Liverpool West Derby

Liverpool West Derby is a constituency in Merseyside. It covers the eastern neighbourhoods of the city of Liverpool, including West Derby, Tuebrook, Old Swan, Knotty Ash and Dovecot. It also includes the areas of Broadgreen and Page Moss which lie outside the city boundaries in the neighbouring Metropolitan Borough of Knowsley. Liverpool is a large port city with a history of slave trading and importation of goods for Lancashire's industry. The city underwent economic decline in the 1970s as the docks and manufacturing industries declined in importance, but has experienced regeneration in the 21st century. This constituency is highly-deprived, particularly so in Tuebrook and Page Moss which are in the top 10% most-deprived areas in England. West Derby has average levels of wealth.^[2] The average house price in the constituency is lower than the rest of North West England and less than half the national average.^[3]

In general, residents of Liverpool West Derby have low levels of education and household income, and few work in professional occupations.^[3][4] The child poverty rate is above average and the percentage of residents claiming unemployment benefits is higher than the country as a whole.^[5] Like much of the rest of Liverpool, the percentage of residents identifying as Christian is high and there is a large population of Catholics due to historic Irish migration.^[6] White people made up 90% of the population at the 2021 census.^[7] Most of the constituency is represented by the Labour Party at the local council level, although the area around Tuebrook elected councillors from the small Liberal Party. An estimated 51% of voters in the constituency supported remaining in the European Union in the 2016 referendum, marginally higher than the nationwide figure of 48%.^[3]

The seat was created in the Redistribution of Seats Act 1885 and can be considered a safe seat from 1964 to the present day for the Labour Party, having retained the seat at every general election since then. However, in the early-1980s, it was briefly held by the SDP as a result of sitting Labour MP Eric Ogden being among many defectors.^{[n 3]} Labour regained the seat at the 1983 general election, where Bob Wareing won the seat back for Labour.

Before 1964, it was held by the Conservative Party, although their share of the vote has declined considerably; so much so that at four recent general elections, they have finished in fourth place; however they managed to place in third at the 2015 general election and second place in 2017 and 2019.

At the general elections of 1997 and 2001, the Liverpool West Derby seat was the only constituency in England in which a minor party finished in second place, the Liberal Party who had^{[n 4]} all three local councillors for one electoral ward in the area.^[12] At the 2005 general election, however, the Liberals were pushed into third place by the Liberal Democrats and fell to fourth place in 2015, with UKIP finishing in second place.

Sir F E Smith

Sir Frederick Edwin Smith, then Solicitor General in the David Lloyd George Coalition Government, was returned for Liverpool West Derby at the 1918 general election; when constituency reorganisation abolished his former neighbouring Walton seat. He sat for only two months, being promoted Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain and raised to the peerage as Lord Birkenhead in February 1919. He was the first of two MPs for this seat to achieve the highest legal office.

David Maxwell Fyfe

David Maxwell Fyfe, KC, MP from 1935 to 1954 (including World War II) became the highest judge in the country, the Lord Chancellor, having been the Attorney General and Solicitor General for England and Wales. He helped to co-write the European Convention on Human Rights and was one of the key prosecutors at the Nuremberg Trials jointly with the (Labour-member) prosecutor Sir Hartley Shawcross. At this task was a "capable lawyer, efficient administrator and concerned housemaster".^[13] There were misgivings in some quarters as to how Fyfe would perform, cross-examination not being regarded as one of his strengths. However his cross-examination of Hermann Goering is one of the most noted cross-examinations in history.^[14] Tusa noted "Faced with sustained and methodical competence rather than brilliance, Goering...crumbled".^[15]

Stephen Twigg

Stephen Twigg ousted Michael Portillo in the normally right-leaning Enfield Southgate seat (the archetypal "Portillo moment") and represented it from 1997 until the 2005 general election. He briefly served as schools minister before that year's general election, which he lost, before five years later standing for this normally left-leaning seat in Liverpool.

• List of parliamentary constituencies in Merseyside