The quiet Chorlton election ……….. the historical perspective

It’s been a quiet election day.

And thinking back to 1970 when I cast my first vote it has to be the quietest one I can remember, and that includes the 44 years I have lived here in Chorlton.

For most of them I did my bit, a mix of canvassing leafletting, and displaying a poster,  and ten years of which as an election agent overseeing the campaign.

Some were so busy that it seemed almost every house had a poster for one the parties standing, the election material would fall fast and furious through the letter box, and on the day there women  competing speaker cars calling on the faithful to go and vote.

But this year it has been quiet.  I have seen a few Labour Party posters, and have received several Labour Party leaflets, and that is it.  No Green leaflet, no Lib Dem leaflet and no Conservative leaflet.

There has been a presence from the local municipal candidate for Labour on social media, and two pop up from the Green candidate.

I have been told by the expert pundits on Facebook that we have to take Covid into account,  along with a lack of resources from some parties, and that tired and shallow excuse that “it is a forgone conclusion, so why waste the trees to make the leaflets to see them fail”.

Maybe, but in the 1970s and early 80s it didn’t stop the Labour Party from campaigning hard in Chorlton, despite coming second and seeing the Conservative majority coming in way ahead.

Indeed, in one election in the 1960s they  were fourth, even beaten by the Rate Payers candidate.

Likewise it didn’t stop a Labour candidate standing in the late 1920s, when the seat was seen to be the preserve of the Conservatives and Liberals who pretty much alternated in being elected year by year.

All of which was proved to have been worth it when the Labour Party won the seat for the first time in 1986.

And in the same way it didn’t stop the Lib Dems from continuing to campaign and for a brief few years came close to holding all three Chorlton seats at the start of this century.

So, all very quiet, with the prospect that it might be Friday before the results come through.

Location; Chorlton

Pictures; election material from the 1980s, which came through our door, and one that came through in May 2021, from the collection of Andrew Simpson