The first London borough by-elections triggered by councillors becoming MPs on 4 July took place in Camden on Thursday to fill vacancies created following the general election wins for Labour of Georgia Gould, Danny Beales and Lloyd Hatton.
Gould, a member of Camden Council since 2010 and its leader since 2017, had represented Kentish Town South ward and resigned after winning the safe Queen’s Park & Maida Vale parliamentary seat, the successor to Karen Buck’s Westminster North.
Beales too won a London House of Commons seat, capturing Uxbridge & South Ruislip from the Conservatives, having narrowly failed to do so at the by-election there in July 2023, making his triumph particularly sweet. That resulted in his Camden Square council seat being up for grabs. Hatton went further afield, gaining the difficult Labour target of South Dorset and subsequently leaving a space to fill in Kilburn ward.
The path from London council chamber to the Commons is well-trodden. Past examples from Camden, also all for Labour, include Frank Dobson, Tessa Jowell and Ken Livingstone, and in a general election that made Camden MP Keir Starmer Prime Minister, it was not surprising to see a few more switch from Judd Street to the Palace of Westminster.
They weren’t the only ones. London councillors have long been recruited for their local constituencies, of course, but these days are also frequently selected to contest seats outside the capital, particularly – though not necessarily – if they have roots in the relevant area and left because their lives and careers took them to London. Eighteen incumbent London councillors, listed below, are among the new House of Commons membership.
In addition, two further newly-elected MPs stood down from their council seats in advance of the general election. Adam Jogee, formerly of Hornsey ward in Haringey, now represents Newcastle-under-Lyme for Labour. Siân Berry, formerly of Highgate ward in Camden, was well ahead of the game in standing down at the end of last year, as she prepared to take over the Green mantle in Brighton Pavilion
There is no hard and fast rule that a politician has to give up a council seat on being elected an MP, and some have combined the roles for more than a transitional period. Ben Bradley, Conservative MP for Mansfield from 2017 until 2024, was re-elected to Nottinghamshire County Council and became leader of that authority after entering the Commons.
His zeal for public service was such that in May he also ran (unsuccessfully) for Mayor of East Midlands. However, voters and local media tend to look askance at politicians who attempt to ride two horses at the same time, particularly if there is a large geographical distance between the council ward and the parliamentary constituency.
Beales had represented Camden Square since 2022 and, before that, its predecessor, Cantelowes. The ward forms a wedge of the east side of Camden Town, south of the straight Camden Road. It contains the neighbourhood around Camden Square itself, which is mostly sub-divided Victorian villadom, and the Maiden Lane estate beside the Overground (Mildmay) line.
Kentish Town South is the other side of Camden Road from Camden Square and stretches up as far as Leighton Road to the north. It covers most of Kentish Town’s high street area, some mixed residential territory, the expensive Rochesters location and also some large council estates around Torriano Avenue. While Camden Square has an Irish Centre and Kilburn an Irish reputation, Kentish Town South was the most Irish (3.6 per cent) of the three wards in term of population, according to the 2021 Census.
Keir Starmer lived in Kentish Town before his relocation to Downing Street. He was resident in the Kentish Town North ward, but nevertheless his elevation to PM drew attention to Kentish Town as a whole. Like many in the City and the professions at the time, he bought a family house in what was then an up-and-coming residential area in the 2000s and has seen the value of the property shoot up.
Camden neighbourhoods associated with past Labour leaders tell the story of how the intersection of desirable and affordable has moved: Hugh Gaitskell lived in Frognal, Michael Foot the other side of Hampstead, Ed Miliband in Dartmouth Park (and his brother David in Primrose Hill). Like some of these previous leaders, Starmer had a “set” who lived around his home, which included Gould who represented a ward called Kentish Town from 2010 to 2022, before boundary changes created Kentish Town South.
Kilburn ward is over on the other side of the borough, tucked into the corner where Camden meets Westminster and Brent. It contains most of Camden’s share of Kilburn neighbourhood, including the iconic Alexandra Road Estate – which is arguably South Hampstead – and the streets around Kilburn Priory and Kilburn Grange Park. It is the least gentrified of the three wards, having the lowest proportion of the higher professional and managerial classes, the highest proportion social renting and the lowest proportion of owner-occupied housing. Weymouth-raised Hatton was on only his first term as councillor before being elected as MP for his original home area.
All three wards have a political history that is typical for Camden – mostly Labour-dominated but with the Liberal Democrats competitive towards the end of Labour’s last period in national government. In 2006, the Lib Dems won Kilburn, Cantelowes and two out of three seats in Kentish Town. But Labour reclaimed them all except one of the Cantelowes seats in 2010, and have dominated in local elections since then.
In 2022, the first election under the current boundaries, Labour won 76 per cent of the vote in Camden Square, 61 per cent in Kentish Town South and 68 per cent in Kilburn. All the wards have Muslim communities – ranging from 15 per cent in Kentish Town South to 27 per cent in Kilburn – but none of them can be described as predominantly Muslim, which is an important criterion given the poor results for Labour in Muslim areas in May and July 2024.
Campaigning for these three Camden by-elections took place in July and August, during the political lull after the general election. Consequently, they did not attract much attention. The big four London parties – Labour, Conservative, Lib Dem and Green – stood in all three, joined by two Independents in Camden Square and one in Kentish Town South.
Labour’s candidates for the seats were rapidly selected: Trish Leman, a former teacher, stood in Camden Square; Joseph Ball, a youth sports coach and charity trustee, stood in Kentish Town South; Robert Thompson, vicar of St Mary’s in Kilburn and, before that, a Kensington & Chelsea councillor, stood in Kilburn. And all three were successful, despite low turnouts and sharp falls in their party’s shares of the vote.
Only 13 per cent of Kilburn electors cast ballots. In Kentish Town South and Camden Square the figures were 18 per cent and 16 per cent respectively. The Labour share was down most in Camden Square (by 28 per cent) and by least in Kentish Town South (12 per cent). The decline was accentuated in Camden Square and Kentish Town South because the Greens had not contested the wards in 2022, despite their being potentially promising territory. In the two eastern wards, the Independent candidates also polled respectably, with Ali Farah coming second in Camden Square on a left wing platform.
The shape of the results should have come as no surprise, given the general election outcome. Camden Square and Kentish Town South are both in Starmer’s Holborn & St Pancras constituency, where Independent left candidate Andrew Feinstein did well in July and Labour’s vote share fell.
That said, there was no evidence of further slippage. And although caution should be applied when drawing conclusions from low-turnout summer by-elections, the contests also demonstrated Labour’s strength. In spite of everything, none of the results were at all close: Labour’s winning margins were 347 for Ball in Kentish Town South, 330 for Thompson in Kilburn and 301 for Leman in Camden Square.
A different candidate placed second in each ward – the Independent in Camden Square, the Green in Kentish Town South and the Conservative in Kilburn – illustrating a lack of coherence in the anti-Labour forces locally in Camden, as was recently the case nationally.
For more background on the three wards, including Camden Square’s associations with Amy Winehouse, see Andrew Teale’s excellent previews.
Support OnLondon.co.uk and its freelancers for just £5 a month or £50 a year and get things for your money too. Details HERE. Follow Lewis Baston on Bluesky. Photo of the three winning Labour candidates alongside Camden’s new leader, Richard Olszewski, from Camden Labour X/Twitter.