Post by batman on Jul 5, 2023 20:06:03 GMT
edited to take into account the 2024 general election result.
MANCHESTER CENTRAL
Manchester Central, whether uniquely or not I am unable to say, is in fact not the only constituency so named, since there is also a Manchester Central constituency in the Jamaican parliament, and that too is held by the Labour Party - although as many know, rather confusingly in Jamaica the Labour Party is actually much the more conservative of the country's two main parties, the more left-wing being the People's National Party. I propose to write about the English constituency, which I know infinitely better, since I have never been to Jamaica.
There has only been a Manchester Central seat in England since 1974, a contrast with the situation in other major cities such as Edinburgh, Sheffield or Leeds. It was created from the entirety of the former Manchester Cheetham division, and it was that constituency's MP, Harold Lever, who became Manchester Central's inaugural MP; and from a majority of the former Manchester Exchange constituency. Since then, the constituency has grown considerably in electorate, but it has been a safe Labour seat throughout its history as Manchester Central. Its predecessors were safe Labour seats since WWII as well. It is not that hard to see why. Although Manchester's city centre has some desirable owner-occupied flats and houses, some being conversions of previously industrial buildings, it is surrounded by inner city deprivation, and some of the very poorest parts of Greater Manchester are to be found in this seat. The city centre is very unusual in being contiguous with a completely separate municipality, the city of Salford, whose traditional centre has some almost desolate areas not far from Manchester's gleaming and apparently thriving centre. The River Irwell forms the boundary between the two cities. Cheetham departed the constituency in 1997 and up to now has been in Blackley & Broughton, meaning that this constituency has only contained areas any distance from the city centre in an easterly and a southerly direction; however, in the most recent boundary changes almost the entirety of the section of the seat south-west of the city centre itself has departed to help form a new Manchester Rusholme constituency, and Cheetham is now restored to it. Therefore, this seat while including the city centre itself might just as easily be renamed Manchester North-East, especially as one of the areas which are now included, Failsworth, is not only some distance away from the city centre, it is not even in the city of Manchester. However, whatever its boundaries have been, this is for the most part a mostly deprived and very working-class seat. It is also notably multiethnic with most BAME voters tending to be of Pakistani heritage, particularly in Cheetham, which was once a working-class Jewish area but no longer has a Jewish population, although its Jewish Museum, housed in a former Sephardi synagogue on Cheetham Hill, continues to thrive. Cheetham is one of a remarkably large number of areas in this proposed new constituency which has in the past given its name to a constituency of its own.
To the east of the city centre, there has been considerable redevelopment, not least the construction of the City of Manchester Stadium, nowadays Manchester City's home ground. The redevelopment has done little to change electoral politics in what remains an overwhelmingly working-class area. In either a due easterly, south-easterly or north-easterly direction from the city centre can be found Clayton and Openshaw, Miles Platting and Newton Heath (the latter being the former name and location of what is now Manchester United), and Ancoats and Beswick. Clayton and Openshaw is a mostly white working-class area. It has seen a rare instance of Labour losing an election in recent years; an Independent very narrowly gained the seat from Labour in a by-election, only to behave in an extremely erratic fashion, refusing to recognise Manchester Council as a legitimate local authority, and attempting to invoice shops and other businesses he visited for large amounts of money if they insisted he wear a mask. He has now departed the scene and Labour easily won the by-election (concurrent with the 2021 main local elections) caused by his resignation (he never actually used the word resign, leaving it up to the city's Chief Executive to deem him to have done so). The other wards named are overwhelmingly Labour at all levels, the exception being Ancoats & Beswick. Ancoats, once one of the most grindingly poor areas of any British city, has seen some executive dwellings spring up in recent years. Ancoats saw a rare Liberal Democrat by-election win in the run-up to the 2022 main elections, and they won it again in 2023 (these two wins sandwiching a Labour win in the 2022 main elections) and in 2024. All the other Manchester council wards now in the constituency were won very easily by Labour that year, with the partial exception of Piccadilly ward. Openshaw previously gave its name to a parliamentary constituency, and before 1950, there were also Clayton and Platting constituencies in the city. It may not come as much of a surprise to note that all these were safe Labour seats at the time of their abolition, too.
The city centre itself is divided between two council wards, Deansgate and Piccadilly, although both contain other elements too. Although these wards contain the most expensive and perhaps in many people's eyes desirable residential properties, Labour is not negligible anywhere, and prevails in both wards - the Conservatives these days are weak almost throughout the city of Manchester itself, and cannot really aspire to win any of its wards despite sporadic efforts to take one ward, Brooklands, well to the south-west of here, and it is mainly the Greens and the Liberal Democrats who provide the bulk of what opposition there is in most wards, although in some wards the Conservatives have at least managed to stay in second place. Many Conservatives without doubt commute to this constituency to work, but few live here. The old City Centre ward saw some rather narrow Labour majorities over the Liberal Democrats in the past, but just as has been the case in much of Britain the Lib Dems lost a great deal of ground in the city when they went into coalition with the Conservatives, a party few Mancunians wish to vote for, and now the city centre wards are at worst comfortable enough for Labour, at best very solid. In 2024, Labour retained an overwhelming majority in Deansgate, and a very comfortable though rather lesser one in Piccadilly where the Greens polled very respectably in second place.
