Post by Robert Waller on Dec 27, 2023 11:06:48 GMT
This is based on an original by a poster named as Boss Man – I suspect that title passes with Administrator so actually was swanarcadian. Pete Whitehead definitely did the paragraph on boundary changes and the 2019 notional figures. I added the recent local election results, 2021 census comments and statistics, and the final paragraph – along with any typing mistakes!
Rochdale was just over quota on 2019 boundaries and the Spotland & Falinge ward was removed by the 2023 Boundary Commission report to bring it into quota. Spotland is a mixed area but Falinge is grim (although the infamous estate lies just outside the ward, in Central Rochdale). This seat now excludes three western wards of Rochdale extending almost to the town centre. The partisan impact of this change was negligible here but significant in Heywood & Middleton North which absorbs the ward.
The Rochdale constituency’s history has been anything but dull in recent decades. It is one of those eastern Lancashire (now officially Greater Manchester) mill town constituencies in which the Liberals remained resilient long after the 1920s, when they were permanently cast into national third party status. For a while they were nearing extinction, and even here they did not field candidates in 1951 or 1955, which appeared to allow the Conservative candidate Wentworth Schofield to narrowly beat Labour twice. But Tory success came to a permanent end after Schofield died. They were pushed into third place at the resulting 1958 by-election when the Liberals decided to intervene again.
The real breakthrough came at the 1972 by-election, when local Liberal ex-mayor Cyril Smith, famous for his large physical size and blunt speaking, and affectionately known as “Big Cyril”, seized the seat and went on to win another five times as a large rock in a sea of major party MPs. This was his popular image throughout the 1970s and 1980s, and it wasn’t until after his death in 2010 that his name was blackened by serial child sexual abuse allegations.
On his retirement in 1992, the new Lib Dem candidate Liz Lynne defied expectations and held on, but she was swept aside by Lorna Fitzsimons in the New Labour landslide of 1997. Fitzsimons was in turn defeated by the Lib Dem candidate Paul Rowen in 2005, in part due to discontent over the UK’s involvement in the war with Iraq.
Despite Gordon Brown being caught on a tape recording describing a local woman during the 2010 campaign, Gillian Duffy, as a “bigot”, their candidate Simon Danczuk managed to win, possibly as a result of favourable boundary changes and the Tory advance, which hurt the Lib Dems more than Labour. This marked the end of Lib Dem success in the constituency, and they suffered very badly as a result of being a junior partner of the Conservative led government, slumping by a huge 24% in 2015 and falling back even further since then. Danczuk was re-elected in 2015, but was afterwards dropped as a candidate following reports he had exchanged messages with a 17 year old girl, which came as a particular embarrassment owing to his past campaigns on investigating historical sexual abuse among politicians, including his predecessor Cyril Smith. Danczuk stood as an independent in 2017 but lost his deposit, while Labour’s long serving Tony Lloyd, a former MP, Mayor and Police and Crime Commissioner won.
It should be remembered that Labour also have a long tradition in Rochdale. This was a boomtown during the Industrial Revolution, with its people employed in the textile industry, particularly cotton. It was also the birthplace of the Co-operative Movement.
More recently, it has become the home of a significant non-white community – particularly of Pakistani origin - which makes up over a quarter of the population. Unemployment, the number of people who consider themselves to be in poor health, and the proportion of younger voters are all relatively high. The constituency was estimated to have voted 57% in favour of leaving the European Union in 2016.
The Lib Dem decline since 2010 has been seen at local level, too. Before the forming of the Coalition with the Conservatives, they were a formidable force and could win most of the constituency’s eight wards. But in 2011 they failed to win a single one, most of them going to Labour. Only one, Milnrow and Newhey, went back to the Lib Dems in 2015 and they have been winning it ever since.
