Winchester by-election, 1997

The 1997 Winchester by-election was a by-election to the UK House of Commons in the constituency of Winchester, Hampshire. After an unclear (and extremely close) result in Winchester at the general election on 1 May 1997, a new election was allowed by the High Court. Held on 20 November, the election was won by Mark Oaten (Liberal Democrat) with a large majority.

History

At the general election on 1 May 1997, Mark Oaten was originally declared the winner, with a majority of two votes over Conservative Gerry Malone, after many recounts and haggling over spoilt ballots.

Oaten was unseated on an electoral petition on 6 October 1997. The High Court held that 54 votes declared void for want of the Official Mark would have changed the result if counted. The court could not be sure they were not the product of a mistake, therefore deemed that the result was uncertain. They allowed the petition and declared the election void. The writ for the new election was moved on 28 October 1997.

The by-election was held on 20 November and resulted in a clear win by Oaten. Gerry Malone, the former Conservative MP who had lost his seat in the general election, was criticised as a "poor loser".^{[citation needed]} The Labour Party obtained their worst ever results in a parliamentary election, in part because they hardly campaigned at all and instead focused their priorities on the by-election in Beckenham held on the same day. It is presumed that most of the Labour supporters decided to vote Liberal Democrat knowing how unlikely they were to win.

Screaming Lord Sutch, candidate in the by-election

Both the original and rerun election involved an incidence of a candidate using an attempted confusing description. Richard Huggett described himself in the general election as Liberal Democrat Top Choice For Parliament (leading to Oaten, the official Lib Dem candidate, to use the ballot paper description Liberal Democrat Leader Paddy Ashdown) and in the by-election as Literal Democrat Mark Here to Win. The Registration of Political Parties Act 1998 put an end to this practice.

This was also the last election (by or general) in which Screaming Lord Sutch, founder of the Official Monster Raving Loony Party, ran for a parliamentary seat. He committed suicide in 1999.

Results

By-election 1997: Winchester
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Liberal Democrat	Mark Oaten	37,006	68.0	+26.0
	Conservative	Gerry Malone	15,450	28.4	−13.6
	Labour	Patrick Davies	944	1.7	−8.8
	Referendum/UK Independence Alliance	Robin Page	521	1.0	+0.2
	Monster Raving Loony	Lord David Sutch	316	0.6	+0.1
	"Literal Democrat Mark Here to Win"	Richard Huggett	59	0.1	−0.9
	Natural Law	Rosemary Barry	48	0.1
	Independent Conservative	Roger Everest	40	0.1
Majority			21,556
Turnout				68.7
	Liberal Democrat gain from Conservative		Swing	19.8

General election result

At the general election (held five months before the by-election), the top two candidates' votes were very close.

General Election 1997: Winchester
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Liberal Democrat	Mark Oaten	26,100	42.1
	Conservative	Gerry Malone	26,098	42.1
	Labour	Patrick Davies	6,528	10.5
	Referendum Party	Peter Strand	1,598	2.6
	"Liberal Democrat Top Choice for Parliament"	Richard Huggett	640	1.0
	UKIP	Derek Rumsey	476	0.8
	Independent	John Browne	307	0.5
	Monster Raving Loony	Peter Stockton	307	0.5
Majority			2
Turnout			62,054
Void election result			Swing

See also

• List of United Kingdom by-elections