The most obviously anomalous area of the new constituency will be Failsworth, which has the unusual distinction of never having given its name to a previous constituency, one might say for this seat. Failsworth, unlike the whole of the rest of the constituency, is not in the city of Manchester at all, and never has been, but instead is in the Borough of Oldham; however, between 1955 and 1983 it was included in the then Manchester Openshaw constituency. Failsworth has a mostly fairly working-class social composition, and is certainly not a favoured location for prosperous Manchester city commuters, but it does have a fair number of better-off semi-detached streets, which are largely absent from much of the rest of the constituency. In days gone by, the Tories would have been competitive in Failsworth in very bad Labour years; for example, in 2008, which was a pretty shaky mid-term election for the Labour government, the Tories actually managed to win both Failsworth wards. But in a normal or near-normal year Labour will still be quite some way ahead in Failsworth. In more recent years its wards have often been won not by either Labour or the Conservatives, but by a local independent party (though Labour did win one of the wards in the 2024 elections) - indeed, the Tories did not even stand there in the 2023 elections, though they did in 2024. In a general election it is fair to assume that there has been a fairly coherent Conservative vote in the area, but Labour will undoubtedly have outpolled all opponents in the last one. The addition of Failsworth (which may well prove puzzling to some local residents) may appear to improve somewhat the profile of the Tories in the constituency, but it has of course not been anything like sufficient to end the long-term safe Labour alignment of Manchester Central as a parliamentary constituency. In the 2024 general election, in common with other Manchester city seats, there was a sharp drop in the Labour share of the vote, with the main beneficiaries being the Greens, whose candidate, Ekua Bayunu, had been a candidate in the past for both the National Executive Committee of the Labour Party (on the very hardest left slate) and, subsequently, the leadership of Manchester council's ruling Labour group, in both of which her attempts at election had been sharply repulsed. Her result however, although she was a higher-profile candidate than her Green counterparts in neighbouring seats, was essentially in line with the trend in inner Manchester. Perhaps her candidacy helped limit the appeal of the Workers' Party of Britain, which despite apparently helpful demographics in a fair part of the constituency lost its deposit. The Greens emerged in a very respectable, but like everywhere else in the Manchester area where they were second pretty distant, second place. The member here for over a decade now has been Labour's Lucy Powell, who after being on the back benches during the Corbyn era now serves as Leader of the House of Commons, and she still looks safe here.
MANCHESTER CENTRAL
Manchester Central, whether uniquely or not I am unable to say, is in fact not the only constituency so named, since there is also a Manchester Central constituency in the Jamaican parliament, and that too is held by the Labour Party - although as many know, rather confusingly in Jamaica the Labour Party is actually much the more conservative of the country's two main parties, the more left-wing being the People's National Party. I propose to write about the English constituency, which I know infinitely better, since I have never been to Jamaica.
There has only been a Manchester Central seat in England since 1974, a contrast with the situation in other major cities such as Edinburgh, Sheffield or Leeds. It was created from the entirety of the former Manchester Cheetham division, and it was that constituency's MP, Harold Lever, who became Manchester Central's inaugural MP; and from a majority of the former Manchester Exchange constituency. Since then, the constituency has grown considerably in electorate, but it has been a safe Labour seat throughout its history as Manchester Central. Its predecessors were safe Labour seats since WWII as well. It is not that hard to see why. Although Manchester's city centre has some desirable owner-occupied flats and houses, some being conversions of previously industrial buildings, it is surrounded by inner city deprivation, and some of the very poorest parts of Greater Manchester are to be found in this seat. The city centre is very unusual in being contiguous with a completely separate municipality, the city of Salford, whose traditional centre has some almost desolate areas not far from Manchester's gleaming and apparently thriving centre. The River Irwell forms the boundary between the two cities. Cheetham departed the constituency in 1997 and up to now has been in Blackley & Broughton, meaning that this constituency has only contained areas any distance from the city centre in an easterly and a southerly direction; however, in the most recent boundary changes almost the entirety of the section of the seat south-west of the city centre itself has departed to help form a new Manchester Rusholme constituency, and Cheetham is now restored to it. Therefore, this seat while including the city centre itself might just as easily be renamed Manchester North-East, especially as one of the areas which are now included, Failsworth, is not only some distance away from the city centre, it is not even in the city of Manchester. However, whatever its boundaries have been, this is for the most part a mostly deprived and very working-class seat. It is also notably multiethnic with most BAME voters tending to be of Pakistani heritage, particularly in Cheetham, which was once a working-class Jewish area but no longer has a Jewish population, although its Jewish Museum, housed in a former Sephardi synagogue on Cheetham Hill, continues to thrive. Cheetham is one of a remarkably large number of areas in this proposed new constituency which has in the past given its name to a constituency of its own.
