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

1990 Eastbourne by-election

UK parliamentary by-election

Field	Value
election_name	1990 Eastbourne by-election
type	parliamentary
country	United Kingdom
seats_for_election	Constituency of Eastbourne
ongoing	no
previous_election	1987 United Kingdom general election
previous_year	1987
election_date	18 October 1990
candidate1	David Bellotti
party1	Liberal Democrats (UK)
popular_vote1	23,415
percentage1	50.8%
swing1	21.1%
candidate2	Richard Hickmet
party2	Conservative Party (UK)
popular_vote2	18,865
percentage2	41.0%
swing2	18.9%
candidate3	Charlotte Atkins
party3	Labour Party (UK)
popular_vote3	2,308
percentage3	5.0%
swing3	3.8%
title	MP
posttitle	Subsequent MP
before_election	Ian Gow
before_party	Conservative Party (UK)
after_election	David Bellotti
after_party	Liberal Democrats (UK)
turnout	60.7% ( 14.9%)
next_election	1992 United Kingdom general election
next_year	1992

The 1990 Eastbourne by-election was a by-election held on 18 October 1990 for the UK House of Commons constituency of Eastbourne in East Sussex.

Background

The by-election was caused by the death of the town's Conservative Party Member of Parliament (MP) Ian Gow, who was killed on 30 July 1990 by a bomb placed under his car by the Provisional IRA.

The result was a victory for the Liberal Democrat candidate David Bellotti, who defeated former Conservative MP Richard Hickmet by a majority of 4,550 votes and with more than half the votes cast. The loss came as a shock to many Conservatives who had expected (not least given the circumstances under which the by-election was held, as well as the fact that it had been retained by a majority of more than 16,000 votes in 1987) that they would retain the seat. Conservative MP Ann Widdecombe sent a message to voters saying that the IRA would be "toasting their success".

It was a welcome success for the Liberal Democrats, formed in March 1988, after some disastrous early local and European election showings, as well as dismal showings in opinion polls. It came at a time when Conservative support was slumping and Labour was enjoying a comfortable lead in the opinion polls, largely due to the unpopular introduction of poll tax by the Conservative government.

The Liberal Democrats, whose newly adopted party emblem was a 'bird of liberty', had been compared by Margaret Thatcher in a Conservative Party conference speech on 12 October to a "dead parrot". The shock defeat contributed to the end of Thatcher's premiership in November 1990 as Conservative MPs worried if they could hold their seats at a general election if she remained prime minister.

Result

References

Bibliography

References

The Guardian :[https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2001/mar/20/profiles.parliament16 Ask Aristotle, Andrew Roth, 20 March 2001]
(2010-04-24). "Top Ten: Lib Dem 'breakthrough moments'". ePolitix.com.
(2014). "Britain under Thatcher". Routledge.
(2014). "Britain under Thatcher". Routledge.
Boothroyd, David. "Results of Byelections in the 1987-92 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.

by-elections-to-the-parliament-of-the-united-kingdom-in-east-sussex-constituencies 1990-elections-in-the-united-kingdom 1990-in-england october-1990-in-the-united-kingdom 1990s-in-east-sussex politics-of-eastbourne

Want to explore this topic further?

Ask Mako anything about 1990 Eastbourne 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