Mapping UK constituencies by social deprivation

[Geoffrey Howe]

Chesham and Amersham is notable since it's having a by-election soon and is one of those Tory Remain seats. The Tory majority is very strong there so it would be a huge upset if it flipped, but whether it swings to or from the Tories, and if it's the latter how much, could be interesting to see.

Yes, it was over 50% in 1997.  

How many seats saw the Conservatives obtain an absolute majority of votes in 1997?

I've been trying to compile a list, but off the top of my head:

Sutton Coldfield
East Surrey [Geoffrey Howe's constituency]
Huntingdon [John Major's constituency]
Wokingham
Arundel and South Downs
Ruislip-Northwood
Kensington
Beaconsfield was extremely close despite minor right-wing parties getting 9% combined

I'm sure there are a few more. It would be nice if someone could find them!

[Alcibiades]

Although, to be honest, a quick poke around Wokingham on Google Maps wouldn't make me guess it was the least-deprived constituency in the whole UK, or even particularly far above the top 25%, so perhaps the rankings mean less than I would have thought.

Can someone explain why the UK is honestly so hideous in terms of housing? The houses look shoddily built, are far too close together, and seem mostly attached to each other. I'm assuming some of this has to be due to the shockingly high number of council estates everywhere, but I've never lived in the UK.

Just to deal with one part of this mess of a post: yes, the UK arguably has a lower quality of housing than other countries in Northwestern Europe. I’m not an expert, but it probably has something to do with how much was built in the decades immediately after WW2. However, UK housing is still probably of a higher average quality than the US’s, where many houses are shoddily built of wood and don’t even have foundations. Also, there is nothing inherently low-quality about a terraced or semi-detached house, as you absurdly seemed to suggest.

[parochial boy]

And because I have nothing useful or on topic to add, I would say that large swathes of say, Sheffield Hallam are far more attractive than American suburban hell. The biggest problem with UK housing is the fact that they always seem to have an ambient temperature of barely above zero; which is partly down to bad insulation, but I'm pretty convinced is also just a cultural preference.

[Philly D.]

Chesham and Amersham is notable since it's having a by-election soon and is one of those Tory Remain seats. The Tory majority is very strong there so it would be a huge upset if it flipped, but whether it swings to or from the Tories, and if it's the latter how much, could be interesting to see.

Yes, it was over 50% in 1997.  

How many seats saw the Conservatives obtain an absolute majority of votes in 1997?

I've been trying to compile a list, but off the top of my head:

Sutton Coldfield
East Surrey [Geoffrey Howe's constituency]
Huntingdon [John Major's constituency]
Wokingham
Arundel and South Downs
Ruislip-Northwood
Kensington
Beaconsfield was extremely close despite minor right-wing parties getting 9% combined

I'm sure there are a few more. It would be nice if someone could find them!

According to the results obtained via www.electionprediction.org, there were 13 of them (this site, a fortiori some of the comments, now seem positively ancient):
Sutton Coldfield (Norman Fowler)
South Staffordshire
Huntingdon (Major, only 55%+ result)
Kensington & Chelsea (Alan Clark)
Ruislip-Northwood
Wokingham (John Redwood)
Chesham & Amersham
East Surrey
Surrey Heath
Horsham (Francis Maude)
North Hampshire
Aldershot
New Forest West

Also they were at 49.8% in Beaconsfield, Esher & Walton, Maidenhead (Theresa May), Buckingham(John Bercow), Rayleigh and Wealden.

Considering these 19 seats, that's 2 seats in northern Birmingham, the Tory leader's seat, the richest part of the UK, a cluster of 6 seats from Reading to London, 1 seat in Essex, 1 exurban seat in West Sussex, 1 rural Hampshire seat, 2 seats in Hampshire adjoined by 2 others in Surrey, 1 commuter seat in Surrey and 1 exurban seat in Surrey.

All are well-off, to put it mildly, and are solid Tory now except for Esher and Kensington, but it is unlikely most of them would be among even the 50 safest seats nowadays. The exception is Rayleigh, which had a 70%+ result for them in 2019, which they didn't have in 1992, with a particularly obnoxious MP to boot!

[Filuwaúrdjan]

...but I'm pretty convinced is also just a cultural preference.

'What do you mean it's cold? Put on another bloody jumper! Honestly.'

[Geoffrey Howe]

snip

By the way, Aldershot was only 42%.

[Alcibiades]

Yesterday I saw the following amazing Twitter thread, and today since I was bored I decided to translate that chart into maps.

https://twitter.com/undertheraedar/status/1390632762105806856?s=20
EDIT: Thanks to you all for your compliments and recommendations.

