The Sutton and Cheam by-election of 7 December 1972 was held after Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) Richard Sharples was appointed Governor of Bermuda. In a defeat for Edward Heath's government the seat was won by Liberal candidate Graham Tope, who defeated the Conservative candidate Neil Macfarlane.[1] This was the second Liberal gain during the 1970–1974 Parliament, during which they gained five seats overall.[2] Tope went on to lose the seat to Macfarlane at the February 1974 election.
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Constituency of Sutton and Cheam | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Turnout | 56.3% (![]() | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Results
editParty | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
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Liberal | Graham Tope | 18,328 | 53.6 | +39.0 | |
Conservative | Neil Macfarlane | 10,911 | 31.9 | −26.2 | |
Labour | David Miller | 2,937 | 8.6 | −18.7 | |
Anti-Common Market | Chris Frere-Smith | 1,332 | 3.9 | New | |
National Independence | Edgar Scruby | 660 | 1.9 | New | |
Majority | 7,417 | 21.7 | N/A | ||
Turnout | 34,194 | 56.3 | −11.3 | ||
Registered electors | |||||
Liberal gain from Conservative | Swing | +32.6 |
External links
edit- ^ Result with some Graham Tope campaign literature Archived 14 March 2012 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Michael McManus, Jo Grimond: Towards the Sound of Gunfire, Edinburgh, 2001, p. 317
- ^ "1972 By Election Results". Archived from the original on 14 March 2012. Retrieved 8 September 2015.