Post by batman on Dec 1, 2021 18:07:13 GMT
The Manchester Gorton constituency is a survivor. It is close enough in to Manchester's city centre to have existed as a city division since 1918 but a form of it existed from 1885, although without the Manchester prefix. Its boundaries and electoral politics have changed a good deal over the years since 1885, but in one form or another it has kept going. Since Labour won the seat very early in the party's history (in fact, before it was even called the Labour Party), in 1906, it has been almost totally dominated by Labour, and that is even truer today than it has been in past years. Only once since then, in the party's famously disastrous year of 1931, has it elected a non-Labour MP, when the Conservative Eric Bailey was elected. Since 1945 Labour has been basically safe, and in the last decade despite the opposite swing of the pendulum nationally they have become even safer still. Very few seats have a larger share of the Labour vote than Manchester Gorton now, and that vote share rose even further at the 2019 election, in contrast to the national picture which was one mostly of disaster for the party.
Manchester is an ancient city, known to the Romans as Mamucium (apparently, meaning "breast-shaped hill"), although somehow this name got modified so that the adjective now used to describe the city and its inhabitants is not Mamucian but Mancunian. It grew rapidly after the Industrial Revolution, after which it became a major centre for the cotton trade, as with a number of other Northern towns and cities, and other industries became established too; the clothing trade is still visible with many warehouses around the city devoted to it even though manufacture is no longer prevalent. It became a large enough city to dominate a conurbation which now can be said to have over two and a half million inhabitants, and become the effective capital of the north-west, arguably of the entire north, though the city itself, even on its expanded boundaries which went a long way southwards to take in its airport and nearby housing estates, has only about half a million inhabitants, or perhaps even fewer. This division of Manchester is overwhelmingly working-class and very multiethnic, including as it does the famous Curry Mile with its long line of Indian (properly, Indian subcontinental) restaurants. As with much of inner Manchester, the largest ethnic minority component is of people with a Pakistani heritage, although there are people belonging to plenty of other backgrounds too. The White British element has not disappeared either by any means, but is now probably outnumbered by British Asians. It stretches, in its current incarnation, a good distance from east to west, from Longsight all the way to Whalley Range, and taking in Gorton, Levenshulme, Rusholme, much of Fallowfield and a gaggle of other smaller sub-areas. This is very different from the seat which existed up to 1983, which included Audenshaw and Denton for many years even though they were not, and still are not, part of the City Council area. The constituency became recognisable in its current form when these areas went to help form a completely new Denton & Reddish seat, which has also returned Labour MPs ever since (though usually with slightly smaller majorities). It took in parts of the abolished Moss Side and Ardwick divisions, sharing this territory with an also expanded Manchester Central. At the time of writing this in 2021, both Central and Gorton contained elements of both Whalley Range and Fallowfield wards, following ward boundary changes. Despite the long Labour dominance in the constituency, not all of the territory contained within it has seen Labour have its own way in the wards contained within, and for a time the local Liberal Democrats actually dominated the council seats within the constituency. Some wards have in the increasingly distant past elected Conservatives too. It is especially since the formation of the Lib Dem-Conservative national coalition in 2010 that the constituency has marched headlong towards total domination at all levels by the Labour Party. The only ward where Labour has been totally dominant at all levels in the last 40 years or so is Fallowfield, a very working-class area although immediately to its south the scenery changes rapidly and there are some very fine, graceful old houses. Whalley Range is solidly Labour nowadays, and even in the year of the so-called Cleggasm, 2010, Labour won handily. But it was not always so, as for example in 1984 it was one of only 3 of the 33 then wards in the city which elected a Conservative councillor. The area has some fine old houses, mostly either converted into flats or no longer in residential use, which gives a slight clue as to its former allegiance. But this is not quite the only part of the constituency where the Conservatives once had a presence. In the rather dimmer and distant past, Rusholme, which still has a few interwar semi-detached streets here and there, was sometimes able to elect Conservative councillors, though it more frequently elected Liberal ones in the days when the Liberals were really only noteworthy in Manchester here and in Levenshulme. Levenshulme was the very last ward in the city ever to elect 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. There is a fair-sized student population in some parts of the constituency, but the seats of Central and Withington on either side tend to be more associated with students than this one, whether fairly or not. Such middle-class pockets that remain, or have sprung up through modern private development, are few and far between. This is a mostly fairly deprived, multi-ethnic and very working-class seat. The saying sometimes goes that Labour's vote is increasingly middle-class; but its very safest seats are very rarely of that nature, and this one certainly is not, any more than its monolithic seats in and around Liverpool are.
