1950–1983: The County Borough of Worcester, the Borough of Droitwich, and the Rural District of Droitwich.
1983–1997: The City of Worcester, and the District of Wychavon wards of Drakes Broughton, Inkberrow, Lenches, Pinvin, Spetchley, and Upton Snodsbury.
1997–present: The City of Worcester.
The constituency covers the city of
Worcester, with (since the 1997 redistribution) exactly the same boundaries as the city. It borders the
Mid Worcestershire constituency to the east, and
West Worcestershire to the west.
A safe
Conservative seat for many years (the Conservatives even narrowly held the seat in the
1945 Labour landslide), Worcester was represented by the high-profile Conservative cabinet minister
Peter Walker for three decades, from a
by-election in 1961 until he stood down in 1992.
Peter Luff held the seat for the Conservatives until 1997, when he moved to the redrawn Mid Worcestershire constituency.
Michael Foster of the
Labour Party gained the seat at the
1997 general election. This can be put down to a combination of Labour's landslide victory nationally, but also to the fact that boundary changes meant the constituency was now solely an urban area, rather than also containing much of the surrounding countryside.
Peter Walker's son,
Robin Walker, was elected as the
Conservative MP at the
2010 general election. The constituency is marginal and was selected as a "target" by the Labour Party in 1997, and by the Conservative Party in 2010.
Many political commentators and journalists look on Worcester as having the demographic statistics which most closely mirror those in the United Kingdom as a whole. As such the term "
Worcester woman" has come into use as a description for a typical
swing voter.[citation needed]
General Election 1939–40:
Another general election was required to take place before the end of 1940. The political parties had been making preparations for an election to take place from 1939 and by the end of this year, the following candidates had been selected;
^
abcdeDriver, J. T. Worcestershire Knights of the Shire 1377-1421 Transactions of the Worcestershire Archaeological Society; Third Series Vol 4 1974 p20
^Report of the Annual Conference of the Labour Party, 1939
^
abcdeCraig, F. W. S. (1983). British parliamentary election results 1918-1949 (3 ed.). Chichester: Parliamentary Research Services.
ISBN0-900178-06-X.