Wolverhampton South West Nicholas Budgen 19,539 24,657 4,012 0 713 Wolverhampton South West 25,969 21,003 4,470 0 1,237 Conservative Wolverhampton South West will for ever be associated with Enoch Powell, who represented this seat from 1950 to February 1974, but then refused to contest the general election as the Tory candidate, voted Labour himself, and called on his anti-Common Market supporters to do the same. South West is traditionally the safe Conservative seat in Wolverhampton, although Powell clearly had a personal vote and personal influence as well. It contains some of the best residential areas in the West Midlands, such as Penn and Tettenhall, but also some more central areas which, ironically, include a substantial non-white population. The seat has been drifting towards Labour for some years, and in 1992 they managed to cut the majority of Powell's Conservative successor Nicholas Budgen to under 5,000. The seat now counts as one of Labour's West Midlands targets, although it must remain an outside bet. One possible clue is that in the most recent local elections (May 1996) the Conservative vote held up better than elsewhere in the country, and they polled more votes than Labour even in a mid-term municipal contest.

	4,045	10.31	9.03	114
	5,850	14.92	11.17	134
	4,076	10.39	11.25	92
	1,842	4.70	14.70	32
	10,354	26.40	10.45	253
	0	0.00	2.81	0
	2,457	6.26	8.01	78
	5,013	12.78	15.25	84
	1,445	3.68	7.13	52
	3,845	9.80	10.17	96