Following the abolition of Manchester Ardwick in 1983, that constituency's MP, Labour's Gerald Kaufman, beat off the challenges of other relatively right-wing Labour figures to gain the nomination for this constituency, and thus ended the parliamentary career of Ken Marks, who had been MP here since a by-election in 1967. Also abolished were the seats of Moss Side and Openshaw, so the same fate occurred to their Labour MPs, respectively George Morton (a fairly obscure figure even when an MP, though still with us at the time of writing) and Charles Morris. Kaufman belonged to the Right of the Party, and largely remained there, although he became transformed from being one of the most pro-Israel of all Labour MPs to becoming one of the country's sternest parliamentary critics by the time of his passing in 2017, thus thwarting his ambitions of becoming Father of the House. In 2010 he faced a stern challenge from the burgeoning Liberal Democrats, as he had done in 2005 when military action in Iraq proved very unpopular with his many Muslim constituents in particular (and no doubt many of his student and other constituents too). He beat off this challenge comfortably enough but hardly that convincingly, but in his final election of 2015 he benefitted greatly from the coalition-related unpopularity of the Lib Dems. The by-election which had been arranged for the constituency after his death became part of the general election instead when Theresa May (very unwisely as it turned out) opted for an early general election, and the figurehead of the then Respect Party, George Galloway, found himself standing here in the general election instead of in a high-profile by-election. Labour's Afzal Khan, founder of a local Muslim-Jewish forum and at the time of writing still active in it, won the seat with an overwhelming share of the vote, considerably higher even than Kaufman had managed in 2015 despite it having risen in that election to over 67%. In 2019 Khan, perhaps enjoying the fruits of first-time incumbency and the absence this time of Galloway from the ballot paper, raised his share even further to not much shy of 78%. Very few seats can boast a Labour (or indeed any other party) share of the vote of quite that size, and Khan has an extremely safe seat here.
Manchester is an ancient city, known to the Romans as Mamucium (apparently, meaning "breast-shaped hill"), although somehow this name got modified so that the adjective now used to describe the city and its inhabitants is not Mamucian but Mancunian. It grew rapidly after the Industrial Revolution, after which it became a major centre for the cotton trade, as with a number of other Northern towns and cities, and other industries became established too; the clothing trade is still visible with many warehouses around the city devoted to it even though manufacture is no longer prevalent. It became a large enough city to dominate a conurbation which now can be said to have over two and a half million inhabitants, and become the effective capital of the north-west, arguably of the entire north, though the city itself, even on its expanded boundaries which went a long way southwards to take in its airport and nearby housing estates, has only about half a million inhabitants, or perhaps even fewer. This division of Manchester is overwhelmingly working-class and very multiethnic, including as it does the famous Curry Mile with its long line of Indian (properly, Indian subcontinental) restaurants. As with much of inner Manchester, the largest ethnic minority component is of people with a Pakistani heritage, although there are people belonging to plenty of other backgrounds too. The White British element has not disappeared either by any means, but is now probably outnumbered by British Asians. It stretches, in its current incarnation, a good distance from east to west, from Longsight all the way to Whalley Range, and taking in Gorton, Levenshulme, Rusholme, much of Fallowfield and a gaggle of other smaller sub-areas. This is very different from the seat which existed up to 1983, which included Audenshaw and Denton for many years even though they were not, and still are not, part of the City Council area. The constituency became recognisable in its current form when these areas went to help form a completely new Denton & Reddish seat, which has also returned Labour MPs ever since (though usually with slightly smaller majorities). It took in parts of the abolished Moss Side and Ardwick divisions, sharing this territory with an also expanded Manchester Central. At the time of writing this in 2021, both Central and Gorton contained elements of both Whalley Range and Fallowfield