Hartlepool by-election, 2004
|
Location of Hartlepool constituency |
On
July 23,
2004, the
Member of Parliament for
Hartlepool, in
England,
Peter Mandelson (
Labour), was nominated as the United Kingdom's new
European Commissioner. On
September 8 he accepted the office of
Steward of the Manor of Northstead, thereby disqualifying himself from Parliament and causing a by-election. Polling took place on
September 30. The
Labour Party candidate
Iain Wright won the seat with a majority of 2,033.
Out of a registered electorate of 68,517, there were 31,362 valid votes, making a turnout of 45.77%. This was the highest by-election turnout since the
Romsey by-election in May
2000.
Robert Kilroy-Silk of
UKIP initially suggested he might stand but later ruled this out, as did
Hartlepool and
Middlesbrough mayors
Stuart Drummond and
Ray Mallon.
Preceding by-elections had seen the
Liberal Democrats come from third place to beat the
Conservative Party, and in
Brent East and
Leicester South take seats from
Labour. The seat was safer (judging by the 2001 result) than Leicester but was vulnerable to swings such as achieved in Brent, or in
Birmingham Hodge Hill where the Lib Dems narrowly failed to win.
In the event the Liberal Democrats were not quite able to repeat these performances. Their campaign suffered by the choice of a candidate who was not from
Hartlepool, while the Labour candidate had been born and brought up in the town. In addition the Liberal Democrat candidate made reference, on a campaign
blog, to having canvassed a street where everyone she met "was either drunk, flanked by an ugly dog, or undressed"; Labour gave wide publicity to this remark and asserted that it was an insult to the people of Hartlepool.
Hartlepool had no significant ethnic minority vote, which had been present in the other three by-elections. The Liberal Democrats were nevertheless content to claim the large swing to them and the Conservatives' fourth place, established the Lib Dems as the main opposition party to Labour, although it had little bearing on the 2005 general election, where the Lib Dems vote did not improve compared to 2001. The UK Independence Party did well in Hartlepool with a local candidate, and their message of opposition to European Union fishing rules was a popular one in a port town.
Labour regarded the result as good news for them as it came at the end of a very long campaign (effectively 71 days) and with a swing markedly smaller than in other seats over the previous year. Labour also regarded the result - along with that in Hodge Hill - as a vindication of their decision to aggressively attack the Liberal Democrats and essentially ignore the Conservative challenge.
From the
2001 general election.
*
Hartlepool by-election leaflets
