Lying just 10 miles from Liverpool on the Wirral peninsula, Birkenhead is very much at the heart of Merseyside. The electorate returned Frank Field with 70.8% of the vote in 1997 to serve a fifth term as the constituency’s MP.
This predominantly white, working class constituency suffers acutely from many of the problems which afflict the economically and socially battered region in which it is set. The seat includes the modern Ford council estate in the Bidston ward which is notorious locally for crime and drug abuse.
The troubled Cammell Laird shipyard is the main source of employment for the people of Birkenhead as well as many in the surrounding area.
The only chink in the constituency’s solid working class vote can be found in the old, classic west end of Birkenhead.
Complete with handsome Victorian mansions, tree-lined residential roads and the independent Birkenhead School, Birkenhead Park (the first public park in the country and the model for the more famous Central Park in New York), it is home to most of the constituency’s middle class.