The Conservatives have only been able consistently to win one ward, and a very strong one for them too: Wardle and West Littleborough. They can also pick up Littleborough Lakeside in a good year, such as 2015 and one of the three seats available in the all out elections of 2022 after ward boundary changes. In the most recent Rochdale metropolitan borough council elections, in May 2023, the Tories did indeed win only one ward in this constituency, the redrawn and slightly renamed Wardle, Shore & West Littleborough – again by a massive margin, with 59.8% share to Labour’s 27.3%. Labour did gain Littleborough Lakeside, though, by a slender 7 votes.
But Labour again won all the rest in 2023, including Central Rochdale (with a majority of over 55%), Milkstone/Deeplish (with an 80% share in a four way contest), Balderstone/Kirkholt, Kingsway, and Smallbridge/Firgrove – all by very comfortable margins. In May 2024 the Tories again won only in the Wardle etc ward, but during George Galloway's brief tenure as MP, in May 2024 the Workers Party gained Milkstone & Deeplish and Central Rochdale from Labour.
The Asian population are concentrated in the Central ward and Smallbridge, although these are also poor areas with much council housing and white working class residents. In the 2021 census small area statistics, 72% of the residents of Deeplish MSOA (south of the town centre) were Asian, and 67% in Wardleworth & Newbold Brow, just east of the centre and mainly in Smallbridge/Firgrove ward. The figure in Central Rochdale MSOA was 49% and in Kingsway 41%. Overall in the constituency after the boundary changes the White percentage was still 63% and Asian 29%, despite the removal of Falinge. The seat is starkly divided by race. The White percentage in all the Littleborough MSOAs is over 90% and in Littleborough & Wardle reaches 95% and peaks at 97% in Littleborough North & Summit, a moorland village in the Pennines (as its name implies). This last territory is in Littleborough Lakeside ward and it has to be said that Summit feels a very long way away from inner Rochdale town.
Whatever the racial composition of the varying neighbourhoods, Rochdale is a thoroughly working class constituency overall. It is in the 70 seats in England and Wales with the fewest professional and managerial workers. The most middle class part of Rochdale, within the wards of Norden and Bamford in its western half, have not been included in the Rochdale constituency since the boundary changes which came into force in 1997, but rather in Heywood & Middleton and now Heywood & Middleton North. Even in the most middle class MSOA, Littleborough South & Smithy Bridge, the prof/man proportion does not reach 40%. Littleborough West & Wardle, in the sole solidly Tory part of the seat, is just 36% professional and managerial. Predominantly white parts of Rochdale such as Balderstone & Kirksholt at its outer southern edge are also very working class, with over 30% employed in routine and semi-routine jobs even in 2021.
This is not unconnected with the seats well above average level of social rented housing: 36% in Balderstone & Kirkholt but also 28% in Kingsway, 37% in Central Rochdale and its highest, 41.4% in Smallbridge & Hurstead, on the north eastern edge of Rochdale itself, but not as far out as Littleborough. The whole of the part of Rochdale itself included in this constituency has a well above average level of residents with no educational qualifications, over 30% in the inner MSOAs, while the rest of the seat is close to the national average in this regard (including in the Liberal Democrat Milnrow & Newhey. Nowhere has more than 34.5% with academic degrees (Littleborough South & Smithy Bridge).
The epitome of Rochdale for decades in the middle of the 20th century was the ’Lancashire Lass’ Gracie Fields, once a mill girl, then a music hall and revue star, ‘Our Gracie’ during the Second World War, with her straightforward, down to earth, traditional British working class image (even if she actually spent her last three decades to her death in 1979 living on Capri). Since her time, Rochdale has changed in numerous ways, and some of its political history has been far from savoury. This constituency is now varied and divided, a post-industrial and multicultural Pennine valley town (or at least somewhat over half of it) and very different as it moves eastwards up towards Pennine heights. The Labour party looked in control of the parliamentary representation, but with extensive areas of deprivation and a turnout at the 2019 general election of just 60%, the town itself cannot be deemed to be untroubled.
