North Southwark and Bermondsey (UK Parliament constituency)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| North Southwark and Bermondsey Borough constituency |
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| North Southwark and Bermondsey shown within Greater London | |
| Created: | 1997 |
| MP: | Simon Hughes |
| Party: | Liberal Democrat |
| Type: | House of Commons |
| County: | Greater London |
| EP constituency: | London |
North Southwark & Bermondsey is a Parliamentary Constituency in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that was created in 1997.
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[edit] Boundaries
As the name suggests, the seat incorporates large parts of the old Metropolitan Borough of Bermondsey and Metropolitan Borough of Southwark, within the modern London Borough of Southwark (which is much larger than historic Southwark).
The seat was created in 1997 and was primarily the successor seat to the old Southwark & Bermondsey constituency which existed from 1983 until 1997. Before that the core of the seat was the Bermondsey constituency in which incarnation a notorious by-election took place in 1983.
For the next United Kingdom general election, this constituency is to be replaced by a re-named but barely altered Bermondsey and Old Southwark.
[edit] History
For the detailed history of the equivalent constituency prior to 1997, please see Southwark & Bermondsey.
North Southwark & Bermondsey is unusual for an Inner London constituency in that it has been represented by a Liberal Democrat Member of Parliament (MP) for over twenty years. Many commentators feel that this unusual state of affairs is entirely down to the circumstances of the 1983 Bermondsey by-election. Prior to this, the seat had a long history of representation by Labour MPs, but in the early 1980s the local Labour Party was dominated by the far left. The sitting MP Bob Mellish was directly opposed to their approach and accepted an invitation to sit on the board directing the regeneration of London Docklands.
Bermondsey Constituency Labour Party selected its secretary Peter Tatchell. A magazine article he had written about direct action was used by a Social Democrat MP to embarrass Labour Party leader Michael Foot who impetuously denounced Tatchell and stated that he would not be endorsed, but the party was forced to accept him when Mellish resigned from the House of Commons, triggering a by-election widely regarded as one of the dirtiest in history. Tatchell came in for immense local and national vilification and in a shock result the Liberal candidate Simon Hughes established that his party had the best chance of the other candidates, and monopolised the anti-Tatchell vote.
Hughes has continued to win the seat, at times being the only Liberal Democrat MP in London. The Labour Party have a strong desire to regain the constituency, which has often been predicted to change hands on a uniform swing occurring in elections. However Hughes has repeatedly defied the national trend and retained the seat. On one memorable occasion during the results of the 1997 general election he was told on air by Jonathan Dimbleby that Labour had taken the seat, only for the result to give Hughes a good majority.
In local elections, the London Borough of Southwark is currently run by the Liberal Democrats but they have never won a majority. Following Boundary Commission changes to both sides of the Thames, this seat will not alter much in shape, but will change its name to Bermondsey and Old Southwark
[edit] Members of Parliament
Since the seat's creation, the Member of Parliament has been Simon Hughes of the Liberal Democrats, who has sat for the various Bermondsey seats since a by-election in 1983, as a Liberal MP until 1988 and then as a Liberal Democrat since then.
[edit] Results
| General Election 2005: North Southwark & Bermondsey | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
| Liberal Democrats | Simon Hughes | 17,874 | 47.1 | −9.8 | |
| Labour | Kirsty McNeill | 12,468 | 32.8 | +2.0 | |
| Conservative | David Branch | 4,752 | 12.5 | +4.9 | |
| Green | Storm Poorun | 1,137 | 3.0 | +1.0 | |
| UKIP | Linda Robson | 791 | 2.1 | +1.4 | |
| National Front | Paul Winnett | 704 | 1.9 | +0.2 | |
| Christian Peoples | Simisola Lawanson | 233 | 0.6 | N/A | |
| Majority | 5,406 | 14.2 | |||
| Turnout | 37,959 | 48.2 | −1.9 | ||
| Liberal Democrats hold | Swing | −5.9 | |||
| General Election 2001: North Southwark and Bermondsey | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
| Liberal Democrats | Simon Hughes | 20,991 | 56.9 | +8.3 | |
| Labour | Kingsley Abrams | 11,359 | 30.8 | -9.5 | |
| Conservative | Ewan Wallace | 2,800 | 7.6 | +0.6 | |
| Green | Ruth Jenkins | 752 | 2.0 | N/A | |
| National Front | Lianne Shore | 612 | 1.7 | N/A | |
| UKIP | Robert McWhirter | 271 | 0.7 | N/A | |
| Communist League | John Davies | 77 | 0.2 | N/A | |
| Majority | 9,632 | 26.1 | |||
| Turnout | 35,150 | 50.1 | |||
| Liberal Democrats hold | Swing | ||||
| General Election 1997: North Southwark and Bermondsey | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
| Liberal Democrats | Simon Hughes | 19,831 | 48.6 | N/A | |
| Labour | Jeremy Fraser | 16,444 | 40.3 | N/A | |
| Conservative | Grant Shapps | 2,835 | 6.9 | N/A | |
| British National | M. Davidson | 713 | 1.7 | N/A | |
| Referendum Party | B. Newton | 545 | 1.3 | N/A | |
| Communist League | I. Grant | 175 | 0.4 | N/A | |
| Liberal | J. Munday | 157 | 0.4 | N/A | |
| National Democrats | I. Ingvison | 95 | 0.2 | N/A | |
| Majority | 3,387 | N/A | |||
| Turnout | 62.2 | N/A | |||
| Liberal Democrats hold | Swing | N/A | |||
