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Post by batman on Jul 5, 2023 20:07:51 GMT
Edited to take into account the 2024 general election result
MANCHESTER RUSHOLME
The current boundary changes have meant not only alterations to many constituencies, but the creation of entirely new ones, or in some cases the recreation of old ones. Manchester Rusholme is the recreation of an old constituency name, there having been a division of that name from 1918 to 1950 - but other than the inclusion of Rusholme itself, it bears no resemblance to that seat, which was associated with territory which will now be in a Gorton & Denton constituency. Instead, Rusholme is now joined with territory which mostly has up to now been in the Manchester Central constituency, namely Fallowfield, Whalley Range, Ardwick, Hulme and Moss Side, although much though not all of Fallowfield & Whalley Range has hitherto been in the Manchester Gorton seat. Once upon a time not only Rusholme but even (extremely hard to believe this now) Moss Side had decent Conservative votes, and Whalley Range even more so; but Fallowfield, Ardwick & Hulme are ancestrally Labour and the party's dominance has been uninterrupted for many years now, apart from a brief period of Green Party success in Hulme, which is noted for its very high student population. Nowadays, Labour wins all this territory, mostly by extremely wide margins at all levels, and although a particularly huge drop in Labour's share of the vote in 2024 has led to it plunging quite a long way down the list of Labour's safest seats, safe it nevertheless still remains.
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 Rusholme's famous Curry Mile with its long line of Indian (properly, Indian subcontinental) restaurants. Not everybody has heard of Rusholme, but it is an important area of southern Manchester which also has a strong student population as do some other areas in the constituency. It was once a rather socially-mixed part of the city, able for long periods to elect Liberal and sometimes even Conservative councillors, but is much more socially homogenous today. 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 people with Asian heritage. Fallowfield is 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. Ardwick, which is only a short distance from Manchester's city centre, is thoroughly inner-city, working-class and multiethnic. It is a very long-term Labour stronghold which for many years gave its name to a very safe Labour small seat, which up to its abolition in 1983 was represented by former minister Gerald Kaufman, whose parliamentary career continued in a greatly extended Manchester Gorton constituency from then on until his death at an advanced age in 2017. Moss Side is noted for its at times brutalist council estates, mostly of postwar construction, its former status as the home turf of Manchester City FC (who have of course now moved to a state-of-the-art modern stadium across towards the south-east of the city) and at times very serious problems of violent crime. Unlike much of the rest of the constituency, Moss Side's main ethnic minority population is of people with Caribbean heritage. Since the late 1940s Moss Side as an area has been totally dominated by Labour, and it still very much is; the Manchester Moss Side constituency, also abolished in 1983, was as marginal as it was (in fact, it was unbrokenly Conservative from 1950 until 1974) not because of Moss Side itself but because the constituency included a middle-class belt centred around Chorlton-cum-Hardy, a right-on, stereotypically craft-beer-drinking, craft-beard-wearing and muesli-chomping area nowadays, but in those days a comfortably Conservative-voting area - how times have changed. Hulme ward, which has a particularly large student population even by the fairly exalted local standards, saw a goodly Green Party vote of over 1,000 in the 2024 local elections, for the high-profile former Labour councillor Ekua Bayunu, but that was still not that much more than half Labour's winning share. Moss Side ward also saw a respectable showing by the Greens, but here they were beaten more easily by Labour. This was essentially true also of Whalley Range, and the remaining wards were all won by Labour with the utmost ease.
Although in days gone by this mixture of urban areas could at times have produced a fair-sized Conservative vote, and in very bad Labour years it could have been fairly close, in the present day this territory is generally very strong for Labour. Notionally, this was one of the very safest Labour seats in the land on its creation in 2024, but an enormous drop in the share for Labour's Afzal Khan, on an extremely low turnout to boot, has seen the seat relegated from supersafe to standard-issue safe, with the Greens as with so much of inner Manchester in a respectable, but clearly still defeated, second. The Workers' Party polled strongly, with 12.6% of the vote, and finished in third although well behind the Greens as well as Labour. Labour will hope that given their still very strong position in municipal elections and its generally favourable demography they may be able to add to their share of the vote again in the future, but of course that remains to be seen.
