It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing
Waking up to the news that the SNP have won the Glasgow East by-election on a 22.4% swing from Labour made me look at the list of previous by-elections to see how it ranked. So here’s some of the favourites that I remember and a few others.
44.2% Bermondsey Liberal Simon Hughes gained the highest swing since WWII in a fractious campaign (1983)
35.4% Christchurch Diana Maddock earns the highest recorded swing against a Government party (1993)
32.4% Liverpool Edge Hill David Alton winning from Labour (1979)
29.1% Dudley West Labour takes this Midlands seat from the Tories (1994)
29.0% Brent East LibDem Sarah Teather inflicts Labour’s first by-election defeat since coming to power in 1997 (2003)
28.4% Newbury David Rendel takes the seat in the first by-election after the 1992 General Election (1993)
26.8% Orpington Eric Lubbock, now Lord Avebury, took Orpington from the Tories. (1962)
25.5% Crosby Shirley Williams in the first victory for the Liberal/SDP Alliance (1981)
24.7% Ribble Valley Liberal Democrat Michael Carr won this previously safe Conservative seat in the ‘poll tax’ campaign (1991)
20.0% Eastbourne The first ever LibDem by-election victory in the ‘dead parrot’ campaign (1990)
17.6% Crewe & Nantwich The Tories first by-election gain for more than 25 years (2008)
16.2% Dunfermline LibDem Willie Rennie grabbed the Labour seat next door to Gordon Brown (2006)
12.6% Romsey Sandra Gidley takes the seat for the LibDems, despite the Tories being firmly in Opposition (2000).
Related posts:
- Don't be ghoulish, don't be foolish
- Small by-election, no-one heard
- Lies, damned lies and Tory mis-stating of opinion polls
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