With an already comfortable majority in 1992 of 11,316, Keith Vaz increased his majority yet further in 1997 with a swing of 9.5% taking him up to 18,422. Labour dominates the council, but in the more suburban east of the constituency, bordering the Rutland and Melton constituency, the wards of West Humberstone, Humberstone, Thurncourt and Evington are Conservative.
The seat was won by a Tory, Peter Bruinvels in 1983 due to a split vote between SDP and Labour candidates. With no SDP candidate in 1987, Vaz emerged victorious.
A crucial factor in the strength of Vaz’s position is the size of the Asian population in Leicester East. Thirty eight per cent of the population here classed themselves as non-white in the 1991 census, and there are several wards which are majority non-white: Belgrave, Latimer, Rushey Mead and Charnwood. A large proportion of the Asian population in the constituency came to the UK following the mass expulsions from Kenya and Uganda in the 1960s and 1970s. Keith Vaz, who is himself a Catholic born in Aden, was the first MP of Asian origin since S. Saklatvala, a Communist Party MP between 1922 and 1929.
HOMEPAGE | NEWS | WORLD SERVICE | SPORT | MY BBC
