West Derbyshire by-election, 1986

The 1986 Derbyshire West by-election was held on 8 May 1986 when the sitting Conservative Party Member of Parliament, Matthew Parris, took the Chiltern Hundreds and resigned, in order to become the presenter of Weekend World for ITV.

The election was held on the same day as the 1986 local elections and the Ryedale by-election.

During the campaign, the seat's former MP, Matthew Parris, told Vincent Hanna on Newsnight that he thought Labour could gain the seat from the Conservatives. [1]

In his memoirs, he admitted that he deliberately misled both Hanna and the audience to prevent a Liberal victory. [2]

'had I not lied in an interview with the late Vincent Hanna, a BBC pollster carrying out a poll which most improbably suggested that Labour and not the Liberal Democrats[sic] were the challengers in this by-election, [the Liberals] would have won. I knew what I said was false.

Despite a large swing away from him, 28-year-old Patrick McLoughlin of the Conservative Party (who went on to serve in The Cabinet from 2010 to 2018) beat the Liberal Party candidate by 100 votes and as of 2018 remains the MP for the seat.

West Derbyshire by-election, 1986[3]
Party Candidate Votes % ±
Conservative Patrick McLoughlin 19,896 39.5 -16.3
Liberal Christopher Walmsley 19,796 39.4 +12.3
Labour William Moore 9,952 19.8 +2.7
Rainbow Alliance Loony Crocodile Tears Christopher Sidwell 348 0.7 N/A
Independent Robert Goodall 289 0.6 N/A
Majority 100 0.1 -28.8
Turnout 71.9
Conservative hold Swing

See also

References

  1. ↑ Chris Rennard, Winning Here, p.84
  2. ↑ Matthew Parris, Chance Witness, p.348
  3. ↑ Boothroyd, David. "Results of Byelections in the 1983-87 Parliament". United Kingdom Election Results. Retrieved 2015-09-19.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.