Election 97

Liverpool Wavertree

Current MP Jane Kennedy
Conservative 97 4,944
Labour 97 29,592
LibDem 97 9,891
Nationalist 97 0
Other 97 915
Elected party
Liverpool Wavertree

Robert Waller wrote
Old constituency Liverpool Broadgreen
Conservative 92 6,422
Labour 92 21,237
LibDem 92 17,857
Nationalist 92 0
Other 92 5,899
Elected party Labour

In the inter-war years Liverpool's population came close to reaching a million. Between the censuses of 1981 and 1991 its steep postwar decline continued as it dropped from 510,000 to under 450,000. The inevitable result was that in the 1995 boundary changes Liverpool had to lose one of its remaining six seats. The identity of the victim is quite clear. It is the constituency of the solitary non-Labour member in the city, the Liberal Democrat David Alton's Mossley Hill.

One can sympathise with Alton's decision to retire from Parliament at this point, for in addition to differences between him and his national party, this is the second time he has had a seat abolished from beneath him due to Liverpool's decline in population: the same thing happened to Edge Hill in 1983.

There will now be an all-Labour 'delegation' from Liverpool. The newly created - or restored, since the name existed before 1983 - Wavertree was once the site of the heart of the Liberals' efforts in local government. Only David Alton as won a parliamentary seat for the Liberals in recent years though, and Labour are very strong in national elections in this proud but afflicted city, which now rejects the Conservatives utterly at every level of politics.


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