Politics
The seat has a substantial Muslim population. Aside from 1983 and 2010, the seat had been won by Labour at each election since 1935, although sometimes by narrow margins. In the light of increasing concern of Muslim extremism, The Labour Party candidate Shahid Malik had enjoyed a fairly large public media profile after his victory in 2005 in various TV appearances and interviews, strongly denouncing believers and adherents of such views; however, this is also a strong area for the British National Party, who obtained their highest vote in Britain (13.1%) in the 2005 general election, much of it taken at the Labour Party's expense. They also have a substantial vote at local level where in 2006 for the first time in the UK the BNP polled more votes than any other political party. However, at the 2010 general election, the BNP's popularity in Dewsbury fell (despite a substantial nationwide rise in support for the party over the previous five years) as they gained a mere 6% of the vote.
Read more about this topic: Dewsbury (UK Parliament Constituency)
Famous quotes containing the word politics:
“Politics is not an end, but a means. It is not a product, but a process. It is the art of government. Like other values it has its counterfeits. So much emphasis has been placed upon the false that the significance of the true has been obscured and politics has come to convey the meaning of crafty and cunning selfishness, instead of candid and sincere service.”
—Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)
“Hardly a man in the world has an opinion upon morals, politics or religion which he got otherwise than through his associations and sympathies. Broadly speaking, there are none but corn-pone opinions. And broadly speaking, Corn-Pone stands for Self- Approval. Self-approval is acquired mainly from the approval of other people. The result is Conformity.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“Finishing second in the Olympics gets you silver. Finishing second in politics gets you oblivion.”
—Richard M. Nixon (b. 1913)