The Conservative holding of the seat through the First Wilson Ministry reveals that in these early elections the seat was not a bellwether. On the 1974 transfer in power to Wilson again, here the result proved to be a watershed election. Labour's majorities since this, only in fairly good years for the Conservatives, such as during the Thatcher ministry as well as in 1992 and 2010 and 2019 general elections have been marginal. In terms of length of a party's representation, Labour has represented this area continuously for a total of 45 years as of 2019.