Post by BossMan on Apr 5, 2020 17:26:35 GMT
BRADFORD WEST
This constituency has had a very interesting and varied history, and has bucked the national trend on numerous occasions, owing to the candidature, racial and religious politics of this part of the city.
The seat’s boundaries have varied over the decades, but today it contains the wards of City (which includes Bradford city centre), Heaton, Manningham and Toller, which all contain significant Asian communities. This has grown considerably over the decades, and they are mostly of Muslim Pakistani origin. All of those wards seem monolithically Labour these days, but this has not always been so. Manningham was once regarded as the fashionable west end of Bradford, which contains the faded former mansions of the wool merchants, and are now mostly multi-occupied residences. Heaton is also traditionally a leafy middle class area, home to Bradford Grammar School. Up until 2008 the Conservatives could sometimes win some of these wards in local elections. They picked up Toller even in their annus horribilis of 1995. This is hard to imagine now.
Western communities are more predominant in the wards of Thornton and Allerton, and Clayton and Fairweather Green. These appear to be reliably Labour now, and haven’t returned Conservative councillors since 2012 and 2008 respectively.
Bradford West was first created in 1885, and was won by a Liberal. The Conservatives then held it between 1895 and 1906, when it was won by Labour at a time that party was still in its infancy. They held the constituency until it was abolished in 1918.
Upon its re-creation in 1955, it was a Conservative-Labour marginal until the 1974 boundary changes, when it was gained by Labour candidate Edward Lyons from Conservative MP John Wilkinson (who later resurfaced at Ruislip-Northwood). By this time the constituency’s Asian community was growing, and there was a pro-Labour swing in 1979, the year Margaret Thatcher came to power.
Lyons was among the Labour MPs who defected to the Social Democratic Party in 1981, but he came third against the Labour candidate and former Sowerby MP Max Madden in 1983. It was during his time as MP for Bradford West that former Conservative Party leader Iain Duncan Smith made his debut as a parliamentary candidate here in 1987, losing by 7,551 votes.
The 1997 election result here was extremely unusual indeed. It was Labour’s worst result anywhere in Britain at a time they secured their best ever national landslide, their majority over the Tories was cut from 9,502 to 3,877. Labour had deselected Max Madden and replaced him with Marsha Singh, of Sikh origin. The Conservative candidate was a Muslim.
Nevertheless, the Labour vote remained strong enough for Singh to be re-elected in 2001, 2005 and 2010 against Muslim Conservative candidates, with majorities ranging from three to six thousand.
Marsha Singh resigned as MP in 2012 due to ill health, and he died aged 57 a few months later. George Galloway, the high profile ex-Labour MP who had left his party over the war in Iraq and had previously served as MP for Bethnal Green and Bow (another seat with a significant ethnic minority population) under his new party, Respect, seized his opportunity to stand in the by-election. To the surprise of many, after a characteristically energetic campaign, he won by a mile. The Respect Party also enjoyed a considerable one-off success in the local elections that year, winning City, Heaton and Manningham. However, in the 2015 election, Galloway was easily defeated by the Labour candidate Naz Shah as minds focused on who would be forming the government of the country.
Naz Shah is the first Muslim MP for the constituency. Her majority soared to a record 27,019 at a time the Conservatives selected a Muslim candidate and won an overall majority of 80 at a national level. With all the wards now solidly voting Labour year after year, Bradford West now seems rock solid for them, at least for now.
This constituency has had a very interesting and varied history, and has bucked the national trend on numerous occasions, owing to the candidature, racial and religious politics of this part of the city.
The seat’s boundaries have varied over the decades, but today it contains the wards of City (which includes Bradford city centre), Heaton, Manningham and Toller, which all contain significant Asian communities. This has grown considerably over the decades, and they are mostly of Muslim Pakistani origin. All of those wards seem monolithically Labour these days, but this has not always been so. Manningham was once regarded as the fashionable west end of Bradford, which contains the faded former mansions of the wool merchants, and are now mostly multi-occupied residences. Heaton is also traditionally a leafy middle class area, home to Bradford Grammar School. Up until 2008 the Conservatives could sometimes win some of these wards in local elections. They picked up Toller even in their annus horribilis of 1995. This is hard to imagine now.
Western communities are more predominant in the wards of Thornton and Allerton, and Clayton and Fairweather Green. These appear to be reliably Labour now, and haven’t returned Conservative councillors since 2012 and 2008 respectively.
Bradford West was first created in 1885, and was won by a Liberal. The Conservatives then held it between 1895 and 1906, when it was won by Labour at a time that party was still in its infancy. They held the constituency until it was abolished in 1918.
Upon its re-creation in 1955, it was a Conservative-Labour marginal until the 1974 boundary changes, when it was gained by Labour candidate Edward Lyons from Conservative MP John Wilkinson (who later resurfaced at Ruislip-Northwood). By this time the constituency’s Asian community was growing, and there was a pro-Labour swing in 1979, the year Margaret Thatcher came to power.
Lyons was among the Labour MPs who defected to the Social Democratic Party in 1981, but he came third against the Labour candidate and former Sowerby MP Max Madden in 1983. It was during his time as MP for Bradford West that former Conservative Party leader Iain Duncan Smith made his debut as a parliamentary candidate here in 1987, losing by 7,551 votes.
The 1997 election result here was extremely unusual indeed. It was Labour’s worst result anywhere in Britain at a time they secured their best ever national landslide, their majority over the Tories was cut from 9,502 to 3,877. Labour had deselected Max Madden and replaced him with Marsha Singh, of Sikh origin. The Conservative candidate was a Muslim.
Nevertheless, the Labour vote remained strong enough for Singh to be re-elected in 2001, 2005 and 2010 against Muslim Conservative candidates, with majorities ranging from three to six thousand.
Marsha Singh resigned as MP in 2012 due to ill health, and he died aged 57 a few months later. George Galloway, the high profile ex-Labour MP who had left his party over the war in Iraq and had previously served as MP for Bethnal Green and Bow (another seat with a significant ethnic minority population) under his new party, Respect, seized his opportunity to stand in the by-election. To the surprise of many, after a characteristically energetic campaign, he won by a mile. The Respect Party also enjoyed a considerable one-off success in the local elections that year, winning City, Heaton and Manningham. However, in the 2015 election, Galloway was easily defeated by the Labour candidate Naz Shah as minds focused on who would be forming the government of the country.
Naz Shah is the first Muslim MP for the constituency. Her majority soared to a record 27,019 at a time the Conservatives selected a Muslim candidate and won an overall majority of 80 at a national level. With all the wards now solidly voting Labour year after year, Bradford West now seems rock solid for them, at least for now.
