The seat of Holborn and St Pancras as drawn in 2010 is composed of all but a small western portion of the London Borough of Camden and extends from most of Covent Garden and Bloomsbury in the heart of the West End of London through other areas of the NW1 postal district, north, and in elevation terms upwards through fashionable and economically diverse Camden Town to the affluent suburb of Highgate in a long strip. Gospel Oak, particularly towards Kentish Town, has high deprivation levels, but the neighbouring Highgate ward has low deprivation levels.
The southern part of the seat includes the University of London and several teaching hospitals, so the constituency has a large student population.
During the 20th century, the Bloomsbury, Holborn, Covent Garden, and Highgate wards overwhelmingly elected Conservative councillors. Since 2000, the wards forming the seat in its three revised forms have all swung against the Conservative Party. The 2014 local government elections (for a standard four-year term) produced one Green Party councillor for the Highgate ward; the remaining 32 councillors whose wards fall within the seat (as redrawn in 2010) are members of the Labour Party.[4]
Political history
Labour Party MPs have served this constituency since its creation in 1983. The majorities achieved have been varied, from a relatively marginal 13.9% in 2005 (making it within the lowest 150 seats for the party in that year by percentage of majority) to a landslide 51.7% in 2017. The 2015 result ranked the seat as the 77th safest of the party's 232 seats (by percentage majority).[5] Its predecessor seats have been in Labour hands for all but one term since 1945, and without interruption since 1964.
The Fifth Periodic Review of Westminster constituencies by the Boundary Commission for England was implemented nationally in 2010.[6] Parts of Highgate, Gospel Oak, Haverstock, and Camden Town with Primrose Hill wards were transferred from the former constituency of Hampstead and Highgate. The electorate of the new seat would have been 85,188 if it had existed in that form at the 2005 general election. The electorate has since risen further, and at the 2010 general election it had among the five largest electorates in London.
The contents reflect the local government boundary review for Camden which came into effect in May 2022. In order to bring the electorate within the permitted electoral range, the Highgate and Gospel Oak wards were transferred to the re-established constituency of Hampstead and Highgate.
^A borough constituency (for the purposes of election expenses and type of returning officer)
^As with all constituencies, the constituency elects one Member of Parliament (MP) by the first past the post system of election at most every five years.
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