LABOUR GAIN

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28536, 15 March 1958, Page 13

LABOUR GAIN

Kelvingrove By-Election

(Rec. 9 p.m.) GLASGOW, Mar. 14. The Conservative Government’s prestige was dealt a big blow yesterday when the Labour Party captured its Parliamentary seat at Kelvingrove.

The Government reverse followed its crushing defeat last month in a by-election at Rochdale, Lancashire, where Labour won the seat and the Conservative nominee came bottom of the poll with about half the votes given to the Liberal candidate. It was widely accepted that, as at Rochdale, the main cause of the Government’s defeat at Kelvingrove was the new Rent Act, which raises rents and ends security for hundreds of thousands of people. Some of Kelvingrove’s voters, who range from dockside dwellers to well-to-do business families, fear eviction as a result of the act.

The voting, announced last night, was:— Mrs Mary McAlister, Labour ... 10,210 Mrs Katharine Elliot, Conservative .. 8,850 Mr David Libe-ral-Home Ruler .. 1,622 Mr William Park, Independent Labour Party . * .. 587 The Labour majority was 1360 compared with a Conservative majority of 2888 votes in a straight fight at the 1955 General Election. Third Defeat Kelvingrove was the Government’s third by-election defeat since it took office in 1955. Until this year, it had lost North Lewisham, London. But for more than a year its share of votes has fallen consistently at by-elections, and the fall of nearly 14 percent, at Kelvingrove was one of the highest on record. In most of the previous by-elec-tions there has been no solid rise in Labour popularity to counterbalance the Conservative slump. Defecting Government supporters have usually preferred to give their backing to alternative nonSocialist candidates. But at Kelvingrove, there was a rise of nearly 3% per cent, in Labour’s share of the poll compared with 1955, and the two other candidates fared badly. The Independent Labour candidate, from whose movement, now of splinter proportions, the main British Labour Party sprang,. fought a strong “ban the H-bomb” campaign at a moment when this topic has caused acute national controversy. But he and the Liberal-Home Ruler got so few votes that they lose the £l5O deposit required of each candidate and forfeited by all who fail to poll one-eighth of the total votes in an election.

Mrs Elliot, whose husband, the late Colonel Walter Elliot, formerly represented the constituency, blamed her defeat on the, intervention of the Liberal-Home Ruler. “Fine Victory”

The leader of the Labour Party. Mr Gaitskell, said today: “This is a fine victory for Labour, won under conditions that were in some respects most unfavourable. “It shows once again how the Government has lost the confidence of the country, and it is a dear call to the Government to

nounced. amend the Rent Act-without destate ot the parties in the House of Commons now becomes: Conservatives and allies, 334; Labour, 280; Liberals, 5; Independents, 9; vacant seats, 2. The “Daily Herald” commented: “Nobody wants this deadend, dead-beat Government. In by-election after by-election the voters have shown that it has no mandate to govern." The “Daily Express” claimed that the Conservative Government lost the Kelvingrove byelection because of its Rent Act. “The Rent Act was right before Kelvingrove,” the “Daily Express” said, “It is right now.” “The Government and Conservatives in Parliament should hold to a policy of strength. Only in that way will they retain support”