This situation was exacerbated by the death of the MP, Sir Tony Lloyd, in January 2024, and the ensuing byelection taking place during Israel's activities in Gaza following Hamas's attack within their borders. George Galloway made yet another intervention in electoral politics and also benefited from Labour's disowning of their candidate, Azhar Ali, resulting in another of his spectacular byelection successes following that in Bradford West in March 2012. A local businessman, David Tully, campaigning on local issues such as the threat to Rochdale's football club, finished in a strong second place as all the established parties failed to appeal for one reason or another. It was widely felt that Galloway may be only a short term MP for Rochdale, with a general election due within a year, but he undoubtedly once again disrupted the regular political scene; and illuminated the stark divisions in Rochdale and the nation as a whole.
In July of the same year Galloway was indeed defeated (he was not present at the declaration) by a much more effective Labour candidate, Paul Waugh. Tully did not stand again, and the result looked like it was returning to more normal times; the Reform party was third and the Conservative fourth. But it would be a brave pundit who were to claim that electoral politics in Rochdale will be predictable.
2021 Census, new boundaries
Age 65+ 14.8% 447/575
Owner occupied 58.1% 421/575
Private rented 20.2% 198/575
Social rented 21.7% 116/575
White 63.0% 493/575
Black 3.1% 180/575
Asian 29.3% 31/575
Muslim 30.2% 21/575
Managerial & professional 24.0% 509/575
Routine & Semi-routine 27.3% 155/575
Degree level 26.0% 468/575
No qualifications 24.4% 59/575
Students 8.1% 147 /575
General Election 2024: Rochdale
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Labour Co-op Paul Waugh 13,027 32.8 −18.0
Workers Party George Galloway 11,587 29.2 N/A
Reform UK Michael Howard 6,773 17.1 +8.9
Conservative Paul Ellison 4,273 10.8 −20.8
Liberal Democrats Andy Kelly 2,816 7.1 −0.4
Green Martyn Savin 1,212 3.1 +1.2
Lab Majority 1,440 3.6 –15.7
Turnout 39,688 55.7 –3.0
Registered electors 71,264
Labour Co-op hold compared with 2019, gain from WP w byelection
Swing since February 2024 byelection
14.8 WP to Labour
29 February 2024 Rochdale by-election
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Workers Party George Galloway 12,335 39.7 N/A
Independent David Tully 6,638 21.3 N/A
Conservative Paul Ellison 3,731 12.0 -19.2
Labour (disowned) Azhar Ali 2,402 7.7 -43.9
Liberal Democrats Iain Donaldson 2,164 7.0 ±0.0
Reform UK Simon Danczuk 1,968 6.3 -1.9
Independent William Howarth 523 1.7 N/A
Independent Mark Coleman 455 1.5 N/A
Green (disowned) Guy Otten 436 1.4 -0.7
Independent Michael Howarth 246 0.8 N/A
Monster Raving Loony Ravin Rodent Subortna 209 0.7 N/A
Workers Party Majority 5,697 18.4 N/A
Turnout 31,107 39.7 -20.4
Workers Party gain from Labour
Swing 41.8% Lab to WP
General Election 2019: Rochdale
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Labour Tony Lloyd 24,475 51.6 -6.4
Conservative Atifa Shah 14,807 31.2 +2.8
Brexit Party Chris Green 3,867 8.2
Liberal Democrats Andy Kelly 3,312 7.0 -1.0
Green Sarah Croke 986 2.1
Lab Majority 9,668 20.4 -9.2
2019 electorate 78,909
Turnout 47,447 60.1 -4.0
Labour hold
Swing 4.6 Lab to C
Boundary Changes
Rochdale consists of
89.7% of Rochdale
Map
boundarycommissionforengland.independent.gov.uk/review2023/9bc0b2ea-7915-4997-9d4a-3e313c0ceb51/north-west/North%20West_260_Rochdale_Portrait.pdf
2019 Notional result (Rallings and Thrasher)
Rochdale was just over quota on 2019 boundaries and the Spotland & Falinge ward was removed by the 2023 Boundary Commission report to bring it into quota. Spotland is a mixed area but Falinge is grim (although the infamous estate lies just outside the ward, in Central Rochdale). This seat now excludes three western wards of Rochdale extending almost to the town centre. The partisan impact of this change was negligible here but significant in Heywood & Middleton North which absorbs the ward.
