1990 Bradford North by-election

Template:Short description Template:Use British English A 1990 by-election was held for the United Kingdom House of Commons for one Member of Parliament (MP) in the constituency of Bradford North, in West Yorkshire, England, on 8 November 1990 owing to the death of the sitting MP Pat Wall.

Bradford is a city based on heavy engineering and textile industries. The Bradford North seat had been held for one Parliament by the Conservatives from 1983 to 1987, when the Labour candidate Pat Wall (a member of the Militant tendency) saw his vote split by a strong SDP challenge and by the sitting Labour MP Ben Ford standing as an Independent. (The successful Conservative, Geoffrey Lawler, had only 34.3% of the vote.)

The by-election took place when Margaret Thatcher was highly unpopular and in her last month as Prime Minister. Declining support for the Conservative government (which improved after John Major succeeded Thatcher near the end of November 1990) was reflected by the fact that the Conservative candidate in this by-election only attracted just over one in six of the total votes cast.

The successful Labour candidate Terry Rooney became the first Mormon to be elected to the House of Commons.

Bradford North by-election 1990

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
		Terry Rooney	Template:Replace	51.7
		David Ward	9,105	25.3
		Joy Atkin	6,048	16.8
		David Pidcock	800	2.2
		Michael Knott	447	1.2
		Robert Tenney	305	0.8
		Joseph Floyd	219	0.6
		Wild Willi Beckett	210	0.6
		Noel Nowosielski	187	0.5
		Malcolm Wigglesworth	89	0.2
Majority			9,514	26.4
Turnout			36,029	53.4
	hold		Swing

See also

• List of United Kingdom by-elections
• List of parliamentary constituencies in West Yorkshire

External links

• British Parliamentary By Elections: Campaign literature from the by-election

Template:England-UK-Parl-by-election-stub