Past elections

With the another local election campaign in full swing, here is a bit of election history.

Coming soon will be the story of the 1835 General Election with how we voted here, along with a study on the men who could vote in the first reformed Parliament as well as stories about Harry Kemp and the Progressive Party and the election that took us into the City of Manchester.

But I will start by reflecting on how political fortunes in Chorlton ward have changed.

During the 20th century Chorlton had been dominated by the success of two political parties, both of which seemed to their supporters to have an unassailable position in the heart of the electorate.  Both were successfully challenged but  both came back.

The Progressive Party held the ward until defeated in the 1920s by the Conservative Party who were to dominate our local politics for nearly 60 years.

In 1954 the local Labour Party conceded its vote in the May Municipal election “was the lowest since the ward had been formed.”

Just nine years later and as a tired Tory Government reeled from scandal and an image as a bastion of aristocratic privilege Labour polled a decent 1,263 votes but still came third behind the Conservative and Liberal candidates with just 20% of the poll.

Pat Paget, the candidate wrote that this was a distinct improvement on the year before when Labour had achieved only 12.8% of the poll coming just 300 votes ahead of the Ratepayers.

And during the early 1980s despite delivering more leaflets, with more posters in windows and combined with a well organised machine on election day it continued to lose to the Tories until 1986. Its stunning victory in that year with over 2,000 votes was reversed the following year allowing some Conservatives to reassert that they were the natural party of Chorlton.

But it was not to be and during the following decade Labour took and  held all  three seats until challenged successfully by the Liberal Democrats in 2007 and 2010.

Seasoned observers will of course relate the ebb and flow of local election fortunes to the impact of national politics and there is no doubting that old phrase “if the electoral swing is with you” then your chances vastly improve.  So the rise and fall of the Lib Dem star may have much to do with some of the unpopular decisions by the last Labour Government and their place in the Coalition Government.

This is not to deny the role of demographics or the politics on offer and the quality of the candidate all of which make for fascinating politics.

Picture; from the collection of Andrew Simpson