BOLTON West is a notorious bell-weather or marginal constituency which has predicted the winning party between 1983 and 2010.

The constituency has swung between the Labour and Conservative parties since 1970, previously being a battle ground for Labour and the Liberals before that, back to its conception in 1950.

Conservative Tom Sackville has held the seat the longest in its history. It is the only Parliamentary seat he has ever held, having previously tried to win Pontypool in 1979.

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He hit the headlines of The Bolton News in 1996 for a letter he penned talking about headteachers with “scruffy ideas”.

In 2013 in reminisced about his time under Margaret Thatcher re-calling the time his daughter who was three at the time said “hello granny” to the Prime Minister. Mr Sackville joked: “Her and my mother did have rather the same hairstyle.”

Mr Sackville held Bolton West for 14 years between 1983 1997 when he lost it to Labour’s Ruth Kelly, one of the so-called Blair Babes.

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Mrs Kelly rose to ministerial positions including secretary of state for education.

She came under close scrutiny when she was revealed to have used taxpayer money to refurbish her flooded home in the MP expenses scandal.

She then held the seat for 13 years, until her retirement in 2010 when Julie Hilling was elected for her term.

Chris Green won Bolton West in 2015, holding it in the 2017 snap general election by 936 votes.

Mr Green briefly held the post of Parliamentary private secretary for Transport under minister Chris Grayling.

He resigned his position in July criticising the PM's Brexit strategy.