The Last Seat

The last parliamentary seat of Thirsk and Malton has now been decided, after the election of its MP was delayed owing to the recent death of one of the candidates. The results are as follows:

1. Anne McIntosh (Conservative) – 20,167 votes (52·87%)
   
2. Howard Keal (Liberal Democrat) – 8,886 votes (23·30%)
3. Jonathon Roberts (Labour) – 5,169 votes (13·55%)
4. Toby Horton (UKIP) – 2,502 votes (6·56%)
5. John Clark (Liberal) – 1,418 votes (3·72%)

The total number of votes cast was 38,142, and turnout was 50·3%.

Notice that Labour ended up in third place, well behind the Liberal Democrats in second place, and with barely a quarter of the winning party's votes. The Labour vote was just under half the number in the 2005 General Election (11,585) and just over half the percentage of the votes then (23·4%).

Now, this is in Yorkshire, which is technically within the Labour heartlands, though this seat was already notionally Blue.

UKIP and the "Liberals", as the only non Big Three parties in the contest, came nowhere really, with under half of Labour's vote each.