Post by batman on Jul 5, 2023 20:10:41 GMT
Although this constituency lacks a Manchester prefix, it is a seat the majority of whose electors are within the boundaries of the City of Manchester, very much as is the case with Wythenshawe & Sale East. The name is new, but to a fair degree it is the return of an old constituency; Manchester Gorton was a very different seat up to 1983 from what it became thereafter. Before that time, it linked Gorton and other city areas of Manchester with Denton and Audenshaw, then as now in a different borough, Tameside from 1973 until these areas ceased to be associated with Manchester for parliamentary purposes a decade later. This seat is not identical to the pre-1983 Manchester Gorton, but it has a considerable affinity with it. Also included, with Gorton and Denton, are the Manchester city districts of Levenshulme and Longsight, which have long been part of the Manchester Gorton constituency, and Burnage which comes in from Manchester Withington. The pre-1983 Manchester Gorton was a perennially safe Labour seat, not lost since 1931, and this one will be no different. Although its social composition will be very slightly less uniformly working-class and also a little less multiethnic than the Manchester Gorton seat in its post-1983 form, it is still fairly homogenous in this respect. However, this new seat will not include Audenshaw, which will be part of a redrawn Ashton-under-Lyne, but this will be compensated for in terms of numbers of electors by the inclusion of Levenshulme, Longsight and Burnage.
To discuss the Manchester city element of the seat first. Levenshulme, the first stop on the railway line between Stockport and Manchester Piccadilly, was the very last ward in the city ever to start electing Labour councillors, as for many years it was the sole Liberal stronghold in the city, and if the Liberals faltered it was the Conservatives who won it instead, which seems very hard to believe when visiting the area nowadays. Only since the backlash faced by the Liberal Democrats after they formed the coalition with the Tories have Labour finally managed to win here, though they had quite often been fairly close; but now Labour has built up a formidable lead in the area. Once, it was an area essentially populated by the artisan class, and regarded as a bit of a cut above areas to its north; and it remained a predominantly white area for longer than some parts of the constituency. Nowadays, it is unequivocally an area dominated by the British Asian working class. Gorton itself is a large enough area to have sub-areas of its own, such as Belle Vue, and has had a solidly working-class social composition for even longer than much of the rest of the seat. It has at times elected Liberal Democrat councillors, but more often than not Labour has won at local level. Furthest to the east, Longsight too has always been a heavily working-class area. Like almost the whole of the rest of the city, it too has become very multi-ethnic although of course that was once much less the case. Longsight tends to have similar voting patterns to Gorton itself, being a ward usually won by Labour, but again where the Liberal Democrats were competitive until the formation of the coalition ended that. Burnage has up to now been part of a constituency which has been lost by Labour to the Liberal Democrats in the recent past, and for a time the Liberal Democrats were able to win the ward regularly (sometimes with considerable ease), but since the coalition between the Tories and the Lib Dems was formed in 2010 it has been consistently been won by Labour, usually by large majorities. It is less "intellectual" and middle-class than most districts in the former Withington seat, and is rather less multiethnic than the remainder of the Manchester city section of this new seat. It is less poor than some areas further in towards the city centre, but less prosperous than most of the other wards which have recently formed the Withington constituency.
Denton is distinctly more outer-city in character than most of the rest of this proposed seat. In many ways, it is rather typical of outer Manchester suburban towns and districts, having many terraced streets and council estates, but also having some rather more heterogeneous swathes of interwar semi-detached houses, many still in reasonably good condition. While Denton has not been a Tory town in living memory, it has seen the Conservatives at least competitive in the fairly recent past; for example, in the 2008 local elections, although Labour won all three of the town's wards, their majorities were not high, and one ward, West, saw the Tories come very close to winning. A number of outer as well as inner Manchester urban areas have broadly trended against the Tories in the last decade or so (though of course there are some major exceptions to this - hence for example the Tory gain at Heywood and Middleton at the 2019 general elections), and Denton appears to be one of those, as in the last poor set of local election results for Labour, in 2021, the party won all three Denton wards comfortably, if not quite overwhelmingly. The presence of Denton in the constituency will at least give the Conservatives some sort of coherent presence in the seat, but will merely act to take the shine off Labour's percentage majority a little and make it somewhat less safe than some other constituencies further in towards the city centre.
To discuss the Manchester city element of the seat first. Levenshulme, the first stop on the railway line between Stockport and Manchester Piccadilly, was the very last ward in the city ever to start electing Labour councillors, as for many years it was the sole Liberal stronghold in the city, and if the Liberals faltered it was the Conservatives who won it instead, which seems very hard to believe when visiting the area nowadays. Only since the backlash faced by the Liberal Democrats after they formed the coalition with the Tories have Labour finally managed to win here, though they had quite often been fairly close; but now Labour has built up a formidable lead in the area. Once, it was an area essentially populated by the artisan class, and regarded as a bit of a cut above areas to its north; and it remained a predominantly white area for longer than some parts of the constituency. Nowadays, it is unequivocally an area dominated by the British Asian working class. Gorton itself is a large enough area to have sub-areas of its own, such as Belle Vue, and has had a solidly working-class social composition for even longer than much of the rest of the seat. It has at times elected Liberal Democrat councillors, but more often than not Labour has won at local level. Furthest to the east, Longsight too has always been a heavily working-class area. Like almost the whole of the rest of the city, it too has become very multi-ethnic although of course that was once much less the case. Longsight tends to have similar voting patterns to Gorton itself, being a ward usually won by Labour, but again where the Liberal Democrats were competitive until the formation of the coalition ended that. Burnage has up to now been part of a constituency which has been lost by Labour to the Liberal Democrats in the recent past, and for a time the Liberal Democrats were able to win the ward regularly (sometimes with considerable ease), but since the coalition between the Tories and the Lib Dems was formed in 2010 it has been consistently been won by Labour, usually by large majorities. It is less "intellectual" and middle-class than most districts in the former Withington seat, and is rather less multiethnic than the remainder of the Manchester city section of this new seat. It is less poor than some areas further in towards the city centre, but less prosperous than most of the other wards which have recently formed the Withington constituency.
Denton is distinctly more outer-city in character than most of the rest of this proposed seat. In many ways, it is rather typical of outer Manchester suburban towns and districts, having many terraced streets and council estates, but also having some rather more heterogeneous swathes of interwar semi-detached houses, many still in reasonably good condition. While Denton has not been a Tory town in living memory, it has seen the Conservatives at least competitive in the fairly recent past; for example, in the 2008 local elections, although Labour won all three of the town's wards, their majorities were not high, and one ward, West, saw the Tories come very close to winning. A number of outer as well as inner Manchester urban areas have broadly trended against the Tories in the last decade or so (though of course there are some major exceptions to this - hence for example the Tory gain at Heywood and Middleton at the 2019 general elections), and Denton appears to be one of those, as in the last poor set of local election results for Labour, in 2021, the party won all three Denton wards comfortably, if not quite overwhelmingly. The presence of Denton in the constituency will at least give the Conservatives some sort of coherent presence in the seat, but will merely act to take the shine off Labour's percentage majority a little and make it somewhat less safe than some other constituencies further in towards the city centre.
