Election 97

Keighley

Current MP Gary Waller
Conservative 97 18,907
Labour 97 26,039
LibDem 97 5,064
Nationalist 97 0
Other 97 0
Elected party
Keighley

Robert Waller wrote
Old constituency Keighley
Conservative 92 25,983
Labour 92 22,387
LibDem 92 5,793
Nationalist 92 0
Other 92 642
Elected party Conservative

The West Yorkshire seat of Keighley is a Conservative marginal, the sort of seat that Labour will have to win in order to form a government. It lies about 40 seats down their list of targets.

There was a seat named Keighley that Labour held for most of the period between 1945 and 1983, but that was something of a different animal. It was based more tightly on the town after which the constituency is still named, which is a gritty ex-textile community of terraced housing, with a substantial non-white population in its North ward. But since 1983 three other wards have been joined with the three in Keighley itself. These are all predominantly Conservative in general elections: Worth Valley, the rural Craven, and the affluent spa town of Ilkley. These additional areas have enabled the Conservative MP Gary Waller to hold the Keighley seat for the last 14 years, and it will not fall to Labour unless they achieve the necessary 3 per cent swing to knock the Tories well out of government.


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