Streatham (UK Parliament constituency)

File:StreathamConstituency.png

Streatham in Greater London

Streatham is a 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.

Member of Parliament

The Rt Hon Keith Hill was first elected in the 1992 General Election.

Election results

General Election 2005: Streatham

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Labour	Keith Hill	18,950	46.7	−10.2
	Liberal Democrats	Darren Sanders	11,484	28.3	+10.0
	Conservative	James Sproule	7,238	17.8	−1.0
	Green	Shane Collins	2,245	5.5	+1.1
	UKIP	Trevor Gittings	396	1.0	N/A
	Workers Revolutionary Party	Billy Colvill	127	0.3	N/A
	Independent	Philippa Stone	100	0.2	N/A
	Independent	Robert West	40	0.1	N/A
	Independent	Sarah Acheng	35	0.1	N/A
Majority			7,466	18.4
Turnout			40,615	51.3	+2.6
	Labour hold		Swing	−10.1

General Election 2001: Streatham

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Labour	Keith Hill	21,401	57.3	−5.5
	Liberal Democrats	Roger O’Brien	6,771	18.1	+4.6
	Conservative	Stephen Hocking	6,639	17.8	−4.0
	Green	Mohammed Sajid	1,641	4.4	N/A
	Socialist Alliance	Greg Tucker	906	2.4	N/A
Majority			14,630	39.2
Turnout			37,358	49.1	−11.0
	Labour hold		Swing

Politics and history of the constituency

Keith Hill is the first Labour MP for the Streatham constituency since a seat of this name was first contested in 1918

Previous Conservative MPs for Streatham include:

Sir William Shelton

Duncan Sandys

Sir Douglas Robinson

Sir William Lane Mitchell

The first 'Streatham' constituency included a substantial area now in the London Borough of Wandsworth and now part of the Battersea constituency. These boundaries remained fairly stable until the changes to Greater London local government in the 1960s. Following the move of the towns of Streatham and Clapham to the London Borough of Lambeth in 1965, Streatham became one of four Borough Constituency divisions of Lambeth, along with 'Vauxhall', 'Norwood' and 'Lambeth Central'. The Clapham Park and Thornton (east Balham) areas came into the Streatham constituency, whereas the rest of Clapham went into the Vauxhall seat - a split which continues to the present.

With the abolition of Lambeth Central at the 1983 election, the constituency gained much of southern Brixton. Following further population decline, Lambeth was paired with Southwark in the next boundary review, and from the 1997 election, Streatham constituency gained areas around Tulse Hill from the former Norwood constituency, the remainder of which became part of Dulwich and West Norwood.

Even more than other similar seats in South London (such as Croydon North, Dulwich, Lewisham East and West), Streatham has swung extremely heavily against the Conservative party over the past 30 years. The seat was previously so safe that the Conservatives still won it in disasterous years for them such as 1945 and 1966. However, demographic and voting pattern changes combined with unfavourable boundary changes conspired to turn Streatham first into a marginal and then into a very safe Labour seat. Having lost Streatham in 1992, the Conservatives are now clearly in third place behind the Lib Dems in what is now a very safe Labour seat.

See also

• List of Parliamentary constituencies in Greater London