Despite winning her east London seat in 1997 with a majority of 11,000 votes, Oona King actually experienced a fall in Labour’s vote of over 7% - the party’s second worst result in Britain.
The constituency is home to the Crown Jewels in the Tower of London and Victoria Park, Bethnal Green Museum of Childhood, Brick Lane, Spitalfields, and Royal London Hospital.
Since the 16th century, Tower Hamlets has been home to a succession of immigrants, from the Huguenots to the Irish, Jews, Africans, Chinese, Somalis, West Indians, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis.
The Bangladeshi community here in the 1991 census stood at just under 37,000, the biggest minority group in the area by a long way. The non-white population amounts to just under 40%.
Poverty, unemployment, and racial tension in some sense encapsulate the nature of the constituency. This was one of the three constituencies in 1997 where the BNP saved its deposit, receiving 7.5% of the vote.
In the eight years up to May 1994 the Lib Dems controlled Tower Hamlets Council, but since then Labour has been in control.
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