Whatever happened to Tory Liverpool? : success, decline, and irrelevance since 1945.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Jeffery, David, (Senior Lecturer in British Politics)

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Conservative Party (Great Britain).

Great Britain--Politics and government--20th century.

Great Britain.

Liverpool (England)--Politics and government.

Liverpool (England).

Physical Description:

1 online resource (296 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Other Title:

Whatever happened to Tory Liverpool?

Place of Publication:

Liverpool : Liverpool University Press, 2023.

Summary:

An Open Access edition of this book, supported by the LUP OA author fund, is available on the Liverpool University Press website, the OAPEN library and our Digital Collaboration Hub. In the 1968 local elections the Liverpool Conservatives won 62 percent of the vote and 78 percent of the seats on Liverpool City Council. By 1972 the party had held a majority on Liverpool's municipal government for 85 of the previous 100 years. But in 1983 they lost their last two MPs, and in 1998 they lost their final councillor. The Conservatives have not won an electoral contest in the city since. Whatever happened to Tory Liverpool? Success, decline, and irrelevance since 1945 explores the history of Conservative electoral performance in Liverpool from the end of the Second World War to the present day, and challenges a number of myths regarding the city's political history: Conservative post-war success was not due to sectarian tensions or false consciousness, and neither was Conservative decline due to Margaret Thatcher. The book takes a multi-method approach to the study of Conservative Party history in Liverpool. It proposes a tripartite framework, which separates the periods of success (1945-1972), decline (1973-1986), and irrelevance (1987 onwards), and argues that each period should be explained by recourse to different phenomena. Only in this way can the complex post-war history of the Conservative Party in Liverpool truly be understood.

Contents:

Cover

Contents

Acknowledgements

Note on figures

1 Introduction

1.1 Why is this important?

1.2 Contextualising decline

1.3 Explaining Conservative decline in Liverpool

1.4 The structure of the study

2 Electoral politics in Liverpool: A brief history

2.1 The role of religion in Liverpudlian politics

2.2 Economic and demographic change

2.3 Party machines

2.4 Rules of the electoral game

2.5 Gap in the knowledge: It isn't (just) religion/Thatcher

3 The Liverpool Conservative Party machine

3.1 Personalities

3.2 Organisational issues

3.3 Financial issues

3.4 Campaigning strategy

3.5 Conclusion

4 Electoral biases in Liverpool's municipal elections

4.1 Disproportionality in Liverpool's municipal electoral system

4.2 The role of aldermen

4.3 Electoral bias in Liverpool's municipal elections

4.4 Analysing electoral biases in Liverpool

4.5 Discussion

4.6 Conclusion

5 Demographic changes and bases of party support in Liverpool

5.1 Key periods in the history of the Liverpool Conservative Party

5.2 Demographics of party support

5.3 Bases of party support

5.4 Ward clusters

5.5 Comparative demographics

5.6 Conclusion

6 Migration in Liverpool

6.1 Migration flows from Liverpool

6.2 Migration flows to Liverpool

6.3 Commuting patterns in Merseyside

6.4 Discussion

6.5 Conclusion

7 The slow decline of the Liverpool Tories

7.1 Explaining Conservative support: Path dependency and socialisation

7.2 Socialisation and the maintenance of the Conservative vote

7.3 The decline of Conservative socialisation

7.4 The beginning of the end: The rise of the Liberals

7.5 Conclusion

8 Identity crisis

8.1 The emergence of a Scouse identity

8.2 Making Scouse: Ingredients

8.3 Scouse: Bring to the boil

8.4 Scouse and the theory.

8.5 Comparative identity

8.6 Discussion

8.7 Conclusion

9 Conclusion

9.1 Conservative Party responses to decline

9.2 Conclusion

Appendix 1 Regression tables

Bibliography

Packages Used

Index.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

9781837646562

1837646562

OCLC:

1369284688