Demise of the cities in government

One of the (many) interesting features from the 1979 General Election results programme, replayed on BBC Parliament this Bank Holiday Monday, was the highlighting of Leeds, having the constituency of Merlyn Rees (Home Secretary), Denis Healey (Chancellor) and Keith Joseph (author of the Conservative manifesto in 79, occupied a similar position to that of Oliver Letwin today).

You compare that to today, where I don't think any city has had more than one cabinet member in the last decade, let alone have prominent members from both main parties (Sheffield today, has Blunkett and Clegg, but one has been out of government for some years, and the other may be prominent but not in one of the two main parties).

Birmingham, Sheffield, Leeds, Newcastle Edinburgh and Glasgow have had one Cabinet member apiece in the last 10 years (Short, Blunkett, Benn, N Brown, Darling, Dewar) but no prominent opposition members. Manchester and Liverpool, as cities, both a complete sweep of Labour members, haven't provided a Cabinet member between them since 1997. Nor has Bristol (despite the trend to cities becoming Tory free zones over the last 30 years, Bristol has managed a Cabinet member, in Waldegrave) since 1997.

Some of this can be explained by fewer seats in the cities. Birmingham has shed 2 seats, from 12 to 10, from the 70s to today. Manchester almost halved from 8 to 4 and a bit. Liverpool from 8 to 5. Some can be explained by the country becoming more divided, with (outside of extreme swings) fewer Conservative seats in the cities, and Labour seats in the countryside now than 40 years ago. So less chance of senior members of both parties being neighbours as in Leeds.

But that can't explain all of the failure, in greasy-pole terms, of the city seats, nor the lack of liklihood of the Leeds effect of 79 being repeated.