From Surf Wiki (app.surf) — the open knowledge base

1984 Portsmouth South by-election

UK parliamentary by-election

Field	Value
election_name	1984 Portsmouth South by-election
type	parliamentary
country	United Kingdom
seats_for_election	Constituency of Portsmouth South
ongoing	no
previous_election	1983 United Kingdom general election
previous_year	1983
election_date	14 Jun 1984
candidate1	Mike Hancock
party1	Social Democratic Party (UK)
popular_vote1	15,358
percentage1	37.6%
swing1	12.1%
candidate2	Patrick Rock
party2	Conservative Party (UK)
popular_vote2	14,017
percentage2	34.3%
swing2	15.7%
candidate3	Sally Thomas
party3	Labour Party (UK)
popular_vote3	10,846
percentage3	26.5%
swing3	4.0%
title	MP
posttitle	Subsequent MP
before_election	Bonner Pink
before_party	Conservative Party (UK)
after_election	Mike Hancock
after_party	Social Democratic Party (UK)
turnout	54.5% ( 12.8%)
next_election	1987 United Kingdom general election
next_year	1987

The 1984 Portsmouth South by-election was held on 14 June 1984, following the death of Bonner Pink, the Conservative MP for Portsmouth South.

Portsmouth South was considered a safe seat for the Conservatives. Pink had held the constituency since the 1966 general election, while the party had held the seat since its creation in 1918. At the 1983 general election, Pink had taken just over half the votes cast.

Candidates

The Conservatives stood Patrick Rock.

The Social Democratic Party (SDP) had narrowly taken second place in the constituency in 1983, with just over one quarter of the vote. They stood Mike Hancock, an engineer and member of Hampshire County Council, who had been their unsuccessful candidate in 1983.

The Labour Party had been pushed into third place in 1983, taking 22% of the vote. They also re-stood their candidate from the previous year, Sally Thomas, a supporter of unilateral nuclear disarmament. As Portsmouth South was the headquarters of the Royal Navy, this was a significant issue in the campaign.

Three other candidates had stood in the general election, and two of these stood in the by-election: Gordon Knight of the far right National Front, and Alan Evens who stood as "Liberal for Unilateral Nuclear Disarmament", while four new candidate completed the field. Terry Mitchell stood for the Ecology Party, Thomas Layton stood as "Spare the Earth – Ecology", Anthony Andrews stood as an independent with the slogan "Vote Education: Save Schools & Colleges", and Pete Smith stood for the New National Party.

Result

The SDP unexpectedly gained the seat. The Conservative vote fell sharply, while Labour saw only a small increase. None of the other candidates were able to take 1% of the votes cast.

Hancock lost the seat at the 1987 general election, but was able to retake it in 1997.

References

[http://www.psr.keele.ac.uk/area/uk/ge83/i16.htm UK General Election results: June 1983]
[http://by-elections.co.uk/portsmouth84.html Portsmouth South 1984] {{webarchive. link. (2009-08-21 , British Parliamentary ByElections)
Chris Cook and John Ramsden, ''By-Elections in British Politics''
Boothroyd, David. "Results of Byelections in the 1983–87 Parliament".
Boothroyd, David. "Results of Byelections in the 1983–87 Parliament".

Info: Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

1984-elections-in-the-united-kingdom 1984-in-england by-elections-to-the-parliament-of-the-united-kingdom-in-hampshire-constituencies elections-in-portsmouth june-1984-in-the-united-kingdom 1980s-in-hampshire

Want to explore this topic further?

Ask Mako anything about 1984 Portsmouth South by-election — get instant answers, deeper analysis, and related topics.

Research with Mako

Free with your Surf account

Content sourced from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

This content may have been generated or modified by AI. CloudSurf Software LLC is not responsible for the accuracy, completeness, or reliability of AI-generated content. Always verify important information from primary sources.

Report