Top Politicians Flock to Hammersmith

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New constituency is key election battleground

Top politicians, including Gordon Brown and David Cameron, have chosen Hammersmith as one of the first places to visit during the General Election campaign.

Gordon Brown led the way with a visit to Innocent Drinks on the Goldhawk Industrial Estate just one day into the campaign on April 7.

Next to arrive on Friday April 9 was David Cameron, on a visit to St Paul's Centre in Macbeth Street where he met with young people who had just completed a six week course run by local charity SPEAR.

Then on Monday April 12, no fewer than three members of Labour's Cabinet descended on the town centre to launch their manifesto. Alan Johnson, Tessa Jowell and Ed Miliband went first to St Paul's Centre where they launched the Labour manifesto, before walking up to Lyric Square, then going on to Palingswick House near Ravenscourt Park to meet local community groups based in the building.

On each of these visits, the visitors were accompanied by their party's candidates for Hammersmith, Labour's Andy Slaughter and his Conservative rival Shaun Bailey.

All this activity shows the importance of the brand new constituency of Hammersmith in the upcoming election.

UK Polling Report's profile of Hammersmith is as follows; " A west London seat consisting of the western part of the Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, stretching from Wormwood Scrubs in the north down to the Thames and up to the West Cross Route (the former M41) in the east.

" The seat covers the successful commercial and business hub of Hammersmith itself, the western part of Earl`s Court (the exhibition centre itself straddles the border between this and Westminster North), West Kensington, Shepherds Bush and White City, site of the BBC Television Centre.

" The south of this seat is comparatively Conservative – it includes run down areas like West Kensington and council estates like Lytton, but at a local level the Conservatives swept dramatically to power in 2006.

" However, there are major boundary changes with the Fulham half of the old Hammersmith and Fulham pairing forming part of the new Chelsea and Fulham seat and the seat gaining the the north part of Hammersmith and Fulham from the old Ealing Acton and Shepherd`s Bush seat.

" The northern part of this seat is far more Labour, including as it does a large ethnic population and council estates like White City and the Edward Woods Estate. The norther part of the seat also includes HMP Wormwood Scrubs, Hammersmith Hospital and the Linford Christie Stadium."

It is this mixture that has put Hammersmith at number 87 on the Conservative Party's target list, and a seat which, according to website Electoral Calculus, is not safe, and where voters have a real say in choosing the next MP.

Electoral Calculus, which says it predicts the next British General Election using scientific analysis and electoral geography is currently predicting that Conservatives in Hammersmith will win by a tiny margin of just 0.3%, with 37.69% compared with Labour's 37.39%.

In other words,  both parties have everything to play for- so we can expect to see more politicians arriving in the streets of W6 and W14 in the weeks ahead.

And on April 22, St Paul's Church will be hosting an Election Question Time where the candidates seeking to be Hammersmith's next MP will debate the big issues. The event begins at 7.30pm and and is open to all.

April 15, 2010