1999 Eddisbury by-election

1999 Eddisbury by-election

22 July 1999

First party Second party Third party   Candidate Stephen O'Brien Margaret Hanson Paul Roberts Party Conservative Labour Liberal Democrats Popular vote 15,465 13,859 4,757 Percentage 44.8% 40.2% 13.8% Swing 2.3pp 0.1pp 0.6pp

MP before election Alastair Goodlad Conservative Elected MP Stephen O'Brien Conservative

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

On 25 May 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. Goodlad 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.

The 1999 British cabinet reshuffle was delayed by a week following Labour's unexpected success in the by-election.

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

Opinion polling

Date(s) conducted	Pollster	Client	Sample size	Con	Lab	Lib Dem	Others	Lead
22 Jul 1999	1999 by-election		–	44.8%	40.2%	13.8%	1.2%	4.6%
13 Jul 1999	Ipsos	N/A	500	38%	42%	17%	3%	4%
1 May 1997	1997 general election		–	42.5%	40.1%	13.2%	4.2%	2.4%

Results

Eddisbury by-election, 1999

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Conservative	Stephen O'Brien	15,465	44.8	+2.3
	Labour	Margaret Hanson	13,859	40.2	+0.1
	Liberal Democrats	Paul Roberts	4,757	13.8	+0.6
	Monster Raving Loony	Alan Hope	238	0.7	New
	Independent	Roger Everest	98	0.3	New
	Natural Law	Dinah Grice	80	0.2	New
Majority			1,606	4.6	+2.2
Turnout			34,497	51.4	−24.4
	Conservative hold		Swing

General election 1997: Eddisbury

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Conservative	Alastair Goodlad	21,027	42.5
	Labour	Margaret Hanson	19,842	40.1
	Liberal Democrats	David Reaper	6,540	13.2
	Referendum	Norine Napier	2,041	4.2
Majority			1,185	2.4
Turnout			49,450	75.8
	Conservative hold		Swing

See also

• Eddisbury constituency
• Lists of United Kingdom by-elections

External links

• British Parliamentary By Elections: Campaign literature from the by-election