Greater Manchester - the 1992 General Election

This map shows roughly how Greater Manchester voted in the 1992 general election. It's based on the current constituency map which has changed since then so it's not exact. Generally this is a region where the Labour vote has to be weighed rather than counted, but it used to be a lot bluer than it is now.

Clearly the inner core is red. Salford East (11,000); Manchester Blackley (12,500); Manchester Central (18,000); Manchester Gorton (16,000); Manchester Withington (9,000); Stretford (11,000). These are the five inner-most seats with the difference between the Labour and the Tory vote in brackets.

But it's not a simple case of a Labour core and a Tory periphery. Manchester Withington had been held by the Tories from 1931 until as recently as 1987.

Labour's biggest strongholds were on the outskirts:

• Wigan (22,000), Leigh (19,000) and Makerfield (18,000) in the far west 
• Worsley (10,000), Eccles (13,000) and Bolton South East (12,500) in the near west 
• Ashton-under-Lyne (11,000), Denton & Reddish (12,000) and Stalybridge & Hyde (15,000) in the east
• Heywood & Middleton (8,000), Oldham West (8,000) and Oldham Central & Royton (8,000) in the north/north-east
• Manchester Wythenshawe (10,000) in the south 

The main Tory strongholds on the peripheries

MORE TO FOLLOW...

[Notes...]

Cheadle was Tories (32,500), Lib Dems (16,700), Labour (6,400). This is of course only the tip of the Cheshire iceberg, now split into Cheadle (8) and Hazel Grove (11) in the south-east corner of the map.

The south-west corner is also strongly Tory here. Altringham & Sale (1) was Tories (29,000), Labour (12,200), Lib Dems (11,600).

Irish Manchester in 1991

This is a map of Irish settlement in Manchester in 1991 from an old copy of the Irish Echo, available at the Moving Here Migration Histories website. The top ten postcodes are:

1. M14 (2,352)
2. M19 (2,122)
3. M20 (1,972)
4. M32 (1,546)
5. M33 (1,505)
6. M16 (1,454)
7. M25 (1,432)
8. M10 (1,399)
9. M21 (1,325)
10. M13 (1,322)

M14 is Fallowfield, Moss Side, Rusholme, Ladybarn; M19 is Levenshulme, Burnage, Heaton Mersey, Heaton Chapel, Reddish; M20 is Didsbury, Withington; M32 is Stretford; M33 is Sale, Brooklands; M16 is Firswood, Old Trafford, Whalley Range.

So the top six postcodes are all clustered around south Manchester.

M25 (where I grew up) is Prestwich, Sedgley Park, Simister. What used to be M10 (now M40) is Collyhurst, Miles Platting, Moston, New Moston, Newton Heath. These two postcodes are north Manchester.

M21 is Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Barlow Moor; M13 (as Ian Brown famously sang) is Ardwick, Longsight, Chorlton-on-Medlock. Both postcodes are in south Manchester.

This clearly shows that the Irish settled, at least in recent years, mainly in south Manchester, around the two football stadiums, Old Trafford and Maine Road, and the university. It follows that despite a widespread perception of Manchester United as a 'Catholic' club (especially from the 1930s to the 1960s), lots of Manchester Irish would support City, members of the band Oasis being the classic example (although we shouldn't forget Johnny Marr from the Smiths).

It also suggests that the north and south of Manchester are the immigrant areas. The north is actually more of an immigrant area than is suggested in the information above. The Irish World Heritage Centre is located in Cheetham Hill, probably the area of Manchester most defined by various waves of immigration.