Birmingham Yardley gain from Labour Estelle Morris 0 ( 0.0%) 6,736 (17.8%) 17,778 (47.0%) 12,463 (33.0%) 0 ( 0.0%) 810 ( 2.1%) 53,058 37,787 (71.2%) Estelle Morris Birmingham Yardley 162 ( 0.4%) 14,722 (34.5%) 14,884 (34.9%) 12,899 (30.2%) 0 ( 0.0%) 192 ( 0.4%) Labour 55,626 42,697 (76.8%) -16.7% +12.2% +2.8% +0.0% +1.7% -4.6% -5.5% At first sight Yardley would not seem to be the sort of place which would see fascinating political battles. Set in suburbia on the south-eastern edge of Birmingham, up against the border with Solihull, Yardley consists of three wards: Acock's Green, Sheldon and Yardley itself. This is the seat in the cosmopolitan second city of England which has the smallest proportion of non-white voters. There is a substantial minority of council housing among the owner-occupied stock. It has traditionally been a classic Labour-Conservative marginal, changing hands seven times since the war. However an added and extra element of interest was provided in 1992 by the candidature of a successful young local entrepreneur, John Hemming, who increased the Liberal Democrat share of the vote by over 9 per cent to create a genuine three-way marginal. Labour's Estelle Morris gained the seat from the Conservatives, but by only 162 votes. Hemming was less than 2,000 votes behind. He hopes to do even better next time, and may well have a better chance than the Conservatives of taking the seat from Labour. Probably the best bet is for another tight three-way contest, with Labour favourites to retain the seat; but Yardley could well spring another electoral surprise. 0 0.00 9.03 0 251 0.83 11.17 7 2,846 9.37 11.25 83 6,469 21.31 14.70 145 1,544 5.09 10.45 49 0 0.00 2.81 0 3,138 10.34 8.01 129 7,369 24.27 15.25 159 3,302 10.88 7.13 153 5,441 17.92 10.17 176