Islington South and Finsbury (UK Parliament constituency)

Islington South and Finsbury /ˈɪzlɪŋtən saʊθ ənd fɪnzbri/ is a constituency^{[n 1]} represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2005 by Emily Thornberry of the Labour Party.^{[n 2]}

Boundaries

1974–1983: The London Borough of Islington wards of Barnsbury, Bunhill, Clerkenwell, Pentonville, St Mary, St Peter, and Thornhill.

1983–2010: As above, save that Pentonville was abolished and Canonbury East, Canonbury West, Hillmarton, Holloway were created or added to the seat.

2010–present: As above minus Hillmarton, and Thornhill; plus Caledonian ward; note Canonbury East and West ward from this date merged into Canonbury.

The seat covers the southern part of the London Borough of Islington, including Barnsbury, Canonbury, major parts of Holloway, Kings Cross and the former area of the Metropolitan Borough of Finsbury, which includes Bunhill, Pentonville and Clerkenwell.

History

Islington South and Finsbury was created in 1974 from part of the former Islington South West and Shoreditch and Finsbury constituencies. In 1983 its boundaries changed when the Islington Central constituency was abolished and its area split between Islington South and Finsbury and Islington North.

Political history

Islington was an early stronghold for the Social Democratic Party in which all three sitting Labour MPs defected to the party together with a majority of the Borough Council.^{[n 3]} However, in spite of their less radical position than the Labour Party of the era, they won only one seat to Labour's 59 in the 1982 Islington Council elections^[2] and in the 1983 general election, Labour managed to retain the constituency narrowly. The new MP, Chris Smith was the first MP to come out as gay and was identified with the Labour left, and kept the seat with a slight increase in his majority in 1987. By 1992 the post-merged SDP, the Liberal Democrats, had locally faded and no longer had the former MP as a candidate and Smith managed to win a majority exceeding 10,000 votes.

The Liberal Democrat revival in local elections in Islington, which saw them take control of the council in 2000, began to translate to Parliamentary elections in 2001. In 2002, the Liberal Democrats won every council seat in Islington South and Finsbury, and Smith's subsequent retirement and the resultant loss of incumbency made the constituency vulnerable once again in 2005. However Smith's successor, Emily Thornberry, retained the seat with a narrow majority (484 votes) over the Liberal Democrat challenger, Barnsbury Councilor Bridget Fox.^[3] — the seat therefore became one of the ten most marginal in Britain. However, in the local council elections a year later, Labour made an almost full recovery locally and won a majority of the seats in Islington South and Finsbury, defeating both Bridget Fox and the then council leader Steve Hitchins.^[4] At the 2010 general election, Thornberry increased her majority over Fox. In 2014 the Liberal Democrats lost all their remaining seats on the Council. The 2015 result made the seat the 93rd safest of Labour's 232 seats by percentage of majority.^[5]

Constituency profile

The area is wholly urban but features a few small public greens which are family-friendly. The proximity and connectedness to the City of London mean the seat has a relatively high proportion of its electorate who are young workers in the city and contains many complimentary-course or white-painted brickwork — very rarely ostentatious stucco-clad — apartments and townhouses typically with attractive railings frequently lived in by high-income workers in the central or flagship operations of the public sector, critics, entertainers and writers. It contains a small minority of residences that are Victorian and early 20th century rehousing developments to replace poor housing closer to the city itself and in the east end of London or late twentieth century (largely former) social housing.

The constituency has been described as:

'A part-grand, part-poor metaphor for New Labour; Tony Blair lived here prior to his election as prime minister. Its dinner tables are routinely maligned as the natural habitat of the hypocritical, well-off, ostensibly liberal "chattering classes".'

— 2005, The Guardian^[6]

'...a seat sometimes seen as the citadel of constitutional reform.'

— 2010, The Guardian^[7]

Members of Parliament

Election results

Elections in the 2010s

Elections in the 2000s

Elections in the 1990s

Elections in the 1980s

Elections in the 1970s

See also

• List of Parliamentary constituencies in Greater London
• List of Parliamentary constituencies in Islington

Notes and references

Notes

References

Coordinates: 51°32′17″N 0°06′22″W / 51.538°N 0.106°W / 51.538; -0.106