Looking over the most deprived constituencies I'm pretty shocked that the Tories managed to win a seat in Blackpool (!)

They've got two as a matter of fact. Blackpool has always been a place where the Tories have overperformed the demographics (though it wasn't always as deprived as it is now). The 1997 Labour landslide was actually the first time in its history that it had Labour representation at Westminster, it was always Tory before that (aside from a brief Liberal victory in 1923). Blackpool North (& Cleverleys) flipped back in 2010, helped by favourable boundary changes, which removed the (then) very reliably Labour town of Fleetwood. They didn't regain Blackpool South until 2019 but even in elections such as 2010 and 2015 it was still only marginally Labour despite its deprivation levels and the metropolitan Cameron being an atrocious fit for the area.

Seaside resorts in general have traditionally been Tory, going back to the Victorian era.

[beesley]

Maybe it might be worth pointing out that you can't apply the trends from the US to every other country? There are no UK constituency equivalents to any Congressional Districts worth citing ahead of actual information about the constituencies. I've never seen any UK member go into a thread on the Congressional Elections board and refer to districts as the Putneys or the Mansfields of the US.

It should also go without saying that the constituencies themselves are not uniform. One example: Southampton Itchen contains the city centre, including university halls of residence, council estates like Thornhill, Weston and Townhill Park, and some affluent housing not dissimilar to suburbs in other parts of Hampshire. There's no need to over-generalise everything.

[LabourJersey]

Yesterday I saw the following amazing Twitter thread, and today since I was bored I decided to translate that chart into maps.

https://twitter.com/undertheraedar/status/1390632762105806856?s=20
EDIT: Thanks to you all for your compliments and recommendations.

Looking over the most deprived constituencies I'm pretty shocked that the Tories managed to win a seat in Blackpool (!)

They've got two as a matter of fact. Blackpool has always been a place where the Tories have overperformed the demographics (though it wasn't always as deprived as it is now). The 1997 Labour landslide was actually the first time in its history that it had Labour representation at Westminster, it was always Tory before that (aside from a brief Liberal victory in 1923). Blackpool North (& Cleverleys) flipped back in 2010, helped by favourable boundary changes, which removed the (then) very reliably Labour town of Fleetwood. They didn't regain Blackpool South until 2019 but even in elections such as 2010 and 2015 it was still only marginally Labour despite its deprivation levels and the metropolitan Cameron being an atrocious fit for the area.

Seaside resorts in general have traditionally been Tory, going back to the Victorian era.

Interesting to know. My perception of Blackpool was that it was a distinctly working class seaside resort compared to the southern towns, more so than, like, Atlantic City which I guess was similar but attracted both the rich and poor in comparable numbers. So I guess I figured its status as a working class location would translate to politics

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

I don't have much to add on the topic of 'bad comparisons' if not that I would like to remind everyone that United States congressional districts are on average more than seven times larger than United Kingdom parliamentary constituencies.

[H. Ross Peron]

Although, to be honest, a quick poke around Wokingham on Google Maps wouldn't make me guess it was the least-deprived constituency in the whole UK, or even particularly far above the top 25%, so perhaps the rankings mean less than I would have thought.

Can someone explain why the UK is honestly so hideous in terms of housing? The houses look shoddily built, are far too close together, and seem mostly attached to each other. I'm assuming some of this has to be due to the shockingly high number of council estates everywhere, but I've never lived in the UK. Not to mention the embarrassingly low average salaries to the point where $100k seems to be higher than even a doctor's income somehow.

Back to the point at hand, it seems that there is a pretty interesting difference in dynamic at hand here between the US and the UK. The UK has the bottom falling out for Labour akin to the Democrats hemorrhaging support across the Midwest and in White Working Class locales nationwide. Based off the table attached, however, it is clear that Tories somehow still enjoy massive support across the board in the wealthiest constituencies as well while LibDems seem to be second to them as opposed to Labour in certain areas.

It's honestly sort of funny seeing that the Democrats easily made up for their losses with the growing and prosperous suburban areas across the country while Labour could not make such gains, at least at a similar scale. Of the 10 wealthiest places in the country (according to Bloomberg, which doesn't include certain areas in the Northeast properly that also would have voted Biden), every single one except Highland Park, TX voted for Biden, and he even flipped Cherry Hills Village, CO. Something like this doesn't seem possible in the UK at all given the concentration of wealth in Southern England around London, with the wealth outside of this area being rural/exurban rather than properly urban or suburban. You have the odd spots like Cheshire south of Manchester or the Oxbridge areas maybe, but other than that I really can't think of any other wealthy suburban areas in the country, whereas every decently sized US metro has at least one suburban constituency/district.

