The Conservatives successfully defended one of their safer seats last week in the sometime marginal Hammersmith & Fulham, currently controlled by Labour with a large majority. The swing was not dramatic, but at a time when extreme election results and polls have become normal that becomes interesting in itself, like Conan Doyle’s dog that did not bark.
Fulham Town is a compact ward based on the residential streets off the western end of Fulham Road and New King’s Road as they converge towards Putney Bridge. The traveller on the District line gets an overview of the rooftops of the ward from the elevated tracks between Putney Bridge (just outside the ward) and Parsons Green (just inside the ward). There is very little open space. The impression given, of a low-rise, densely populated area of well-maintained Victorian terraces housing young professionals is not misleading – this is an affluent and long since gentrified district.
Created in 2022, this two-member ward is a cut-down version of the three-member Town ward that came before. It was part of a patch of four highly affluent Fulham wards that voted Conservative even at their historic low point in 2022. Town had long been considered safe for the Tories, who won the seat continuously from 1978, although Labour closed the gap dramatically in 2018. Overall, the boundary changes in Hammersmith & Fulham favoured Labour, but Fulham Town ward was safer for the Conservatives than its immediate predecessor.
Fulham Town’s statistics paint a portrait of a wealthy area – not up there with the most elite parts of Westminster or Kensington & Chelsea, but still extreme by most comparisons. Take its housing, for instance. The average price for a dwelling in Fulham Town is £949,000, making it the second most expensive ward in an expensive borough – and 69 per cent of dwellings are flats and maisonettes rather than whole houses.
Even with an average household income of £72,000, local housing is ridiculously unaffordable and there is only a small social housing sector (16 per cent, the lowest proportion in the borough). Forty per cent are owner-occupiers and 44 per cent rent privately. Fulham Town’s population has declined by five per cent over the last ten years, indicating a lack of sites for new development.
The population is predominantly of working age, with the professions and finance well-represented: 69 per cent are educated to degree level (compared to 47 per cent for London as a whole). Fulham Town has the smallest non-white proportion of the population of any Hammersmith & Fulham ward at 22 per cent, although 42 per cent are foreign-born, many of them from European Union countries.
The by-election was caused by the resignation of the deputy leader of the Conservative group on the council, barrister Andrew Dinsmore (not to be confused with Andrew Dismore, the former Labour MP and London Assembly member) who had represented Fulham Town since May 2022 and contested the Hammersmith & Chiswick parliamentary seat last July.
Dinsmore has recently become a father and moved out of London to be closer to support from his extended family. He remains well-connected, claiming credit for “right-wing lawfare” to Conservative Home readers, and obviously enjoyed his local government experience enough to want more of it. He is the Conservative candidate for the by-election in the Barleythorpe ward of Rutland County Council to be held on 24 July – a fairly urban area by Rutland standards, but still a change of pace from Fulham Town.
Five candidates contested the by-election, representing the five main parties. The Conservative defence was in the hands of Liam Downer-Sanderson, who works in communications in planning and housing and is, like Dinsmore, a Conservative Home writer. His output there has included a leadership election essay in favour of Robert Jenrick. Downer-Sanderson was brought up locally and is editor of the Fulham Society newsletter. He contested the marginal Sands End ward in May 2022.
The Liberal Democrat challenger was Roy Pounsford, a retired project manager who fought Fulham Town in 2022. Chris Clowes stood for Reform UK. He was their parliamentary candidate for Rutland & Stamford in last year’s general election, so there has been two-way traffic in the political exchange scheme between Fulham and Rutland. Adrian Chisholm, a Westminster Council worker on transport projects, stood for the Greens. Youth worker Sam Kelly represented Labour.
Local issues included parking – a perennial complaint in this affluent but congested area – crime, housing and the timetable for improvements to the nearby Charing Cross Hospital. Chisholm campaigned on housing, the state of local high streets and national and global issues. Kelly focused on Labour’s record in control of the borough since 2014: “We try to be different in our approach to running the council. That’s why we’ve been able to deliver services that you simply wouldn’t find elsewhere.”
The Conservatives comfortably held the seat, despite the effort the Lib Dems put in. Downer-Sanderson won 647 votes (43.3 per cent) compared to 345 (23.1 per cent) for Pounsford. Kelly finished third (251 votes, 16.8 per cent). The parties of all three suffered falls in their vote share – Labour’s being the largest – as neither Reform nor the Greens had contested the ward in 2022. They took 12.5 per cent and 4.2 per cent respectively. Turnout was 28.6 per cent.
The Labour to Conservative swing was only 4.5 per cent – well down on the two by-elections in Hammersmith & Fulham in February. If repeated across the borough next year, it would switch only one or two seats between the parties.
Both that low swing and the Conservatives’ resilience are symptomatic of several local trends. Politics in Hammersmith & Fulham has long been contested between well-organised local Conservative and Labour parties, and some of the older demographic certainties seem to survive in the borough – council estates vote Labour, Fulham streets full of affluent City professionals vote Conservative.
Fulham’s Conservative machine is plugged into the central party because it is the sort of place where Tory advisers and parliamentary staff live. Local fundraising and doorstep activism are sustained by the proximity of Westminster. As in Wandsworth across the river, there remains a Conservative critical mass that sustains it as an effective campaigning organisation, even though its support among young professionals is much lower than it used to be.
The Tories have to worry less about Reform competition in these wealthy, cosmopolitan inner London enclaves and are able to compete with the Lib Dems as local tribunes. Unless the Conservative Party really does die, there will always be patches of blue along the King’s Road and the Fulham Road.
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