As part of a five-year project following the lives of people in the Greater Manchester constituency that had been Labour for almost 100 years until the election, politicians and residents explain how they feel now
“Can you imagine 50 years ago telling the 2,000 people who worked here that eventually this would be a place where they voted Tory?” asked Trevor Barton, sitting in the cafe at the Lancashire Mining Museum in Leigh, where the pitmen of Astley colliery once received their wages. “They’d put you on a stake and burn you.”
It was early March and Barton, a former chief superintendent of Greater Manchester police and chair of the museum, was explaining why he had voted Conservative for the first time in the general election.
