Broadband slower in Conservative constituencies, study finds
Dan Howdle | June 26th, 2024
This was quite a job. Not least because parliament decided to redraw the entire constituency map of the UK last year in preparation for a 2024 or 2025 General Election, making assigning postcodes to each constituency that much harder. In this blog we'll take a look at the most interesting data points. Just remember, we make no comment, positive or negative about any political party, we are merely reporting the numbers we uncovered.
Labour constituencies are faster than Conservative constituencies on average
By grouping constituencies into groups according to the parties that held them up to the dissolution of parliament prior to the 2024 General Election, we were able to form averages by party. What this showed was that Labour constituencies are the fastest on average, putting Conservatives constituencies on second place. You may think, ah, well, that's because more Conservative constituencies are rural, and you may or may not be right. But these are the numbers, including the other parties:
| Party | Average download |
|---|---|
| Labour | 126.75Mbps |
| Conservative | 121.20Mbps |
| Independent and other | 116.41Mbps |
| Liberal Democrat | 112.97Mbps |
| SNP | 111.46Mbps |
Don't forget, you can download the entire list of 650 constituencies and speeds on the study's source page.
Most of the fastest constituencies were Labour, most of the slowest Conservative
The averages have a habit of smoothing things out a bit too much. Taking a different scoop from the sample can sometimes make the differences a little more clear/stark. Looking at the top ten fastest constituencies in the UK, six of them are Labour, while only three are Conservative. On the flipside, six of the ten slowest constituencies in the UK are Conservative, while there are no Labour constituencies to be found there at all.
Here are the fastest and slowest constituencies in the UK, along with the political party whose MP resided there up to the dissolution of parliament prior to the 2024 General Election on 4 July:
Top 10 fastest constituencies
| Rank | Constituency | MP | Party | Constituency download speed in Mbps |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Swansea West | Geraint Davies | Independent | 192.61 |
| 2 | Southampton Itchen | Royston Smith | Conservative | 187.34 |
| 3 | Southampton Test | Alan Whitehead | Labour | 184.10 |
| 4 | Portsmouth South | Stephen Morgan | Labour | 178.39 |
| 5 | Portsmouth North | Penny Mordaunt | Conservative | 178.38 |
| 6 | Gower | Tonia Antoniazzi | Labour | 174.39 |
| 7 | Kingston upon Hull North and Cottingham | Diana Johnson | Labour | 167.92 |
| 8 | Neath and Swansea East | Christina Rees | Labour | 167.56 |
| 9 | Sutton and Cheam | Paul Scully | Conservative | 166.96 |
| 10 | Kingston upon Hull West and Haltemprice | Emma Hardy | Labour | 166.02 |
Top 10 slowest constituencies
| Rank | Constituency | MP | Party | Constituency download speed in Mbps |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 650 | Na h-Eileanan an Iar | Angus Brendan MacNeil | Independent | 40.69 |
| 649 | Whitehaven and Workington | Trudy Harrison | Conservative | 51.81 |
| 648 | Orkney and Shetland | Alistair Carmichael | Liberal Democrat | 57.06 |
| 647 | Caithness Sutherland and Easter Ross | Jamie Stone | Liberal Democrat | 62.27 |
| 646 | Aberdeenshire North and Moray East | Douglas Ross | Conservative | 62.97 |
| 645 | North Norfolk | Duncan Baker | Conservative | 63.73 |
| 644 | Bournemouth East | Tobias Ellwood | Conservative | 66.76 |
| 643 | Ynys Mon | Virginia Crosbie | Conservative | 70.21 |
| 642 | Argyll Bute and South Lochaber | Brendan O'Hara | Scottish National Party | 71.05 |
| 641 | North Devon | Selaine Saxby | Conservative | 73.94 |
Labour's Shadow Cabinet is faster than the Conservative Cabinet
Another of the 'just for fun' findings of our research is that Labour also has faster broadband when exclusively including the Conservative government cabinet and pitting it against Labour's Shadow Cabinet. The Labour cabinet is a fair bit larger than the current Conservative one, and there are some members of both who are either not MPs (so don't have constituencies, such as Lord Cameron), or had presided over constituencies that have been too substantially redrawn to assign them to one in this upcoming election.
