I was brought up in Gorton (East Manchester) and I was living there in 1967 at the time of another high profile by-election. (Though the constituency’s boundaries have been changed substantially since then.)
The sitting MP was Konni Zilliacus, half-Finnish, who had worked for the League of Nations between the wars, was very much on the Labour left, and was dismissed as a ‘crypto-Communist’ by George Orwell.
In July 1967, he died of leukemia. By the time the by-election was called for November, the Labour government was facing a sterling crisis largely because of Britain’s chronic balance of payments deficit, but Zilliacus had bequeathed his would-be successor Kenneth Marks, a former head teacher, a majority of nearly 8,000, having won more than 60 per cent of the vote at the 1966 general election.
Running for the Conservatives against Marks was Winston Churchill. No, not Britain’s wartime prime minister, but his grandson. Labour suffered an adverse swing of more than 14 per cent, but hung on to win by fewer than 600 votes.
In this week’s Gorton by-election, Labour are defending a majority of more than 12,500. In 2024, Reform was their nearest challenger. Turnout was well below 50 per cent.
