Southwark by-election, 1972

The Southwark by-election, 1972 was a by-election held on 4 May 1972 for the British House of Commons constituency of Southwark.

The by-election was triggered by the resignation of the serving Labour Party Member of Parliament (MP), Ray Gunter.

Candidates

The Labour candidate was Harry Lamborn, who represented the constituency on the Greater London Council, of which he was Deputy Chair. The Conservative candidate was Jeffrey Gordon.

Gunter, who had resigned over the issue of the Common Market, had had a majority of nearly 10,000 and the seat was expected to remain a Labour one. Lamborn was described as 'a fervent anti-marketeer'. His main platform was opposition to the Government's Housing Finance Bill, which was expected to raise rents for council tenants. The constituency was reported as having more rented accommodation than any other in the country.^[1] The third candidate was an independent, Brian McDermott, who stood as the Actors Anti-Heath's Union-Bashing Tactics candidate.

Polling

Polling took place on the same day as the local elections outside London, in which Labour made very large gains. Labour won the seat comfortably with a swing of 11 per cent. The Conservatives took some comfort from the fact that in the by-election for the safe Kingston seat the same day, they retained it against only a small swing to Labour.^[2]

Votes

Southwark by-election, 1972^[3]
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±
	Labour	Harry Lamborn	12,108	79.33	+12.00
	Conservative	Jeffrey Gordon	2,756	18.06	-10.10
	Independent	Brian McDermott	398	2.61	N/A
Majority			9,352	61.27
Turnout			15,262
	Labour hold		Swing

References

↑ Tim Jones, "Candidates are enthusiastic but party chiefs expect 'no change'", The Times, 2 May 1972.
↑ 'Labour captures the cities but by-election gives Tories comfort', 'Kingston stays Tory and Labour holds Southwark', The Times 5 May 1972.
↑ "1972 By Election Results". Archived from the original on 2012-03-14. Retrieved 2015-09-08.

External links

Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs

« 44th Parliament « By-elections to the 45th Parliament of the United Kingdom » 46th Parliament »

1970	October: St Marylebone November: Enfield West

1971	April: Liverpool Scotland Arundel and Shoreham May: Southampton Itchen Bromsgrove Goole June: Hayes and Harlington July: Greenwich September: Stirling and Falkirk Widnes Macclesfield

1972	April: Merthyr Tydfil May: Kingston-upon-Thames Southwark October: Rochdale December: Sutton and Cheam Uxbridge

1973	March: Chester-le-Street Dundee East Lincoln May: West Bromwich Westhoughton June: Manchester Exchange July: Isle of Ely Ripon November: Berwick-upon-Tweed Edinburgh North Glasgow Govan Hove

Lists of UK by-elections 1801–1806 1806–1818 1818–1832 1832–1847 1847–1857 1857–1868 1868–1885 1885–1900 1900–1918 1918–1931 1931–1950 1950–1979 1979–2010 2010–present

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 10/19/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.