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The seat covers thecity centre and all its major attractions and both of Manchester's large universities, and also areas on the fringe of the centre such asHulme andAncoats, which have undergone extensive regeneration since the 1990s, an example of which is theNew Islington development. Flats in the city centre can sell for several million pounds while there are more deprived areas to the east, including Beswick. There is a high proportion of graduates and students in the city centre, and the constituency as a whole has the highest proportion of Chinese people in the country.[2]
This constituency has always (since its 1974 creation) been asafe Labour seat. The current MPLucy Powell won the seat in aby-election in November 2012 on a turnout of just 18%, the lowest since the Second World War.[3] Twelve candidates stood, considerably more than the six who stood in the 1979 by-election.
The main forerunner to the seat wasManchester Cheetham, entirely taken into this area; three of the five wards of former seatManchester Exchange completed the first set of boundaries of the seat. The seat (including predecessor seats) has been held by theLabour Party since 1945.
The2015 general election saw greater-than-national-average swing of +3.4% (by a swing of +6.2%) to theGreen Party candidate, achieving third place. Followed next byUKIP in 2015 by number of votes cast (prior to the2016 UK EU membership referendum, votes cast for theLiberal Democrats – who for two periods had been the runner-up party in Manchester Central – for the first time placed its candidate in fifth place. TheConservative Party returned to second place in 2015 through candidate Xingang Wang (achieving 13.5% of the vote); its second place of 1979 was through its best polling to date of 22.1% of the vote. The maximal second place to date was in 2010, when Liberal Democrat candidate Marc Ramsbottom took 26.6% of the vote.
Turnout
Turnout has changed from a national low within the2010 general election (of 46.7%) to 55.1% of electors. The greatest turnout was in 1987, with 63.9%.