To the east of the city centre, there has been considerable redevelopment, not least the construction of the City of Manchester Stadium, nowadays Manchester City's home ground. The redevelopment has done little to change electoral politics in what remains an overwhelmingly working-class area. In either a due easterly, south-easterly or north-easterly direction from the city centre can be found Clayton and Openshaw, Miles Platting and Newton Heath (the latter being the former name and location of what is now Manchester United), and Ancoats and Beswick. Clayton and Openshaw is a mostly white working-class area. It has seen a rare instance of Labour losing an election in recent years; an Independent very narrowly gained the seat from Labour in a by-election, only to behave in an extremely erratic fashion, refusing to recognise Manchester Council as a legitimate local authority, and attempting to invoice shops and other businesses he visited for large amounts of money if they insisted he wear a mask. He has now departed the scene and Labour easily won the by-election (concurrent with the 2021 main local elections) caused by his resignation (he never actually used the word resign, leaving it up to the city's Chief Executive to deem him to have done so). The other wards named are overwhelmingly Labour at all levels, the exception being Ancoats & Beswick. Ancoats, once one of the most grindingly poor areas of any British city, has seen some executive dwellings spring up in recent years. Ancoats saw a rare Liberal Democrat by-election win in the run-up to the 2022 main elections, and they won it again in 2023 (these two wins sandwiching a Labour win in the 2022 main elections) and in 2024. All the other Manchester council wards now in the constituency were won very easily by Labour that year, with the partial exception of Piccadilly ward. Openshaw previously gave its name to a parliamentary constituency, and before 1950, there were also Clayton and Platting constituencies in the city. It may not come as much of a surprise to note that all these were safe Labour seats at the time of their abolition, too.
The city centre itself is divided between two council wards, Deansgate and Piccadilly, although both contain other elements too. Although these wards contain the most expensive and perhaps in many people's eyes desirable residential properties, Labour is not negligible anywhere, and prevails in both wards - the Conservatives these days are weak almost throughout the city of Manchester itself, and cannot really aspire to win any of its wards despite sporadic efforts to take one ward, Brooklands, well to the south-west of here, and it is mainly the Greens and the Liberal Democrats who provide the bulk of what opposition there is in most wards, although in some wards the Conservatives have at least managed to stay in second place. Many Conservatives without doubt commute to this constituency to work, but few live here. The old City Centre ward saw some rather narrow Labour majorities over the Liberal Democrats in the past, but just as has been the case in much of Britain the Lib Dems lost a great deal of ground in the city when they went into coalition with the Conservatives, a party few Mancunians wish to vote for, and now the city centre wards are at worst comfortable enough for Labour, at best very solid. In 2024, Labour retained an overwhelming majority in Deansgate, and a very comfortable though rather lesser one in Piccadilly where the Greens polled very respectably in second place.
The most obviously anomalous area of the new constituency will be Failsworth, which has the unusual distinction of never having given its name to a previous constituency, one might say for this seat. Failsworth, unlike the whole of the rest of the constituency, is not in the city of Manchester at all, and never has been, but instead is in the Borough of Oldham; however, between 1955 and 1983 it was included in the then Manchester Openshaw constituency. Failsworth has a mostly fairly working-class social composition, and is certainly not a favoured location for prosperous Manchester city commuters, but it does have a fair number of better-off semi-detached streets, which are largely absent from much of the rest of the constituency. In days gone by, the Tories would have been competitive in Failsworth in very bad Labour years; for example, in 2008, which was a pretty shaky mid-term election for the Labour government, the Tories actually managed to win both Failsworth wards. But in a normal or near-normal year Labour will still be quite some way ahead in Failsworth. In more recent years its wards have often been won not by either Labour or the Conservatives, but by a local independent party (though Labour did win one of the wards in the 2024 elections) - indeed, the Tories did not even stand there in the 2023 elections, though they did in 2024. In a general election it is fair to assume that there has been a fairly coherent Conservative vote in the area, but Labour will undoubtedly have outpolled all opponents in the last one. The addition of Failsworth (which may well prove puzzling to some local residents) may appear to improve somewhat the profile of the Tories in the constituency, but it has of course not been anything like sufficient to end the long-term safe Labour alignment of Manchester Central as a parliamentary constituency. In the 2024 general election, in common with other Manchester city seats, there was a sharp drop in the Labour share of the vote, with the main beneficiaries being the Greens, whose candidate, Ekua Bayunu, had been a candidate in the past for both the National Executive Committee of the Labour Party (on the very hardest left slate) and, subsequently, the leadership of Manchester council's ruling Labour group, in both of which her attempts at election had been sharply repulsed. Her result however, although she was a higher-profile candidate than her Green counterparts in neighbouring seats, was essentially in line with the trend in inner Manchester. Perhaps her candidacy helped limit the appeal of the Workers' Party of Britain, which despite apparently helpful demographics in a fair part of the constituency lost its deposit. The Greens emerged in a very respectable, but like everywhere else in the Manchester area where they were second pretty distant, second place. The member here for over a decade now has been Labour's Lucy Powell, who after being on the back benches during the Corbyn era now serves as Leader of the House of Commons, and she still looks safe here.