wards, following ward boundary changes. Despite the long Labour dominance in the constituency, not all of the territory contained within it has seen Labour have its own way in the wards contained within, and for a time the local Liberal Democrats actually dominated the council seats within the constituency. Some wards have in the increasingly distant past elected Conservatives too. It is especially since the formation of the Lib Dem-Conservative national coalition in 2010 that the constituency has marched headlong towards total domination at all levels by the Labour Party. The only ward where Labour has been totally dominant at all levels in the last 40 years or so is Fallowfield, a very working-class area although immediately to its south the scenery changes rapidly and there are some very fine, graceful old houses. Whalley Range is solidly Labour nowadays, and even in the year of the so-called Cleggasm, 2010, Labour won handily. But it was not always so, as for example in 1984 it was one of only 3 of the 33 then wards in the city which elected a Conservative councillor. The area has some fine old houses, mostly either converted into flats or no longer in residential use, which gives a slight clue as to its former allegiance. But this is not quite the only part of the constituency where the Conservatives once had a presence. In the rather dimmer and distant past, Rusholme, which still has a few interwar semi-detached streets here and there, was sometimes able to elect Conservative councillors, though it more frequently elected Liberal ones in the days when the Liberals were really only noteworthy in Manchester here and in Levenshulme. Levenshulme was the very last ward in the city ever to elect 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. There is a fair-sized student population in some parts of the constituency, but the seats of Central and Withington on either side tend to be more associated with students than this one, whether fairly or not. Such middle-class pockets that remain, or have sprung up through modern private development, are few and far between. This is a mostly fairly deprived, multi-ethnic and very working-class seat. The saying sometimes goes that Labour's vote is increasingly middle-class; but its very safest seats are very rarely of that nature, and this one certainly is not, any more than its monolithic seats in and around Liverpool are.
Following the abolition of Manchester Ardwick in 1983, that constituency's MP, Labour's Gerald Kaufman, beat off the challenges of other relatively right-wing Labour figures to gain the nomination for this constituency, and thus ended the parliamentary career of Ken Marks, who had been MP here since a by-election in 1967. Also abolished were the seats of Moss Side and Openshaw, so the same fate occurred to their Labour MPs, respectively George Morton (a fairly obscure figure even when an MP, though still with us at the time of writing) and Charles Morris. Kaufman belonged to the Right of the Party, and largely remained there, although he became transformed from being one of the most pro-Israel of all Labour MPs to becoming one of the country's sternest parliamentary critics by the time of his passing in 2017, thus thwarting his ambitions of becoming Father of the House. In 2010 he faced a stern challenge from the burgeoning Liberal Democrats, as he had done in 2005 when military action in Iraq proved very unpopular with his many Muslim constituents in particular (and no doubt many of his student and other constituents too). He beat off this challenge comfortably enough but hardly that convincingly, but in his final election of 2015 he benefitted greatly from the coalition-related unpopularity of the Lib Dems. The by-election which had been arranged for the constituency after his death became part of the general election instead when Theresa May (very unwisely as it turned out) opted for an early general election, and the figurehead of the then Respect Party, George Galloway, found himself standing here in the general election instead of in a high-profile by-election. Labour's Afzal Khan, founder of a local Muslim-Jewish forum and at the time of writing still active in it, won the seat with an overwhelming share of the vote, considerably higher even than Kaufman had managed in 2015 despite it having risen in that election to over 67%. In 2019 Khan, perhaps enjoying the fruits of first-time incumbency and the absence this time of Galloway from the ballot paper, raised his share even further to not much shy of 78%. Very few seats can boast a Labour (or indeed any other party) share of the vote of quite that size, and Khan has an extremely safe seat here.
