Post by BossMan on Apr 4, 2020 16:52:12 GMT
BRADFORD SOUTH
The Bradford South constituency was created in 1918. It is predominantly a white working class seat, much more so than some of the other constituencies in this Yorkshire city.
The boundaries have changed over the years, but its first MP, Vernon Willey, was a Coalition Conservative. The seat was then alternately held by the Liberals and the Co-operative Party from 1922 until 1945, when it was won by Labour, who have been winning the seat ever since.
It is fair to describe Bradford South as a naturally Labour seat, but it is not rock solid, despite the number of decades they have held it. There has always been a respectable pool of Conservative support here, and they have come reasonably close to winning numerous times over the decades, but have always fallen short. The closest contests were the Thatcher landslides. In 1983, the Labour MP Tom Torney held on by a razor thin 110 votes, and it was reported on the BBC’s election night programme that he was taken ill. Torney retired in 1987 and was replaced as Labour candidate by the former Keighley MP, Bob Cryer, who won by a similarly small margin of 309. Cryer was a left wing firebrand who made the first intervention in the House of Commons when it was first televised in 1989, getting in before Ian Gow made the first speech. Cryer held the seat until his untimely death aged 59 in a car accident in 1994, before his wife Ann and son John went on to become MPs.
The 1994 by-election was the one occasion the Liberal Democrats managed second place in Bradford South, at a time the Conservative government were very unpopular. This is not natural territory for them, either at national or local level.
In fact, local election results in recent years have suggested a considerable streak of nationalist, anti-EU and anti-immigration sentiment within this white working class, one might say – Old Labour – constituency, in sharp contrast to other Bradford constituencies. This was one of the best seats in the country for UKIP in the 2015 general election. In addition, UKIP have shown some strong performances at local level in most of the wards – Queensbury, Royds, Wibsey and Wyke – although they never quite succeeded in winning any. The BNP did win some seats in Wyke and Queensbury wards between 2004 and 2011.
The ward with the largest Asian community is Great Horton, the site of the well known Mumtaz restaurant. These days it is an overwhelming Labour ward, and Labour have also been able to count on winning Royds, Wibsey and Wyke in recent years, despite the strong BNP and UKIP challenges. Queensbury, a village on a hill 1100 feet above sea level, is the best ward for the Conservatives, when they have not struggled with BNP candidates who later went onto become Independents. Queensbury once shared an urban district council with Shelf, until the latter was moved into Calderdale at the re-organisation of local government in the early 1970s.
At the 2019 general election, when many traditional northern Labour seats (sometimes referred to as the Red Wall) went over to the Conservatives to “Get Brexit Done”, Labour managed to survive in Bradford South again, this time by 2,346 votes – the smallest majority since since the Thatcher years.
The Bradford South constituency was created in 1918. It is predominantly a white working class seat, much more so than some of the other constituencies in this Yorkshire city.
The boundaries have changed over the years, but its first MP, Vernon Willey, was a Coalition Conservative. The seat was then alternately held by the Liberals and the Co-operative Party from 1922 until 1945, when it was won by Labour, who have been winning the seat ever since.
It is fair to describe Bradford South as a naturally Labour seat, but it is not rock solid, despite the number of decades they have held it. There has always been a respectable pool of Conservative support here, and they have come reasonably close to winning numerous times over the decades, but have always fallen short. The closest contests were the Thatcher landslides. In 1983, the Labour MP Tom Torney held on by a razor thin 110 votes, and it was reported on the BBC’s election night programme that he was taken ill. Torney retired in 1987 and was replaced as Labour candidate by the former Keighley MP, Bob Cryer, who won by a similarly small margin of 309. Cryer was a left wing firebrand who made the first intervention in the House of Commons when it was first televised in 1989, getting in before Ian Gow made the first speech. Cryer held the seat until his untimely death aged 59 in a car accident in 1994, before his wife Ann and son John went on to become MPs.
The 1994 by-election was the one occasion the Liberal Democrats managed second place in Bradford South, at a time the Conservative government were very unpopular. This is not natural territory for them, either at national or local level.
In fact, local election results in recent years have suggested a considerable streak of nationalist, anti-EU and anti-immigration sentiment within this white working class, one might say – Old Labour – constituency, in sharp contrast to other Bradford constituencies. This was one of the best seats in the country for UKIP in the 2015 general election. In addition, UKIP have shown some strong performances at local level in most of the wards – Queensbury, Royds, Wibsey and Wyke – although they never quite succeeded in winning any. The BNP did win some seats in Wyke and Queensbury wards between 2004 and 2011.
The ward with the largest Asian community is Great Horton, the site of the well known Mumtaz restaurant. These days it is an overwhelming Labour ward, and Labour have also been able to count on winning Royds, Wibsey and Wyke in recent years, despite the strong BNP and UKIP challenges. Queensbury, a village on a hill 1100 feet above sea level, is the best ward for the Conservatives, when they have not struggled with BNP candidates who later went onto become Independents. Queensbury once shared an urban district council with Shelf, until the latter was moved into Calderdale at the re-organisation of local government in the early 1970s.
At the 2019 general election, when many traditional northern Labour seats (sometimes referred to as the Red Wall) went over to the Conservatives to “Get Brexit Done”, Labour managed to survive in Bradford South again, this time by 2,346 votes – the smallest majority since since the Thatcher years.