Tories in the UK seem absolutely dominant in such areas within London somehow even after realignment, which would be like if Republicans consistently held the NJ-7s, IL-6s, and CA-45s of the country as Democrats lost the MI-5s, OH-13s, and IL-17s, but even had places like NY-10 or NY-12 that are considered safely Democrat here but boast several billionaires. It seems that the UK is just too poor compared to the US, less educated, and less diverse, to the point where this sort of suburban educated wealth based shift is not properly possible. That isn't even getting into the massive age gap in voting patterns, which doesn't affect Democrats to the extent it does Labour, who need to paint a better image as the working class party (a lost cause unless they become anti-immigration or go down other unsavory social policy paths, imo) or accelerate trends faster and capture Tory strongholds in the wealthy suburbs/exurbs. They certainly can't afford to lose the Hartlepools of the nation if they go with the former and need to win places like Kensington and even the outer areas like Esher and Walton or Epsom and Ewell for the latter strategy to capture a majority.

It's unfortunate you are not institutionalized.

[TJ in Oregon]

It seems like Northern Ireland has really moved up the charts in this in the last 4 years. Did it really improve so much relative to the rest of the UK or is this some artifact of methodology?

[Pericles]

Another point is that there are only 10 Conservative-held seats where the Remain vote was 60% or higher, and 25 where the Remain vote was 55% or higher. The Remain vote must have been heavily concentrated in high turnout Labour-held constituencies, though to be fair it does seem like marginal Leave seats (so Leave votes in the mid 50s percentage-wise) are pretty common. A majority of those Remain seats, and 7/9 of the seats with 60%+ Remain votes, have Tory majorities smaller than their nationwide popular vote win. However, most of those marginal seats have the LibDems in second place, so it's unclear if Labour would be able to not only leapfrog the LibDems but actually peel off enough Tory support to win. 3 of those seats are also vulnerable to the SNP.

[Geoffrey Howe]

Another point is that there are only 10 Conservative-held seats where the Remain vote was 60% or higher, and 25 where the Remain vote was 55% or higher. The Remain vote must have been heavily concentrated in high turnout Labour-held constituencies, though to be fair it does seem like marginal Leave seats (so Leave votes in the mid 50s percentage-wise) are pretty common. A majority of those Remain seats, and 7/9 of the seats with 60%+ Remain votes, have Tory majorities smaller than their nationwide popular vote win. However, most of those marginal seats have the LibDems in second place, so it's unclear if Labour would be able to not only leapfrog the LibDems but actually peel off enough Tory support to win. 3 of those seats are also vulnerable to the SNP.

What are these outside of Scotland? Kensington, Cities of London & Westminster and Chelsea & Fulham are the only ones I can think of.

[beesley]

Another point is that there are only 10 Conservative-held seats where the Remain vote was 60% or higher, and 25 where the Remain vote was 55% or higher. The Remain vote must have been heavily concentrated in high turnout Labour-held constituencies, though to be fair it does seem like marginal Leave seats (so Leave votes in the mid 50s percentage-wise) are pretty common. A majority of those Remain seats, and 7/9 of the seats with 60%+ Remain votes, have Tory majorities smaller than their nationwide popular vote win. However, most of those marginal seats have the LibDems in second place, so it's unclear if Labour would be able to not only leapfrog the LibDems but actually peel off enough Tory support to win. 3 of those seats are also vulnerable to the SNP.

What are these outside of Scotland? Kensington, Cities of London & Westminster and Chelsea & Fulham are the only ones I can think of.

The 60+ Remain ones are I believe:
Altrincham and Sale West
Chelsea and Fulham
Two Cities
Finchley and Golders' Green
Hitchin and Harpenden
Kensington
South Cambs
West Aberdeenshire
Wimbledon
Winchester

The Lib Dems are in second place in all of these except Altrincham, Kensington and West Aberdeenshire.

The other 55%+ Remain Conservative seats I have down as:
Berwickshire
Cheadle
Cheltenham
Chesham and Amersham
Chipping Barnet
Esher and Walton
Guildford
Hendon
Henley
Rushcliffe
SW Surrey
Tunbridge Wells
Woking
Wokingham
York Outer

That adds up to 25, so I believe we're on the same page.

[CumbrianLefty]

Re the 1997 GE comment, there is no such seat as "Hampshire North" and hasn't been since 1885.

You mean Hampshire North East, apologies for the pedantry