By-Elections Show Ease In Conservative Slump

Press, Volume XCV, Issue 28234, 23 March 1957, Page 11

By-Elections Show Ease In Conservative Slump

(Rec. 10.30 p.m.) LONDON, March 22. Two Parliamentary by-elections declared last night, showed that the slump in Conservative popularity was easing, although there was still a swing away from the Government on the pattern of other recent contests. A surprising feature of yesterday’s elections was that the Government, defending two seats, dropped fewer votes at Newcastle-on-Tyne, a city acutely affected by the current strike of 200,000 ship workers, than at the residential Kentish Conservative stronghold of Beckenham.

The state of the parties in the House of Commons now becomes: Conservatives and allies, 344; Labour, 278, Liberals, five; Independent, one; vacant seats, two. Conservative politicians said they were satisfied that the results indicated the swing away from the Government was easing.

Conservatives had feared Newcastle North might repeat the recent story of Warwick and Leamington, Sir Anthony Eden’s old constituency, where a Labour challenger cut their majority by five-sixths.

Instead, in spite of a considerable fall in the majority, their share of the total votes polled fell by only 3.1 per cent. An unwelcome suprise for the Government was a slump of twice that amount in its share of the total poll in Beckenham, a prosperous suburb on London’s fringe, remote from the shipbuilding stoppage. The results were:— NEWCASTLE NORTH Mr Robert W. Elliot (Conservative), 19,017. Mr Thomas L. Macdonald (Labour), 12,555. Conservative majority, 6462. BECKENHAM Mr Philip Goodhart (Conservative), 29,621. Mr N. D. Sandelson (Labour), 17,445. Conservative majority, 12,176.