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Wolverhampton South West (UK Parliament constituency)

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County
  
West Midlands

Created
  
1950

Major settlement
  
Wolverhampton

Electorate
  
59,846 (December 2010)

Major settlements
  
Wolverhampton

Member of parliament
  
Rob Marris

Number of members
  
1

European Parliament constituency
  
West Midlands

Wolverhampton South West (UK Parliament constituency)

Wolverhampton South West is a borough constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It elects one Member of Parliament (MP) by the first past the post system of election.

Contents

Boundaries

1950-1955: The County Borough of Wolverhampton wards of Blakenhall and St John's, Graiseley, Penn, St George's, St Mark's and Merridale, St Matthew's, and St Philip's.

1955-1974: The County Borough of Wolverhampton wards of Blakenhall and St John's, Graiseley, Park, Penn, St George's, St Mark's and Merridale, St Matthew's, and St Philip's.

1974-1983: The County Borough of Wolverhampton wards of Graiseley, Merry Hill, Park, Penn, St Peter's, Tettenhall Regis, and Tettenhall Wightwick.

1983-2010: The Metropolitan Borough of Wolverhampton wards of Graiseley, Merry Hill, Park, Penn, St Peter's, Tettenhall Regis, and Tettenhall Wightwick.

2010–present: The City of Wolverhampton wards of Graiseley, Merry Hill, Park, Penn, St Peter's, Tettenhall Regis, and Tettenhall Wightwick.

Wolverhampton South West is one of three constituencies covering the city of Wolverhampton, covering the city centre (including the University and Civic Centre) as well as western and south-western parts of the city. The boundaries run south from the city centre towards Penn and north-west towards Tettenhall.

Constituency profile

This hyper-marginal seat contains a mix of different areas; St Peter's, Graiseley and Park are relatively deprived inner city wards, with significant ethnic minority populations, mainly of Asian origin and are Labour voting-areas. Penn and Merry Hill are more mixed and suburban with mostly Conservative voters. Tettenhall Regis and Tettenhall Wightwick are affluent suburbs on the western fringe of the West Midlands conurbation and are the strongest Tory wards in the seat.

The seat includes Molineux stadium, home to Wolverhampton Wanderers F.C..

History

Wolverhampton South West was once regarded as a Conservative safe seat until Labour gained it in their 1997 landslide.

The constituency is heavily associated with the controversial Conservative politician Enoch Powell who was MP for the seat from 1950 until 1974, when he departed to the Ulster Unionist Party. It was during this time that he served in Ted Heath's shadow cabinet, from which he was dismissed in 1968 after his controversial Rivers of Blood speech in which he predicted severe civil unrest if mass immigration from the Commonwealth continued. This speech was reportedly the result of Powell's meeting with a woman in the constituency who was the last white person living in her street.

He was succeeded by fellow Conservative Nicholas Budgen, who held the seat until 1997. Budgen is best known as one of the Maastricht rebels of the mid 1990s. He was defeated in the 1997 election by Labour's Jenny Jones, the seat being one of many gained by Labour from the Conservatives in that election. As the next general election loomed, she announced that she would not be seeking re-election. From the 2001 general election, the constituency was represented by Rob Marris of the Labour Party for nine years until he lost it in the 2010 general election to Paul Uppal of the Conservative Party, who coincidentally had exactly the same numerical majority (691) as Powell did in 1950. Marris regained the seat from Uppal at the 2015 general election.

References

Wolverhampton South West (UK Parliament constituency) Wikipedia