The Rochdale constituency’s history has been anything but dull in recent decades. It is one of those eastern Lancashire (now officially Greater Manchester) mill town constituencies in which the Liberals remained resilient long after the 1920s, when they were permanently cast into national third party status. For a while they were nearing extinction, and even here they did not field candidates in 1951 or 1955, which appeared to allow the Conservative candidate Wentworth Schofield to narrowly beat Labour twice. But Tory success came to a permanent end after Schofield died. They were pushed into third place at the resulting 1958 by-election when the Liberals decided to intervene again.
The real breakthrough came at the 1972 by-election, when local Liberal ex-mayor Cyril Smith, famous for his large physical size and blunt speaking, and affectionately known as “Big Cyril”, seized the seat and went on to win another five times as a large rock in a sea of major party MPs. This was his popular image throughout the 1970s and 1980s, and it wasn’t until after his death in 2010 that his name was blackened by serial child sexual abuse allegations.
On his retirement in 1992, the new Lib Dem candidate Liz Lynne defied expectations and held on, but she was swept aside by Lorna Fitzsimons in the New Labour landslide of 1997. Fitzsimons was in turn defeated by the Lib Dem candidate Paul Rowen in 2005, in part due to discontent over the UK’s involvement in the war with Iraq.
Despite Gordon Brown being caught on a tape recording describing a local woman during the 2010 campaign, Gillian Duffy, as a “bigot”, their candidate Simon Danczuk managed to win, possibly as a result of favourable boundary changes and the Tory advance, which hurt the Lib Dems more than Labour. This marked the end of Lib Dem success in the constituency, and they suffered very badly as a result of being a junior partner of the Conservative led government, slumping by a huge 24% in 2015 and falling back even further since then. Danczuk was re-elected in 2015, but was afterwards dropped as a candidate following reports he had exchanged messages with a 17 year old girl, which came as a particular embarrassment owing to his past campaigns on investigating historical sexual abuse among politicians, including his predecessor Cyril Smith. Danczuk stood as an independent in 2017 but lost his deposit, while Labour’s long serving Tony Lloyd, a former MP, Mayor and Police and Crime Commissioner won.
It should be remembered that Labour also have a long tradition in Rochdale. This was a boomtown during the Industrial Revolution, with its people employed in the textile industry, particularly cotton. It was also the birthplace of the Co-operative Movement.
More recently, it has become the home of a significant non-white community – particularly of Pakistani origin - which makes up over a quarter of the population. Unemployment, the number of people who consider themselves to be in poor health, and the proportion of younger voters are all relatively high. The constituency was estimated to have voted 57% in favour of leaving the European Union in 2016.
The Lib Dem decline since 2010 has been seen at local level, too. Before the forming of the Coalition with the Conservatives, they were a formidable force and could win most of the constituency’s eight wards. But in 2011 they failed to win a single one, most of them going to Labour. Only one, Milnrow and Newhey, went back to the Lib Dems in 2015 and they have been winning it ever since.
The Conservatives have only been able consistently to win one ward, and a very strong one for them too: Wardle and West Littleborough. They can also pick up Littleborough Lakeside in a good year, such as 2015 and one of the three seats available in the all out elections of 2022 after ward boundary changes. In the most recent Rochdale metropolitan borough council elections, in May 2023, the Tories did indeed win only one ward in this constituency, the redrawn and slightly renamed Wardle, Shore & West Littleborough – again by a massive margin, with 59.8% share to Labour’s 27.3%. Labour did gain Littleborough Lakeside, though, by a slender 7 votes.
