Eddisbury by-election, 1999

The Eddisbury by-election, 1999 was a parliamentary by-election held on 22 July 1999 for the British House of Commons constituency of Eddisbury in Cheshire.

On May 25, 1999 the Foreign and Commonwealth Office announced the appointment of Eddisbury's Member of Parliament (MP), the Rt. Hon. Sir Alastair Goodlad, as High Commissioner to the Commonwealth of Australia. This created a vacancy in the seat which Sir Alastair had retained as the Conservative candidate in the 1997 general election. Sir Alastair resigned from the House of Commons by accepting the office of Steward and Bailiff of the Three Hundreds of Chiltern on 28 June 1999 to formally vacate his seat.

Candidates

The Conservatives selected Stephen O'Brien, a former SDP member who lived in Chichester, to defend the seat. Labour nominated Margaret Hanson, wife of David Hanson (Labour MP for Delyn), who had also fought in the 1997 election. Labour had been only just over 1,000 votes behind the Conservatives in 1997 and ran an energetic campaign, raising the issue of fox hunting which she pledged to ban. Prime Minister Tony Blair went to the constituency to campaign for her, an unusual move as it is convention for incumbent Prime Ministers not to visit byelection campaigns.

Polling day was July 22, and the result was a virtual carbon copy of that in 1997; each party had fought to a standstill.

Results

Election box candidate with party link
party = Conservative Party (UK)
candidate = Stephen O'Brien
votes = 15,465
percentage = 44.8
change = +2.3Election box candidate with party link
party = Labour Party (UK)
candidate = Margaret Hanson
votes = 13,859
percentage = 40.2
change = +0.1Election box candidate with party link
party = Liberal Democrats (UK)
candidate = Paul Roberts
votes = 4,757
percentage = 13.8
change = +0.6Election box candidate with party link
party = Official Monster Raving Loony Party
candidate = Alan Hope
votes = 238
percentage = 0.7
change = "N/A"Election box candidate with party link
party = Independent Conservative
candidate = Robert Everest
votes = 98
percentage = 0.3
change = "N/A"Election box candidate with party link
party = Natural Law Party
candidate = Dinah Grice
votes = 80
percentage = 0.2
change = "N/A"Election box majority
votes = 1,606
percentage =
change = Election box turnout
votes =
percentage = 51.4
change = -24.4Election box hold with party link
winner = Conservative Party (UK)
swing =

Election box candidate with party link
party = Conservative Party (UK)
candidate = Alastair Goodlad
votes = 21,027
percentage = 42.5
change = Election box candidate with party link
party = Labour Party (UK)
candidate = Margaret Hanson
votes = 19,842
percentage = 40.1
change = Election box candidate with party link
party = Liberal Democrats (UK)
candidate = David Reaper
votes = 6,540
percentage = 13.2
change = Election box candidate with party link
party = Referendum Party
candidate = Norine Napier
votes = 2,041
percentage = 4.2
change = "N/A"Election box majority
votes = 1,185
percentage =
change = Election box turnout
votes =
percentage = 75.8
change = Election box hold with party link
winner = Conservative Party (UK)
swing =

External links

* [http://www.geocities.com/by_elections/eddisbury99.html British Parliamentary By Elections: Campaign literature from the by-election]

ee also

*Eddisbury constituency
*List of United Kingdom by-elections