaries taking in almost all of the Stratford-on-Avon local government district.
At the 2010 general election, following the Fifth Periodic Review of Westminster constituencies, this seat was reduced in size: a new constituency of Kenilworth and Southam was created, taking in much of the eastern half of the previous version of this constituency, along with parts of the abolished seat of Rugby and Kenilworth.
History
Since its recreation in 1950, the seat has elected only Conservatives. The earliest member was noted for his personal life scandal, John Profumo and one member for two years served on the benches of the Labour Party, choosing to cross the floor.
The Liberal Democrats have amassed the second largest share of the vote since 1992. The majority obtained in 2010 by Nadhim Zahawi was an absolute majority, with 51% of the vote and the largest since 1992. However, with the Labour vote down to 9.5%, this has also been the smallest majority since that date of 11,346 votes.
No minor parties have broken the keep-deposit threshold of 5% of the vote.
Constituency profile
The seat includes the historic town itself, as with Warwick, a major place in England for international tourism with its buildings, museums and Royal Shakespeare Company theatre, surrounded by green belt villages southeast of Birmingham, with the next largest wards being Studley and Alcester each with just under 5,000 electors.
Workless claimants, registered jobseekers, were in November 2012 significantly lower than the national average of 3.8%, at 1.4% of the population based on a statistical compilation by The Guardian.
Elections in the 1910s
General Election 1914/15:
Another General Election was required to take place before the end of 1915. The political parties had been making preparations for an election to take place and by the July 1914, the following candidates had been selected;