Liverpool West Derby in Lancashire, boundaries used 1974-83
1885–1918: The Municipal Borough of Liverpool ward of West Derby.
1918–1950: The County Borough of Liverpool wards of Anfield, Breckfield, and West Derby.
1950–1955: The County Borough of Liverpool wards of Croxteth and West Derby.
1955–1983: The County Borough of Liverpool wards of Clubmoor, Croxteth, Dovecot, and Gillmoss.
1983–1997: The City of Liverpool wards of Clubmoor, Croxteth, Dovecot, Gillmoss, and Pirrie.
1997–2010: The City of Liverpool wards of Clubmoor, Croxteth, Dovecot, Gillmoss, Pirrie, and Tuebrook.
2010–2024: The City of Liverpool wards of Croxteth, Knotty Ash, Norris Green, Tuebrook and Stoneycroft, West Derby, and Yew Tree.
Following their review of parliamentary representation in Merseyside, the Boundary Commission created a modified West Derby constituency, which was fought at the 2010 general election. The commission's initial proposal to create a cross-border "Croxteth and Kirkby" constituency (which would have contained electoral wards from Knowsley borough, as well as from Liverpool) was dropped on its public consultation.
The Metropolitan Borough of Knowsley wards of: Page Moss; Swanside.
The City of Liverpool wards of: Knotty Ash; Old Swan; Tuebrook and Stoneycroft; West Derby; Yew Tree.[3]
The constituency was subject to significant change, with the addition of the two Knowsley Borough wards from the constituency of Knowsley and the Liverpool City (former) ward of Old Swan from Liverpool Wavertree. These were partly offset by the transfer of the Croxteth and Norris Green wards to Liverpool Walton.
Liverpool was subject to a comprehensive local government boundary review which came into effect in May 2023.[4][5] As a result, the new constituency boundaries do not align with the revised ward boundaries. The constituency now comprises the following from the 2024 general election:
The Metropolitan Borough of Knowsley wards of: Page Moss; Swanside.
The City of Liverpool wards or part wards of: Anfield (small part); Broadgreen; Kensington & Fairfield (small part); Knotty Ash & Dovecot Park; Old Swan East; Old Swan West; Sandfield Park; Stoneycroft; Tuebrook Breckside Park (majority); Tuebrook Larkhill (majority); West Derby Deysbrook; West Derby Leyfield; West Derby Muirhead (most); Yew Tree.[6]
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.[7] 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
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".[8] 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 Göring is one of the most noted cross-examinations in history.[9] "Faced with sustained and methodical competence rather than brilliance, Goering...[n 5] crumbled".[10]
Paul Parr was also the Liberal Democrat candidate at both the 2010 and 2015 general elections, when he was known as Paul Twigger.[19]Graham Hughes ran on an anti-Brexit platform as an independent in 2017, and subsequently joined the Liberal Democrats.[21]
^See Labour Party (UK), who at the time called for withdrawal from the EEC (the Common Market) and removal of nuclear weapons during the Cold War. These considerable defections caused Labour to change its policies.
^Debrett's House of Commons & Judicial Bench, 1916
^‘LIAS, William John’, Who Was Who, A & C Black, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing plc, 1920–2016; online edn, Oxford University Press, 2014; online edn, April 2014 accessed 11 Oct 2017Archived 3 April 2022 at the Wayback Machine
