History
The constituency was created in 1950 when the former two-seat constituency of Brighton was split between two new single-member seats. It underwent boundary changes in 1955 and 1983, although not in 1974. Labour gained the seat in 1964 with a majority of just 7 (making it the most marginal seat in the country at the time), and increased its majority in 1966, but lost the seat in 1970 and did not gain it again until 1997. Dennis Hobden, the victor in 1964, was not only the constituency's first Labour MP but also the first Labour MP to be elected in Sussex.
Boundary changes in 1997 moved the town of Peacehaven, a semi-rural area, into the constituency. This was thought to favour the Conservatives, but instead Labour gained the seat in their landslide victory, and held it until 2010 when the Conservatives regained it. The Greens do not do as well here as in the neighbouring Brighton Pavilion constituency, where they gained their first MP in 2010.
Read more about this topic: Brighton Kemptown (UK Parliament Constituency)
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“A poet’s object is not to tell what actually happened but what could or would happen either probably or inevitably.... For this reason poetry is something more scientific and serious than history, because poetry tends to give general truths while history gives particular facts.”
—Aristotle (384–323 B.C.)
“In all history no class has been enfranchised without some selfish motive underlying. If to-day we could prove to Republicans or Democrats that every woman would vote for their party, we should be enfranchised.”
—Carrie Chapman Catt (1859–1947)
“The history of all previous societies has been the history of class struggles.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)