Manchester Withington is a Parliamentary Constituency which encompasses Withington village, Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Burnage and Didsbury (East and West). Manchester Withington became the first constituency in the City of Manchester since 1929 to elect a Liberal (Democrat) MP upon John Leech's gain in the 2005 General Election, when the constituency also experienced the largest swing of that election, taking the previously 11,524 majority Labour safe seat by 667 votes – a swing of 17%. This was possibly attributable to the constituency's large student population. The previous incumbent of the seat, Keith Bradley, had held the seat for Labour for 18 years; Lucy Powell was chosen as the successor candidate to Keith Bradley in March 2007, to try to regain the seat at the next general election. However, Leech retained the seat for the Liberal Democrats at the 2010 General Election, with 44.6% of the vote (an increase of 2.4% over 2005); Powell came second with 40.5% of the vote (a decrease of 0.4%).