The Labour Party won its lowest-ever share of the vote in deprived areas at the General Election, figures compiled by the Financial Times show.
Sir Keir Starmer dealt a historic defeat to Rishi Sunak’s Conservatives on July 4th, winning 412 seats to the Tories’ 121.
The victory has been attributed to the “hyper-efficient distribution of the Labour vote”, which allowed the party to rack up seats despite its overall share of the vote being down on 2019.
Data reporter John Burn-Murdoch has taken to social media to share one of the “under-appreciated” stats of the election.
His research shows that Labour won its lowest-ever share of the vote in deprived areas (<50 per cent for the first time), and its highest-ever share in affluent areas.
The dramatic flattening of the class gradient is steeper than Sir Tony Blair’s landslide victory in 1997, and contrasts starkly to previous Labour administrations during the Conservative’s time in office.
Starmer paid tribute to colleagues past and present as he made his first appearance in the House of Commons since becoming Prime Minister on Tuesday (9/7).
His arrival in the Commons chamber on Tuesday was greeted by a standing ovation from the Labour benches, and he shared a brief word with his predecessor, Rishi Sunak, before the pair took their seats.
Sir Keir gave the first speech responding to the unanimous re-election of Sir Lindsay Hoyle as Commons Speaker, beginning with a tribute to former Conservative MP Craig Mackinlay.
Now Lord Mackinlay, the former MP had both his hands and feet amputated after contracting sepsis and decided not to fight his seat at last week’s election due to his ongoing recovery.
The Prime Minister said: “All of those returning will remember, as I do, the speech he gave just a few weeks ago which was inspiring and moving and we wish him well.”
He went on to welcome the 335 new MPs and thank Tory MP Sir Edward Leigh, who, as the MP with the longest continuous service, is Father of the House and oversaw Sir Lindsay’s re-election.
After celebrating the diversity of the new House of Commons, which Sir Keir said has the largest cohort of LGBT+ MPs of any parliament in the world, he paid special tribute to Diane Abbott – the longest-serving female MP.
He said Ms Abbott has “done so much in her career over so many years to fight for a Parliament that truly represents modern Britain”.
Related: Braverman hits out at Badenoch’s ‘nervous breakdown’ comment as row escalates