Here is the comparison of constituency broadband speeds when facing off the cabinet against the shadow cabinet:
| Cabinet Ministers | Constituency download speed in Mbps | Shadow Cabinet | Constituency download speed in Mbps |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rishi Sunak | 97.26 | Keir Starmer | 131.06 |
| Oliver Dowden | 117.97 | Angela Rayner | 97.16 |
| Jeremy Hunt | BOUNDARY CHANGES | Rachel Reeves | 132.51 |
| Lord Cameron | NOT AN MP | Bridget Phillipson | 108.52 |
| James Cleverly | 102.83 | Yvette Cooper | 137.64 |
| Grant Shapps | 135.94 | Wes Streeting | 127.06 |
| Alex Chalk | 146.70 | Edward Miliband | 114.81 |
| Michelle Donelan | 114.23 | David Lammy | 113.23 |
| Michael Gove | 133.28 | Pat McFadden | 123.78 |
| Victoria Atkins | 92.73 | Nick Thomas-Symonds | 109.81 |
| Steve Barclay | 101.69 | Jonathan Ashworth | 128.12 |
| Penny Mordaunt | 178.38 | Shabana Mahmood | 116.59 |
| Lord True | NOT AN MP | Jonathan Reynolds | 105.60 |
| Kemi Badenoch | 122.88 | Liz Kendall | 117.90 |
| Claire Coutinho | 122.07 | John Healey | BOUNDARY CHANGES |
| Mel Stride | 95.81 | Louise Haigh | 117.82 |
| Gillian Keegan | 91.26 | Thangam Debbonaire | 117.78 |
| Mark Harper | 108.36 | Anneliese Dodds | 133.93 |
| Lucy Frazer | BOUNDARY CHANGES | Steve Reed | 138.16 |
| Richard Holden | BOUNDARY CHANGES | Peter Kyle | 130.64 |
| Chris Heaton-Harris | 146.33 | Hilary Benn | 133.90 |
| Alister Jack | 79.19 | Ian Murray | 123.45 |
| David T C Davies | 105.05 | Jo Stevens | BOUNDARY CHANGES |
| Emily Thornberry | 98.46 | ||
| Lisa Nandy | 128.11 | ||
| Darren Jones | 128.10 | ||
| Ellie Reeves | 113.15 | ||
| Lucy Powell | 125.96 | ||
| Alan Campbell | 101.48 | ||
| Angela Smith | NOT AN MP | ||
| Roy Kennedy | NOT AN MP | ||
| Average: | 116.22 | Average: | 120.55 |
Liberal Democrats' Ed Davey is the fastest party leader
Finally, it's the face of of broadband speeds in the constituencies of party leaders. Here, the Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey trounces the opposition. His constituency of Kingston and Surbiton is by far the fastest of the three leaders. Why three leaders? Well, because a fair few other party leaders do not have a constituency. See Greens, for example. The SNP – the UK's third largest party by seats – on the other hand is led by John Swinney, whose own constituency was substantially redrawn in the boundary changes made public last year, so technically he doesn't have a constituency either.
Here are the broadband speeds in the constituencies of the main party leaders:
| Leader | Party | Constituency download speed in Mbps |
|---|---|---|
| Ed Davey | Liberal Democrats | 163.49 |
| Keir Starmer | Labour | 131.06 |
| Rishi Sunak | Conservative | 97.26 |
Closing comments
This is, at the end of the day, a data set others will be able to use to make points about broadband where they live, and prompt a little healthy competition among MPs to improve connectivity for their constituents. If you want to know how fast the broadband is in your constituency, you can download the full data from the source page of this research.