But Labour again won all the rest in 2023, including Central Rochdale (with a majority of over 55%), Milkstone/Deeplish (with an 80% share in a four way contest), Balderstone/Kirkholt, Kingsway, and Smallbridge/Firgrove – all by very comfortable margins. In May 2024 the Tories again won only in the Wardle etc ward, but during George Galloway's brief tenure as MP, in May 2024 the Workers Party gained Milkstone & Deeplish and Central Rochdale from Labour.
The Asian population are concentrated in the Central ward and Smallbridge, although these are also poor areas with much council housing and white working class residents. In the 2021 census small area statistics, 72% of the residents of Deeplish MSOA (south of the town centre) were Asian, and 67% in Wardleworth & Newbold Brow, just east of the centre and mainly in Smallbridge/Firgrove ward. The figure in Central Rochdale MSOA was 49% and in Kingsway 41%. Overall in the constituency after the boundary changes the White percentage was still 63% and Asian 29%, despite the removal of Falinge. The seat is starkly divided by race. The White percentage in all the Littleborough MSOAs is over 90% and in Littleborough & Wardle reaches 95% and peaks at 97% in Littleborough North & Summit, a moorland village in the Pennines (as its name implies). This last territory is in Littleborough Lakeside ward and it has to be said that Summit feels a very long way away from inner Rochdale town.
Whatever the racial composition of the varying neighbourhoods, Rochdale is a thoroughly working class constituency overall. It is in the 70 seats in England and Wales with the fewest professional and managerial workers. The most middle class part of Rochdale, within the wards of Norden and Bamford in its western half, have not been included in the Rochdale constituency since the boundary changes which came into force in 1997, but rather in Heywood & Middleton and now Heywood & Middleton North. Even in the most middle class MSOA, Littleborough South & Smithy Bridge, the prof/man proportion does not reach 40%. Littleborough West & Wardle, in the sole solidly Tory part of the seat, is just 36% professional and managerial. Predominantly white parts of Rochdale such as Balderstone & Kirksholt at its outer southern edge are also very working class, with over 30% employed in routine and semi-routine jobs even in 2021.
This is not unconnected with the seats well above average level of social rented housing: 36% in Balderstone & Kirkholt but also 28% in Kingsway, 37% in Central Rochdale and its highest, 41.4% in Smallbridge & Hurstead, on the north eastern edge of Rochdale itself, but not as far out as Littleborough. The whole of the part of Rochdale itself included in this constituency has a well above average level of residents with no educational qualifications, over 30% in the inner MSOAs, while the rest of the seat is close to the national average in this regard (including in the Liberal Democrat Milnrow & Newhey. Nowhere has more than 34.5% with academic degrees (Littleborough South & Smithy Bridge).
The epitome of Rochdale for decades in the middle of the 20th century was the ’Lancashire Lass’ Gracie Fields, once a mill girl, then a music hall and revue star, ‘Our Gracie’ during the Second World War, with her straightforward, down to earth, traditional British working class image (even if she actually spent her last three decades to her death in 1979 living on Capri). Since her time, Rochdale has changed in numerous ways, and some of its political history has been far from savoury. This constituency is now varied and divided, a post-industrial and multicultural Pennine valley town (or at least somewhat over half of it) and very different as it moves eastwards up towards Pennine heights. The Labour party looked in control of the parliamentary representation, but with extensive areas of deprivation and a turnout at the 2019 general election of just 60%, the town itself cannot be deemed to be untroubled.
