Election 97

Truro and St Austell

Current MP Matthew Taylor
Conservative 97 15,001
Labour 97 8,697
LibDem 97 27,502
Nationalist 97 0
Other 97 1,865
Elected party
Truro and St  Austell

Robert Waller wrote
Old constituency Truro
Conservative 92 23,660
Labour 92 6,078
LibDem 92 31,230
Nationalist 92 0
Other 92 885
Elected party LibDem

Central Cornwall's old china clay mining belt contains both the county town, Truro, and its largest population centre, St Austell. This is classic South Western Liberal Democrat country, and has been since 1979, when the Truro division was won by David Penhaligon from a rather inactive Tory MP. Penhaligon made the seat a personal fiefdom, and his untimely death in a car crash in 1986 gleaned a huge sympathy vote for Lib Dem candidate Matthew Taylor. Taylor, the youngest member of the house, saw his lead dip in the 1987 by-election, but has built it back up, and he now seems comfortably at home here.


Super Profiles

1,611 3.72 9.03 41
13,791 31.87 11.17 285
3,319 7.67 11.25 68
4,248 9.82 14.70 67
1,237 2.86 10.45 27
2,434 5.63 2.81 200
3,894 9.00 8.01 112
10,530 24.34 15.25 160
601 1.39 7.13 19
1,131 2.61 10.17 26