The constituency is safe for Labour, whose MP John Battle stands down after representing it since he defeated one-term Liberal MP Michael Meadowcroft in 1987.
I live in a constituency so safe that I may as well ball up my ballot paper, push it up my bum and spend the afternoon farting it out at pigeons.
Speaking in the Clydeback and Milngavie constituency, a safe Labour seat now under threat from the SNP, Miliband added: "It's a combination of bluster and bluff; I gather he has got a book to sell".
Against the defeat at Hottentots-Holland, thought to be a safe constituency for the Government, should be set a victory in the Zululand constituency of Natal where, in spite of the discontent over the Government's Indian policy, the United party candidate defeated a strong Nationalist candidate.
Adam Bandt, the party's new deputy leader, won his seat last year in what used to be a safe constituency for Labor, in Melbourne.
These of course are all theoretical examples - if the polls are right, the election will look like a first-past-the-post contest in a safe constituency seat.
It would end the "jobs for life" culture in safe constituency seats (campaigners point to MPs in safe seats who were embroiled in the expenses scandal that hit the previous parliament).
The last device tried by Labour persuading constituency parties in safe Labour seats to pick candidates from women-only short lists—had to be dropped after a ruling that this broke sex-discrimination laws.In this section Mighty mayors The end of the beginning Up for Portillo Mandelson's odyssey Three's company Gordon, his true story How low can you go?
In 1985, following boundary changes, Atkinson was deselected as the future candidate for his safe constituency of Tottenham, north London, and so was unable to fight the 1987 general election, even though his overall majority had regularly been more than 9,000 since he was first elected in 1964.
Politicians control the drawing of district boundaries and frequently use that power to map out safe constituencies for themselves.