This situation was exacerbated by the death of the MP, Sir Tony Lloyd, in January 2024, and the ensuing byelection taking place during Israel's activities in Gaza following Hamas's attack within their borders. George Galloway made yet another intervention in electoral politics and also benefited from Labour's disowning of their candidate, Azhar Ali, resulting in another of his spectacular byelection successes following that in Bradford West in March 2012. A local businessman, David Tully, campaigning on local issues such as the threat to Rochdale's football club, finished in a strong second place as all the established parties failed to appeal for one reason or another. It was widely felt that Galloway may be only a short term MP for Rochdale, with a general election due within a year, but he undoubtedly once again disrupted the regular political scene; and illuminated the stark divisions in Rochdale and the nation as a whole.
In July of the same year Galloway was indeed defeated (he was not present at the declaration) by a much more effective Labour candidate, Paul Waugh. Tully did not stand again, and the result looked like it was returning to more normal times; the Reform party was third and the Conservative fourth. But it would be a brave pundit who were to claim that electoral politics in Rochdale will be predictable.
2021 Census, new boundaries
Age 65+ 14.8% 447/575
Owner occupied 58.1% 421/575
Private rented 20.2% 198/575
Social rented 21.7% 116/575
White 63.0% 493/575
Black 3.1% 180/575
Asian 29.3% 31/575
Muslim 30.2% 21/575
Managerial & professional 24.0% 509/575
Routine & Semi-routine 27.3% 155/575
Degree level 26.0% 468/575
No qualifications 24.4% 59/575
Students 8.1% 147 /575
General Election 2024: Rochdale
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Labour Co-op Paul Waugh 13,027 32.8 −18.0
Workers Party George Galloway 11,587 29.2 N/A
Reform UK Michael Howard 6,773 17.1 +8.9
Conservative Paul Ellison 4,273 10.8 −20.8
Liberal Democrats Andy Kelly 2,816 7.1 −0.4
Green Martyn Savin 1,212 3.1 +1.2
Lab Majority 1,440 3.6 –15.7
Turnout 39,688 55.7 –3.0
Registered electors 71,264
Labour Co-op hold compared with 2019, gain from WP w byelection
Swing since February 2024 byelection
14.8 WP to Labour
29 February 2024 Rochdale by-election
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Workers Party George Galloway 12,335 39.7 N/A
Independent David Tully 6,638 21.3 N/A
Conservative Paul Ellison 3,731 12.0 -19.2
Labour (disowned) Azhar Ali 2,402 7.7 -43.9
Liberal Democrats Iain Donaldson 2,164 7.0 ±0.0
Reform UK Simon Danczuk 1,968 6.3 -1.9
Independent William Howarth 523 1.7 N/A
Independent Mark Coleman 455 1.5 N/A
Green (disowned) Guy Otten 436 1.4 -0.7
Independent Michael Howarth 246 0.8 N/A
Monster Raving Loony Ravin Rodent Subortna 209 0.7 N/A
Workers Party Majority 5,697 18.4 N/A
Turnout 31,107 39.7 -20.4
Workers Party gain from Labour
Swing 41.8% Lab to WP
General Election 2019: Rochdale
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Labour Tony Lloyd 24,475 51.6 -6.4
Conservative Atifa Shah 14,807 31.2 +2.8
Brexit Party Chris Green 3,867 8.2
Liberal Democrats Andy Kelly 3,312 7.0 -1.0
Green Sarah Croke 986 2.1
Lab Majority 9,668 20.4 -9.2
2019 electorate 78,909
Turnout 47,447 60.1 -4.0
Labour hold
Swing 4.6 Lab to C
Boundary Changes
Rochdale consists of
89.7% of Rochdale
Map
boundarycommissionforengland.independent.gov.uk/review2023/9bc0b2ea-7915-4997-9d4a-3e313c0ceb51/north-west/North%20West_260_Rochdale_Portrait.pdf
2019 Notional result (Rallings and Thrasher)
| Lab | 21379 | 50.8% |
| Con | 13270 | 31.6% |
| BxP | 3451 | 8.2% |
| LD | 3168 | 7.5% |
| Grn | 790 | 1.9% |
| Majority | 8109 | 19.3% |
