History
Wolverhampton South West was once regarded as a Conservative safe seat until Labour gained it in their 1997 landslide.
The constituency is heavily associated with the controversial Conservative politician Enoch Powell who was MP for the seat from 1950 until 1974, when he departed to the Ulster Unionist Party. It was during this time that he served in Ted Heath's shadow cabinet, from which he was dismissed in 1968 after his controversial Rivers of Blood speech in which he predicted severe civil unrest if mass immigration from the Commonwealth continued. This speech was reportedly the result of Powell's meeting with a woman in the constituency who was the last white person living in her street.
He was succeeded by fellow Conservative Nicholas Budgen, who held the seat until 1997. Budgen is best known as one of the Maastricht rebels of the mid 1990s. He was defeated in the 1997 election by Labour's Jenny Jones, the seat being one of many gained by Labour from the Conservatives in that election. As the next general election loomed, she announced that she would not be seeking re-election. From the 2001 general election, the constituency was represented by Rob Marris of the Labour Party for nine years, until he lost it in the 2010 general election to Paul Uppal of the Conservative Party.
Read more about this topic: Wolverhampton South West (UK Parliament Constituency)
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