1981 Croydon North West by-election

none 1981 Croydon North West by-election parliamentary United Kingdom Constituency of Croydon North West no 1979 United Kingdom general election 1979 22 October 1981 Bill Pitt Lib Liberal Party (UK) 13,800 40.0% 29.4% John Butterfill Conservative Party (UK) 10,546 30.5% 18.9% Stanley Boden Lab Labour Party (UK) 8,967 26.0% 14.1% MP Subsequent MP Robert Taylor Conservative Party (UK) Bill Pitt Liberal Party (UK) 62.5% ( 10.0%) 1983 United Kingdom general election 1983 April 2022 The 1981 Croydon North West by-election took place on 22 October 1981. It was caused by the death of Conservative Member of Parliament Robert Taylor on 18 June 1981. The Conservative Party selected John Butterfill, then vice-chairman of Guildford Conservative Association. The Labour Party, the runners-up at the 1979 general election, selected a local councillor, Stanley Boden. The Liberal Party had come a distant third in 1979, but the by-election came shortly after the formation of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), with whom the Liberals had entered into an electoral pact, the SDP–Liberal Alliance. It was therefore expected that the election would provide a platform for Shirley Williams of the SDP to return to Parliament, having lost her seat in 1979. However, the Liberal Party insisted on their own candidate and selected the lesser known Bill Pitt who had stood in the seat for the previous three general elections and at the time was the London Regional Party Chair. The 22-year-old Nick Griffin (who became leader of the British National Party in 1999) stood in his first election in Croydon North West, representing the National Front. Bill Boaks, a road safety campaigner and perennial candidate, was also on the ballot. In total, a record twelve candidates stood, one more than in the 1978 Lambeth Central by-election. This record was broken at the 1984 Chesterfield by-election. Pitt duly won the seat on the surge of support for the Alliance and a 24% swing, strengthening the Liberals' hand in negotiations with the SDP. Result Croydon North West By-election 1981http://www.election.demon.co.uk/by1979.html https://web.archive.org/web/20000609021725/http://www.election.demon.co.uk/by1979.html dead 9 June 2000 Results of Byelections in the 1979-83 Parliament Boothroyd David 2015-09-19 United Kingdom Election Results Liberal Party (UK) Bill Pitt 13,800 39.95 +29.44 Conservative Party (UK) John Butterfill 10,546 30.53 -18.89 Labour Party (UK) Stanley Boden 8,967 25.96 -14.11 National Front (UK) Nick Griffin 429 1.24 New Independent Pro-Life Marilyn Gillies Carr 340 0.98 New Ecology Party John Foster 155 0.45 New Nationalist Party (UK) Suzan McKenzie 111 0.32 New Disabled War Pensioners Association Lawrence Brooks 81 0.23 New Democratic Monarchist, Public Safety, White Resident Bill Boaks 51 0.15 New Family Law Reform Party George Major 31 0.09 New London Federation of Self-Employed Josef Joseph 20 0.06 New Anti-Common Market - Free Trade Stephen Done 11 0.03 New 3,254 9.42 N/A 34,542 62.5 -10.0 Conservative Party (UK) Liberal Party (UK) +24.2 Aftermath Pitt's win was the Alliance's first electoral success and delighted Liberal leader David Steel who said that the party had won a greater majority than they had expected. Noting that they seemed to have taken support away from both of the main parties in almost equal measure, Steel stated that "I believe that we are now unstoppable."Parkhouse Geoffrey Alliance triumph at Croydon https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=GGgVawPscysC&dat=19811023&printsec=frontpage&hl=en 13 January 2022 The Glasgow Herald 23 October 1981 1 The political editor of The Glasgow Herald, Geoffrey Parkhouse, said the result "shattered" both Labour and the Conservatives and noted that Margaret Thatcher and Michael Foot would fear that the result reflected the victorious Pitt's claim that the Alliance had "caught the imagination of the voters" and that as consequence there were "no longer any safe seats for Tory or Labour in the country." Parkhouse also thought the result made the Alliance favourites to win the forthcoming by-election in Crosby. Pitt was not successful in retaining the seat in the 1983 general election, losing to Conservative candidate Humfrey Malins. At the same general election, the unsuccessful Conservative candidate John Butterfill was elected as the MP for Bournemouth West, a seat he held for 27 years until his retirement in 2010. Previous result General election 1979: Croydon North West Conservative Party (UK) Robert Taylor 19,928 49.4 +7.4 Labour Party (UK) Stanley Boden 16,159 40.1 +2.0 Liberal Party (UK) Bill Pitt 4,239 10.5 -6.7 3,769 9.3 +5.5 40,326 72.5 +3.3 Conservative Party (UK) +2.7 References External links British Parliamentary By Elections: Campaign literature from the by-election See also List of United Kingdom by-elections Croydon North West by-election Croydon North West by-election Croydon North West by-election Croydon North West,1981 Croydon North West,1981