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> United Kingdom > England > London > London
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| Established | November 24, 1885 |
| Disbanded | Still Active |
| Contributor | RP |
| Last Modified | RBH August 27, 2021 07:57pm |
| Description |
Romford is geographically within the boundaries of Greater London but spiritually belongs in Essex. The headquarters of the London Borough of Havering, it is an old market town which celebrated its 750th anniversary in 1997. The open-air market still exists but shopping is now of a somewhat more sophisticated nature in large retail centres. Market traders are patriotic: in 2000 when the local council refused to fly the union jack, virtually all the stallholders flew it from their stalls in protest. The constituency was one of the nine Tory gains in 2001 and on the largest swing - 9.1%. In 1997 Labour's Eileen Gordon had wrestled the seat from the incumbent Tory, Michael Neubert by just 649 votes, only to lose it to Andrew Rosindell by almost 6,000 four years later. He took a higher vote share here than the party did in Beaconsfield and Surrey East: the Conservatives only did better in ten seats in the whole country. The substantial Tory victory here was in great part due to the candidate. A local councillor, Andrew Rosindell gained his council seat in 1990 and built up the largest Conservative share in any London ward by 1998. His flamboyant and idiosyncratic style of campaigning got him noticed and rather appealed to the local culture: Margaret Thatcher paid a visit in his support. He canvassed with his Staffordshire bull terrier, Spike, whom he dressed in a union jack waistcoat. The dog died soon afterwards. Romford is very much commuter territory, 95% white and 80% housing is owner-occupied by middle-class white collar workers, though there is a sizeable presence of skilled manual workers. Many residents moved here from east London just after the war. With the exception of Gidea Park, most of the housing is older terraced and semi-detached property. One of Romford's claims to fame is its snooker hall witnessed the rise of former world champion Steve Davis, although the player himself was born in Plumstead, in the Greenwich constituency.
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