Further to the 2023 Periodic Review of Westminster constituencies, which was based on the ward boundaries in place at 1 December 2020, the composition of the constituency from the 2024 United Kingdom general election was expanded to bring it within the permitted electoral range by including the majority of the Fairfield ward (polling districts FFA, FFB and FFC), transferred from Battersea.[5]
Following a local government boundary review which came into effect in May 2022, the Fairfield ward was largely replaced by the Wandsworth Town ward.[6][7] The constituency now comprises the following wards of the London Borough of Wandsworth from the 2024 general election:
East Putney; Roehampton; Southfields; Thamesfield; West Hill; West Putney; most of Wandsworth Town; and small part of St Mary's.[8]
When created in 1918 the constituency was carved out of the west of the abolished seat Wandsworth. The rest of the latter formed Wandsworth Central, Balham and Tooting and Streatham. Putney formed one of the divisions of the Parliamentary Borough of Wandsworth.
Political history
Putney in London, 1918–50Putney in London, 1950–74
The seat was Conservative from 1918 until 1964, in a national context of Labour marginal wins in the 1920s, the landslide Labour victory in 1945 and the narrower Labour win in 1950. After the Labour win of 1964, the fairly narrow Heath ministry win of 1970 failed to tip the seat back to the Conservative Party, and the seat was held by Labour for 15 years with Hugh Jenkins as MP.
Putney was the first Conservative gain on election night in 2005, when Justine Greening took back the seat from Labour on a two-party swing (Lab-Con) of 6.5%. The 2015 result gave the seat the 148th most marginal majority of the Conservative Party's 331 seats by percentage of majority, similar to the 2010 result.[9] The 2017 election saw Greening re-elected, but with a 10% swing to Labour; this heavy swing against the Conservatives has been attributed to the fact that the Borough of Wandsworth (of which Putney is part) voted 75% in favour of remaining in the European Union in the previous year's referendum. In 2019, Putney was the only seat in the country gained by Labour, amid the worst election results for the party since 1935.[10] Labour would retain the seat in their landslide victory nearly five years later with a slightly increased majority.
Results of all deposit-keeping candidates since 1983 in their bid be the MP for Putney (UK House of Commons).
Putney has long had many desirable properties of southwest London[11] with Southfields to the south and the River Thames to the north with Fulham lying across the river.
The majority of the area as in the 19th century is covered by mid-to-high income neighbourhoods[12] whereas the eastern boundary of the seat eating into Wandsworth town centre is more mixed, and Roehampton which has its university (University of Roehampton and part of the Kingston University campus) consists of, in terms of housing, by a small majority, a diverse council stock that owing to its cost has only fractionally been acquired under the Right to Buy — much of this ward remains in one form or another reliant on social housing.[12]
The local council is not a bellwether of who will win the Putney seat, and for a considerable time has imposed the lowest council tax in the country.[13] Between 1997 and 2005 Putney had a unique attribute of being the only seat in the country where every single component ward elected a full slate of Conservative councillors, yet the constituency had a Labour MP, Tony Colman.
In the 2016 EU Referendum, Putney voted 72.24% to Remain.[14]
Two weeks after the election, Wandsworth Council reported that 6,558 votes had incorrectly failed to be included in the declared election result on the night, and issued revised results on their website.[16] This does not have official effect unless an election petition is lodged, as returning officers in the UK do not have the legal power to revise an election result once formally declared.[17]
^A televised verbal argument occurred between Mellor and Referendum Party candidate Sir James Goldsmith, who held contrasting views on European integration, during Mellor's vote of thanks to the public on his defeat as one of the early declared results in 1997.
^ abcdefghiCraig, F. W. S. (1983) [1969]. British parliamentary election results 1918–1949 (3rd ed.). Chichester: Parliamentary Research Services. p. 58. ISBN0-900178-06-X.
^F. W. S. Craig, British Parliamentary Election Results 1918-49
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