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nyx
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Post by nyx on Jul 6, 2023 9:42:47 GMT
The new constituency of Manchester Rusholme is formed out of the following 2010-24 constituencies: 38.1% of Manchester Central, and 44.7% of Manchester Gorton. (The former actually contributes more people to the new constituency than the latter, thanks to Manchester Central having been very oversized in population prior to the review.) |
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Post by Robert Waller on Jul 19, 2023 11:45:08 GMT
Some distinctive figures here ... 2021 Census New Boundaries (ranks England and Wales) Age 65+ 5.8% 574/575 Owner occupied 25.9% 570/575 Private rented 39.7% 8/575 Social rented 34.3% 13/575 White 40.8% 553/575 Black 17.7% 23/575 Asian 26.9% 37/575 Managerial & professional 20.4% 555/575 Routine & Semi-routine 16.5% 498/575 Degree level 37.0% 169 /575 No qualifications 16.1% 374 /575 Students 34.2% 3/575 Boundary ChangesManchester Rusholme consists of 38.1% of Manchester Central 44.7% of Manchester Gorton (Manchester Central is the primary component as it contributes the more electors) Mapboundarycommissionforengland.independent.gov.uk/review2023/9bc0b2ea-7915-4997-9d4a-3e313c0ceb51/north-west/North%20West_250_Manchester%20Rusholme_Landscape.pdf2019 Notional Results (Rallings & Thrasher) | Lab | 31554 | 78.6% | | Con | 3653 | 9.1% | | Green | 1709 | 4.3% | | Brexit | 1621 | 4.0% | | LD | 1612 | 4.0% | | | | |
| | | | Majority | 27901 | 69.5% |
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Post by Pete Whitehead on Jul 19, 2023 12:05:25 GMT
This may be the grimmest seat in the country now
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Post by batman on Jul 19, 2023 16:30:43 GMT
not if you like Indian food but I agree it is not an attractive seat. It also has far fewer good pubs than is usual in a Mancunian constituency.
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Post by Pete Whitehead on Jul 19, 2023 16:42:25 GMT
not if you like Indian food but I agree it is not an attractive seat. It also has far fewer good pubs than is usual in a Mancunian constituency. I don't personally. I think this seat could be rendered worse if Whalley Range was replaced with Ancoats & Beswick as the former does include some nicer areas which I think may be coming back up in the world to an extent (though the latter has also seen some redevelopment which makes it less grim than it used to be). I think the other contender would be Birmingham Ladywood. That is mitigated a bit by the city centre, but most of the residential areas are unremittingly bleak. |
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sirbenjamin
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Post by sirbenjamin on Jul 19, 2023 17:30:27 GMT
This may be the grimmest seat in the country now
About 20 years ago I tried to board a train at Ardwick.
When I realised there weren't going to be any, I had to negotiate my way back to relative civilisation armed only with some photocopied pages of the Manchester A-Z. That was... interesting.
It feels like the sort of area that surely must've improved somewhat by now, right?
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Post by doktorb🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️ on Jul 19, 2023 17:37:18 GMT
This may be the grimmest seat in the country now About 20 years ago I tried to board a train at Ardwick.
When I realised there weren't going to be any, I had to negotiate my way back to relative civilisation armed only with some photocopied pages of the Manchester A-Z. That was... interesting.
It feels like the sort of area that surely must've improved somewhat by now, right?
The multimillion (billion?) improvement to Manchester has seemed to skirt Ardwick. If HS2 ever gets up here* the whole area around there is earmarked for change. *No, I'm not getting into that again. |
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sirbenjamin
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Post by sirbenjamin on Jul 19, 2023 17:47:02 GMT
About 20 years ago I tried to board a train at Ardwick.
When I realised there weren't going to be any, I had to negotiate my way back to relative civilisation armed only with some photocopied pages of the Manchester A-Z. That was... interesting.
It feels like the sort of area that surely must've improved somewhat by now, right?
The multimillion (billion?) improvement to Manchester has seemed to skirt Ardwick. If HS2 ever gets up here* the whole area around there is earmarked for change. *No, I'm not getting into that again.
For some reason it's quite common for railway stations in large conurbations 'one stop before the main station' to be in seriously rough areas.
Bordesley/Birmingham. Dunston/Newcastle. South Bank/Middlesbrough. Edge Hill/Liverpool. South Bermondsey/London Bridge
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Post by doktorb🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️ on Jul 19, 2023 17:50:57 GMT
The multimillion (billion?) improvement to Manchester has seemed to skirt Ardwick. If HS2 ever gets up here* the whole area around there is earmarked for change. *No, I'm not getting into that again. For some reason it's quite common for railway stations in large conurbations 'one stop before the main station' to be in seriously rough areas.
Bordesley/Birmingham. Dunston/Newcastle. South Bank/Middlesbrough. Edge Hill/Liverpool. South Bermondsey/London Bridge
That's a good point. |
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Post by Pete Whitehead on Jul 19, 2023 18:17:22 GMT
The multimillion (billion?) improvement to Manchester has seemed to skirt Ardwick. If HS2 ever gets up here* the whole area around there is earmarked for change. *No, I'm not getting into that again. For some reason it's quite common for railway stations in large conurbations 'one stop before the main station' to be in seriously rough areas.
