Birmingham, Ladywood
Labour hold

Birmingham's inner city seat regularly has to expand its boundaries as depopulation saps the residential communities of the centre city, but in spite of an aberrant flirtation with the rather eccentric Liberalism of Wallace Lawler in the very late 1960s the Ladywood seat has been massively Labour and is now utterly safe for Clare Short. It is hard to imagine that this constituency once, in 1924, saw a contest between Neville Chamberlain and Oswald Mosley (standing for Labour), which the future Conservative leader won by 77 votes.

Potentially the Blair Cabinet's stormiest petrel, Clare Short - in the marginal post of International Development Secretary - is the least conventional of Labour's senior women politicians, with two frontbench resignations in Opposition, and occasional off-message utterances as a Cabinet minister, such as her call to close the Dome. She has also never voted for the winner in any Labour leadership or deputy leadership election. But on a long leash from Tony Blair, she has repaid his tolerance by loyally backing the bombing of Kosovo and Belgrade, and took on the hard left by defending before a party conference the blocking of Liz Davies as a Labour candidate, so inviting the accusation of being an authoritarian careerist. Big, strapping, emotional and abrasive, she was Birmingham-born in 1946, into a big Irish republican family, educated at St Paul's (RC) Girls' Grammar School, Keele and Leeds Universities, and was reunited in 1996 with her now grown up Conservative-voting son, who had been given up for adoption as a baby.

Area Percent GB Percent Index GB=100   Thriving Wealthy Achievers, Suburban Areas 0.19% 14.99% 1.29 Affluent Greys, Rural Communities 0.12% 2.13% 5.42 Prosperous Pensioners, Retirement Areas 0.00% 2.49% 0.00 Expanding Affluent Executives, Family Areas 0.10% 4.43% 2.32 Well-Off Workers, Family Areas 0.01% 7.27% 0.17 Rising Affluent Urbanites, Town & City Areas 2.00% 2.56% 78.08 Prosperous Professionals, Metropolitan Areas 0.06% 2.04% 2.76 Better-Off Executives, Inner City Areas 6.02% 3.94% 152.66 Settling Comfortable Middle Agers, Mature Home Owning Areas 0.27% 13.04% 2.10 Skilled Workers, Home Owning Areas 1.33% 12.70% 10.48 Aspiring New Home Owners, Mature Communities 0.17% 8.14% 2.10 White Collar Workers, Better-Off Multi Ethnic Areas 2.68% 4.02% 66.64 Striving Older People, Less Prosperous Areas 0.15% 3.19% 4.85 Council Estate Residents, Better-Off Homes 23.49% 11.31% 207.72 Council Estate Residents, High Unemployment 14.20% 3.06% 463.62 Council Estate Residents, Greatest Hardship 10.73% 2.52% 425.95 People in Multi-Ethnic, Low-Income Areas 38.21% 2.10% 1,819.61 Unclassified Unclassified 0.26% 0.06% 409.55

Area Percent GB Percent Index GB=100   £0-5K 19.71% 9.41% 209.34 £5-10K 25.17% 16.63% 151.35 £10-15K 19.27% 16.58% 116.25 £15-20K 12.62% 13.58% 92.88 £20-25K 7.95% 10.39% 76.50 £25-30K 5.02% 7.77% 64.54 £30-35K 3.22% 5.79% 55.52 £35-40K 2.10% 4.33% 48.54 £40-45K 1.40% 3.27% 43.01 £45-50K 0.96% 2.48% 38.54 £50-55K 0.66% 1.90% 34.86 £55-60K 0.47% 1.47% 31.80 £60-65K 0.34% 1.15% 29.22 £65-70K 0.24% 0.91% 27.01 £70-75K 0.18% 0.72% 25.10 £75-80K 0.13% 0.57% 23.44 £80-85K 0.10% 0.46% 21.98 £85-90K 0.08% 0.37% 20.69 £90-95K 0.06% 0.31% 19.54 £95-100K 0.05% 0.25% 18.51 £100K + 0.19% 1.34% 14.13