Monmouth Roger Evans 19,226 23,404 4,689 516 0 Monmouth 24,059 20,855 5,562 0 431 Conservative The Labour party have only ever won the south east Wales border seat of Monmouth twice. Once was at their high water mark of 1966, and the second time was at the by-election in 1991 caused by the death of Sir John Stradling Thomas. This should tell us something. The fact that this second defeat was reversed by the Tories in 1992 by only 3,000 votes conceals the fact that Monmouth is actually quite a safe Tory seat; the 1992 figures were distorted by the influence of the recent by-election. This is a prosperous seat, with affluent and small country towns like Monmouth and Abergavenny, and even more prosperous villages and border countryside between. The farming is more profitable than further into the hills and valleys of Wales, and overall the tone of the seat is almost as English as Welsh; indeed there was long a dispute about whether Monmouthshire should be considered to be in Wales at all. It could well be that Monmouth is in fact the safest of the handful of Conservative seats in Wales, and that this true picture will be revealed when the results of the 1997 election are reported.

	7,218	22.13	9.03	245
	3,702	11.35	11.17	102
	2,490	7.64	11.25	68
	3,564	10.93	14.70	74
	868	2.66	10.45	25
	2,407	7.38	2.81	262
	2,305	7.07	8.01	88
	7,477	22.93	15.25	150
	494	1.51	7.13	21
	694	2.13	10.17	21