Bordesley/Birmingham. Dunston/Newcastle. South Bank/Middlesbrough. Edge Hill/Liverpool. South Bermondsey/London Bridge
See also Smethwick Rolfe Street |
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nodealbrexiteer
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Post by nodealbrexiteer on Jul 19, 2023 18:20:22 GMT
For some reason it's quite common for railway stations in large conurbations 'one stop before the main station' to be in seriously rough areas.
Bordesley/Birmingham. Dunston/Newcastle. South Bank/Middlesbrough. Edge Hill/Liverpool. South Bermondsey/London Bridge
See also Smethwick Rolfe Street I lived in Smethwick for most of my life! |
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Post by John Chanin on Jul 19, 2023 18:24:39 GMT
not if you like Indian food but I agree it is not an attractive seat. It also has far fewer good pubs than is usual in a Mancunian constituency. I don't personally. I think this seat could be rendered worse if Whalley Range was replaced with Ancoats & Beswick as the former does include some nicer areas which I think may be coming back up in the world to an extent (though the latter has also seen some redevelopment which makes it less grim than it used to be). I think the other contender would be Birmingham Ladywood. That is mitigated a bit by the city centre, but most of the residential areas are unremittingly bleak. I haven't done the stats yet, but Ladywood has now gained some of the most rundown parts of Muslim East Birmingham, while losing the much nicer "north Edgbaston". My profile will need some revision, but outside the city centre it will indeed be grim. |
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Post by Pete Whitehead on Jul 19, 2023 18:25:12 GMT
See also Smethwick Rolfe Street I lived in Smethwick for most of my life! I'm sure Smethwick is lovely in general, but it doesn't particularly look that way from a train. I remember a particularly ugly bunch of green pastel council houses just near the station there. I'm not sure if its still there. |
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Post by Devil Wincarnate on Jul 20, 2023 16:20:05 GMT
This may be the grimmest seat in the country now It has to be up there. These are areas that just never seemed to share in Manchester's boom years. |
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bsjmcr
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Post by bsjmcr on Jul 23, 2023 10:05:28 GMT
This may be the grimmest seat in the country now It has to be up there. These are areas that just never seemed to share in Manchester's boom years. I think Harpurhey and Collyhurst to the north are far worse. As a north Mancunian perhaps there is a grass is greener effect (the curry mile’s alright and better than Cheetham Hill) and at least the terraced houses in these areas are well made and are becoming studenty, sharing in the boom of the universities. Whereas there is a widely circulated picture of some abandoned row of shops in Collyhurst that looks third world in comparison. It is criminal how left behind some of those areas are despite being a stone’s throw away from ‘where it’s at’. Looking out of the tram heading north some of the corrugated metal rooves of the sheds/garages look almost shanty town. At least Abraham Moss leisure centre is being redone. I guess Blackley and Broughton/Middleton South will be saved from the grimmest seat top position thanks to Heaton Park, and the leafy element of Broughton Park will be replaced with Alkrington ‘Garden Village’. However if Langley is also to be added then it should remain near the top if there ever was such a ranking. |
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Post by Devil Wincarnate on Jul 23, 2023 12:31:48 GMT
It has to be up there. These are areas that just never seemed to share in Manchester's boom years. I think Harpurhey and Collyhurst to the north are far worse. As a north Mancunian perhaps there is a grass is greener effect (the curry mile’s alright and better than Cheetham Hill) and at least the terraced houses in these areas are well made and are becoming studenty, sharing in the boom of the universities. Whereas there is a widely circulated picture of some abandoned row of shops in Collyhurst that looks third world in comparison. It is criminal how left behind some of those areas are despite being a stone’s throw away from ‘where it’s at’. Looking out of the tram heading north some of the corrugated metal rooves of the sheds/garages look almost shanty town. At least Abraham Moss leisure centre is being redone. I guess Blackley and Broughton/Middleton South will be saved from the grimmest seat top position thanks to Heaton Park, and the leafy element of Broughton Park will be replaced with Alkrington ‘Garden Village’. However if Langley is also to be added then it should remain near the top if there ever was such a ranking. That's probably fair. I haven't been up to Cheetham Hill for a fair while and did go to school in Fallowfield so it's a patch I know far better. The whole Wilmslow Road corridor has changed in different ways over the last twenty years, with the irony being that the Princess Road corridor still just feels miserable despite being a short walk away. On a related note, Birchfields Primary came up in the Woke thread recently! |
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