Warley General Election profile: Home of The Hawthorns set to keep Labour MP
The constituency of Warley in Sandwell was created in 1997, and is made up of the majority of what used to be Warley East.
In both guises it has always been a Labour stronghold. For the last 20 years it has been held by John Spellar, who was first elected to Parliament in Birmingham Northfield in 1982 before losing out the following year.
Originally from Kent, Mr Spellar held Warley West for Labour in 1992 before taking the then new Warley constituency with a huge majority of 15,451 as Tony Blair swept into power in 1997.
His current majority stands at 14,702, after he won 58.2 per cent of the vote in 2015.
Mr Spellar is widely respected among those to the right of the Labour Party and is one of the leading figures in the moderates group Labour First.
He has been an outspoken critic of Jeremy Corbyn, and became one of the first MPs to call on the Labour leader to stand down last year over his handling of the vote over military action in Syria.
Mr Spellar served as both Transport Minister and Northern Ireland Minister under Tony Blair.
The Conservatives have struggled to make any inroads into Warley, although the party has been second behind Labour at every General Election since the constituency was established.
Warley is one of four constituencies in Sandwell. Its main town area is Smethwick, while it also includes Brandhall and Langley Green.
The constituency is home to West Bromwich Albion’s Hawthorns ground, making it the only one in the West Midlands to feature Premier League football.
It contains the sprawling 100-acre public park Warley Woods, which has been Grade II listed since 1994. Historically Warley has been a predominantly working class area.
In recent years unemployment there has been higher than the national average, with the most recent figures from 2015 showing 11.1 per cent unemployment, compared to a national figure of 4.8 per cent.
Turnout at General Elections in the constituency has ranged from a low of 54.1 per cent in 2001, to a high of 65.1 per cent in 1997. In the EU referendum Sandwell voted to leave, with 66.7 per cent backing Brexit out of a turnout of 66.5 per cent.
Who are the 2017 election candidates for Warley?
Now aged 69, Mr Spellar will be standing to keep the seat for Labour.
This time around Anthony Mangnall, a former researcher for William Hague, will represent the Tories.
UKIP has selected Darryl Magher, the party having garnered 16.5 per cent of the vote in 2015.
The Lib Dems and the Green Party both field new candidates in Bryan Manley-Green and Mark Redding.
Who can we expect to win?
Best Odds - Labour 1/100, Cons 16/1, Lib Dems 150/1, UKIP 200/1, Green 500/1
Prediction: Labour hold with a reduced majority
Across the country there are big question marks over the futures of any Labour candidates with a majority of less than 5,000.
But John Spellar should have little trouble in defending his sizeable majority in next month’s poll.
Tory candidate Anthony Mangnall is something of an unknown quantity in the constituency.
Although he has hit the campaign trail hard since his candidacy was confirmed on May 9, a month’s worth of door-knocking won’t get near to replacing Mr Spellar’s long standing ties to the area.
The Tories will rely on two things.
The collapse of the UKIP vote is a distinct possibility, but even taking the lion’s share of that party’s 6,237 votes from 2015 would still not get them within touching distance of Labour.
Undoubtedly the Tory campaign will focus on ‘our leader against your leader’, hoping that enough Labour voters will refuse to back their party at the polls while Jeremy Corbyn is at the helm.
The problem for them in Warley is that you would be hard pushed to find a Labour politician with a stronger dislike of ‘Corbyn and his tiny band of Trots in the bunker’ as Mr Spellar once called them.
It is expected that the Lib Dems and Greens will remain non-entities in an area where two thirds of people voted to leave the EU.
Easy victories will be few and far between for Labour in this General Election, but the party should have a relatively comfortable task in holding onto Warley.
