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Crewe and Nantwich parliamentary seat | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Turnout | 58.2% | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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 Location ofCrewe and Nantwich withinCheshire | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The2008 Crewe and Nantwich by-election was a parliamentary by-election held on 22 May 2008, for the UKHouse of Commons constituency ofCrewe and Nantwich, inCheshire, England. The election was won by theConservative party candidateEdward Timpson, who defeated theLabour party candidateTamsin Dunwoody, on aswing from Labour to Conservative of 17.6%, a swing that in a general election would have seen nine Labourcabinet ministers lose their seats.[citation needed]
At the time of the by-election, a swing of 7% in a general election would have seen the Conservatives gain an overall majority over Labour.[1] This was the first seat gained by the Conservatives in a by-election since the1982 Mitcham and Morden by-election and the first seat they had taken from Labour in a by-election since the1978 Ilford North by-election thirty years earlier.
The by-election was called following the death on 17 April 2008 of the sitting MPGwyneth Dunwoody.[2] The timing of the election caused controversy as, by convention, by-elections are not moved until after the funeral of the deceased Member of Parliament, which drew protests from Conservative andLiberal Democrat members in the House of Commons. However the writ was moved with the approval of the Dunwoody family.[3]
The election had attracted high media and public interest following heavy defeats for the incumbent Labour party in thelocal elections held earlier that same month, and the fact it followed the controversial removal by the Labour government of the 10 pence national income tax band, which had seen a backbench rebellion against Prime MinisterGordon Brown, causing an announcement in the same month of a recovery package to help the people left worse off by the move.
Immediately following the announcement of the result following the speeches, the defeated Tamsin Dunwoody speaking live to the BBC blamed the swing on a higher turn-out than usual due to the high interest in the election, despite both the turnout and winning vote being lower than the 2005 general election result for this seat. Telling the BBC the Labour vote "held up" in a "democratic decision", defeated candidate Dunwoody called herself a "fighter". New MP Edward Timpson said in his victory speech that he would "not let you down",[4] whilst Prime Minister Brown attributed the defeat to rising petrol prices, and the recent increases in the cost of living.[5]
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Conservative | Edward Timpson | 20,539 | 49.5 |  16.9 | |
| Labour | Tamsin Dunwoody | 12,679 | 30.6 |  18.2 | |
| Liberal Democrats | Elizabeth Shenton | 6,040 | 14.6 | 4.0 | |
| UKIP | Mike Nattrass | 922 | 2.2 | New | |
| Green | Robert Smith | 359 | 0.9 | New | |
| English Democrat | David Roberts | 275 | 0.7 | New | |
| Monster Raving Loony | The Flying Brick | 236 | 0.6 | New | |
| No label | Mark Walklate | 217 | 0.5 | New | |
| Cut Tax on Diesel and Petrol | Paul Thorogood | 118 | 0.3 | New | |
| No label | Gemma Garrett | 113 | 0.3 | New | |
| Majority | 7,860 | 18.9 | N/A | ||
| Turnout | 41,856 | 58.2 | 1.8 | ||
| Rejected ballots | 67 | 0.2 | |||
| Conservativegain fromLabour | Swing | 17.6 | |||
An ICM poll from mid-May gave the Conservative candidate 43% to Labour's 39% and the Lib Dems' 16%;[9] a second ICM poll from a week after gave the Conservatives 45% to Labour's 37%.[10]
On 3 May 2008, incumbentGwyneth Dunwoody's daughterTamsin, a former member of theNational Assembly for Wales, was selected as the Labour candidate.[11] Prior to Dunwoody's death, the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats had already selected candidates to contest the seat at thegeneral election.[12] The Conservative Party candidateEdward Timpson was abarrister practising inChester. Since 2006, he had been the Conservative Party's campaigns co-ordinator for theEddisbury constituency.[13] The Liberal Democrat candidate Elizabeth Shenton had worked as a senior manager for theRBS andNatWest, where she was an active member of the trade union. At the time of the election she was also a councillor inNewcastle-under-Lyme.[14]
TheUK Independence Party candidate wasMike Nattrass,MEP for the nearbyWest Midlands and a former deputy party leader.[15] Robert Smith, a 23-year-oldtown planner (andtransport planning specialist)[16] educated at theUniversity of Liverpool[12] stood for theGreen Party of England and Wales and particularly campaigned to reverse theprivatisation of British Rail (and associated fare increases).[17][18]
TheOfficial Monster Raving Loony Party stood "The Flying Brick" (his legal name, although he was formerly known as Nick Delves), the party's treasurer and Shadow Minister for the Abolition of Gravity.[12] Independent candidate Mark Walklate was a locally educated salesperson (with a business degree) who stood for the Conservatives in the 2006 and 2007 council elections.[19] Paul Thorogood's party, Cut Tax on Petrol and Diesel, was registered with the Electoral Commission on 23 March 2008, with Thorogood as its Leader, Nominating Officer and Treasurer,[20] although his party is listed on the nomination paper as "Cut Tax on Diesel and Petrol" (the fourth and sixth words reversed).[6] The newly formed Beauties for Britain Party fieldedGemma Garrett, the then-Miss Great Britain, as a candidate in what was their first election campaign, announcing that they wanted to "help make Westminster as glamorous a place as its fellow European legislatures, where beautiful women abound in the higher echelons of government".[21] The party was not, however, registered with theElectoral Commission, so she had to stand as an independent. Garrett and fellow independent Mark Walklate are recorded as having no party name or description at all on the official record of candidates[6] as opposed to having the word, 'Independent' by their names on the ballot paper.
The Labour Party ran a personal class-based campaign against the Conservative candidate, calling him "theTarporley Toff", "Lord Snooty", "Tory Boy Timpson".[22] Labour supporters donnedtop hats to mock Timpson, whose family ownTimpson, a national shoe repair and key-cutting business.[23] This has been viewed by some social commentators as a form ofreverse snobbery. Dunwoody, who arrived for the campaign from her 6-acre (24,000 m2) holding in Wales, was termed "One of us",[24] as she was daughter of the deceased Labour MP. The campaign was criticised by a number of national newspapers, including the left-leaningGuardian[25] as well asThe Times,[26] while Dunwoody herself was confronted byJeremy Paxman onNewsnight over the fact that she has an entry inBurke's Peerage and Baronetage.[27]
On the last day of the campaign, the accidental communication by a Conservative party worker of voting intention data of 8,000 people to a radio station sparked an investigation by theInformation Commissioner into possible breaches ofdata protection laws.[28]
The constituency had been held by Gwyneth Dunwoody for Labour since its creation in 1983.[29] Just three parties contested the seat at the2005 UK general election. Dunwoody held the seat with a reduced majority, while both the Conservative Party and Liberal Democrats enjoyed an increase in their vote share.[30]
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Labour | Gwyneth Dunwoody | 21,240 | 48.8 | 5.5 | |
| Conservative | Eveleigh Moore-Dutton | 14,162 | 32.6 | 2.2 | |
| Liberal Democrats | Paul Roberts | 8,083 | 18.6 | 5.1 | |
| Majority | 7,078 | 16.3 | 7.7 | ||
| Turnout | 43,485 | 60.0 | 0.2 | ||
| Labourhold | Swing | 3.8 | |||
(Deputy Information Commissioner) Mr Smith said: "It is a serious concern if people's personal details and voting intentions have got into the public domain."
