County Greater London Created 1918 | Electorate 79,172 (December 2010) Number of members One | |
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Major settlements Twickenham, Whitton, Hampton and Teddington Member of parliament Tania Mathias (Conservative) | ||
Twickenham is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2015 by Tania Mathias, a member of the Conservative Party.
Contents
Boundaries
1918–1945: The Urban Districts of Heston and Isleworth, and Twickenham.
1945: boundaries substantially changed - losing territory in the north to form Heston and Isleworth, gaining territory from Spelthorne to the south including Hampton, Teddington, Hampton Wick, Hampton Court Park and Bushy Park
1945–1974: The Municipal Borough of Twickenham.
Since 1974 formed from similar wards in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames as follows:1974–1983: Central Twickenham, East Twickenham, Hampton, Hampton Hill, Hampton Wick, Heathfield, South Twickenham, Teddington, West Twickenham, and Whitton.
1983–1997: Central Twickenham, Hampton, Hampton Hill, Hampton Nursery, Hampton Wick, Heathfield, South Twickenham, Teddington, West Twickenham, and Whitton.
1997–2010: Central Twickenham, East Twickenham, Hampton, Hampton Hill, Hampton Nursery, Hampton Wick, Heathfield, South Twickenham, Teddington, West Twickenham, and Whitton.
2010–present: The London Borough of Richmond upon Thames wards of Fulwell and Hampton Hill, Hampton, Hampton North, Hampton Wick, Heathfield, St Margaret's and North Twickenham, South Twickenham, Teddington, Twickenham Riverside, West Twickenham, and Whitton.
The seat covers the south western half of the London Borough of Richmond, that part of the borough on the north bank of the River Thames. It chiefly contains the towns or London districts of Twickenham, Hampton, Teddington and Whitton. Smaller sub-localities by order of commercial activity are Hampton Hill, Hampton Wick, St Margarets, Fulwell, Strawberry Hill and Hampton Court hamlet proper. Features includes Hampton Court Palace, Bushy Park (one of the Royal Parks of London), and the Rugby Football Union's national ground, Twickenham Stadium.
History of boundaries
During this period the Hamptons (Hampton, Hampton Hill, Hampton Court and Hampton Wick) and Teddington were excluded from the seat, which instead contained two urban districts to the north of subsequent boundaries, Isleworth and Hounslow, an area at the time with key economic sectors of construction, brewing, warehousing and goods transportation. As such these areas had some support for the Labour Party, who in their best result in the seat, lost the 1929 by-election in the seat by 503 votes (1.6% of the vote).
In 1945, the area saw as an unusual corollary to its shift southwards, the swing nationally, of +11.7% (Con-to-Lab) converted in the more strongly middle-class redefined seat to a major cut in the 24% Conservative majority swinging −15.3% to a Liberal opponent, George Granville Slack. From 1974 until seizing victory in 1997 the runner-up party became the Liberal Party or their successor, the Liberal Democrats and the ward boundaries became only slightly adjusted to reflect changes made in the borderlines made at the local level of government.
History
Twickenham was from 1931 until 1983 a safe seat of the Conservative Party and from 1983 until 1997 a marginal seat for that party. Liberal Democrat Vince Cable gained the seat at the 1997 landslide Conservative defeat and held it until 2015. The seat was one of very few in Britain that gave the Liberal Democrats a majority of votes in the 2005 and 2010 elections, their 6th best performance in 2010. Cable was Secretary of State for Business from 2010 to 2015, but unexpectedly lost his seat to the Conservative candidate Tania Mathias in the 2015 General Election, in which the Liberal Democrats lost all but eight of their seats.
Constituency profile
As described by the boundaries, the area enjoys substantial parkland and Thameside landscapes, coupled with a variety of commuter train services to Central London including semi-fast services from Twickenham itself to London Waterloo. Workless claimants, registered jobseekers, were in November 2012 significantly lower than the national average of 3.8%, at 1.7% of the population based on a statistical compilation by The Guardian.
Elections in the 2010s
Twickenham had the highest turnout in England and the fourth highest in the UK at the 7 May 2015 General Election.