 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Constituency of Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The 1965 Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles by-election took place after the death of the incumbent member of parliament, Charles Edward McArthur Donaldson. It was won by David Steel, who went on to lead the Liberal Party. As such it was a milestone in the revival of the party's political fortunes from their nadir in the 1950s.
Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles, a large rural constituency in the Scottish borders, had been safely Conservative for many years. The Liberal Party's 26-year-old candidate David Steel had dramatically cut Commander Charles Donaldson's majority in the general election of October 1964. When Donaldson died some months later it was clear that the ensuing by-election represented an opportunity for the Liberals to repeat previous by-election triumphs in Torrington and Orpington. However, the Conservatives were now in opposition rather than in government and the party's standing in the constituency was thought to have been further bolstered as their leader, Sir Alec Douglas-Home was himself a Scot, representing the rather similar constituency of Kinross and West Perthshire to the north.
The election was held on Wednesday 24 March 1965. The result was a major defeat for the Conservatives. The votes cast were as follows:
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Liberal | David Steel | 21,549 | 49.2 | +10.4 | |
| Conservative | Robert L McEwen | 16,942 | 38.6 | −4.2 | |
| Labour | Ronald K Murray | 4,936 | 11.2 | −4.6 | |
| Independent Scottish Nationalist | Anthony Kerr | 411 | 0.9 | −1.6 | |
| Majority | 4,607 | 10.6 | N/A | ||
| Turnout | 43,838 | 81.5 | −0.7 | ||
| Liberal gain from Conservative | Swing | +7.3 | |||
This defeat was seen as a huge setback for the Conservatives, coming on top of their defeat in the general election the previous year and wiping out the boost they had received in the 1965 Leyton by-election. Douglas-Home resigned as leader shortly afterwards, and in the first election for party leader from amongst the Conservative MPs, was replaced by Edward Heath.
After his victory, Steel said that Douglas-Home was the only leading figure in the Conservatives who could "take some comfort from the result" as he was the only one not to have come to the constituency to campaign in the by-election. The defeated Conservative candidate McEwen blamed his defeat on Labour voters switching to back the Liberals and predicted that the Liberal victory would be overturned at the next general election. In contrast Liberal MP for Caithness and Sutherland George Mackie described the result as "a triumph for David Steel" which showed that the "Liberal surge in Scotland" was continuing and predicted that the next general election would see the party make further gains in Scotland. [2]
Although the Labour candidate lost his deposit, the governing party enjoyed the Conservatives' discomfort, and the result represented a turning point in the government's political fortunes after a very uncertain opening few months. For the Liberals, the acquisition of a talented young MP was still rare enough to be extremely welcome. Steel soon made a national impression and it was his Private Member's Bill which led to the legalisation of abortion in 1967. He would continue to represent the area at Westminster until 1997.
Joseph Grimond, Baron Grimond, was a British politician, leader of the Liberal Party for eleven years from 1956 to 1967 and again briefly on an interim basis in 1976.
David Martin Scott Steel, Baron Steel of Aikwood, is a retired Scottish politician. Elected as Member of Parliament for Roxburgh, Selkirk, and Peebles, followed by Tweeddale, Ettrick, and Lauderdale, he served as the final leader of the Liberal Party, from 1976 to 1988. His tenure spanned the duration of the alliance with the Social Democratic Party, which began in 1981 and concluded with the formation of the Liberal Democrats in 1988.
Conservative Member of Parliament Michael Colvin and his wife died in a fire at their home on 24 February 2000. This created a by-election in his constituency ofRomsey in Hampshire, England.
Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk is a constituency of the British House of Commons, located in the south of Scotland within the Scottish Borders council area. It elects one Member of Parliament (MP) at least once every five years using the first-past-the-post system of voting. Since 2017 the MP has been John Lamont of the Conservative Party.
Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles was a county constituency of the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom (Westminster) from 1955 to 1983. It elected one Member of Parliament (MP) by the first past the post voting system.
The Scottish Conservative & Unionist Party is part of the UK Conservative Party active in Scotland. It holds 5 of the 57 Scottish seats in the House of Commons, 31 of the 129 seats in the Scottish Parliament, and comprises 206 of Scotland's 1,226 local councillors.
Roxburgh and Selkirk was a county constituency of the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom (Westminster) from 1918 to 1955. It elected one Member of Parliament (MP) by the first past the post voting system.
Parliamentary by-elections in the United Kingdom occur when a Member of Parliament (MP) vacates a House of Commons seat during the course of a parliament.
Charles Edward McArthur Donaldson was a Scottish Unionist Party politician.
The 1963 Kinross and Western Perthshire by-election of 7 November 1963 was a by-election to the UK House of Commons. It was unique among by-elections since 1918 in that one of the candidates was the sitting prime minister, Alec Douglas-Home; he was nominated for the constituency after disclaiming a peerage, as he felt he needed to be a member of the Commons rather than the House of Lords during his premiership. Douglas-Home won the election.
John Robert Lamont is a Scottish Conservative Party politician and solicitor who has served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk since 2017, and was Shadow Secretary of State for Scotland from July to November 2024. Lamont previously served as the Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) for Roxburgh and Berwickshire, later Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire after boundary changes, from 2007 to 2017. He served as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland between October 2022 to July 2024.
The 1982 Glasgow Hillhead by-election was held on 25 March 1982. The by-election was caused by the death of the Conservative Party Member of Parliament for Glasgow Hillhead Tam Galbraith on 2 January 1982.
Archibald James Florence "Archie" Macdonald was a Scottish Liberal and later Conservative politician, who also had a career in business.
The 1929 Midlothian and Peebles Northern by-election was a parliamentary by-election held in Scotland on 29 January 1929 to elect a new Member of Parliament (MP) for the UK House of Commons constituency of Midlothian and Peebles Northern.
A general election was held in the United Kingdom on 6 May 2010 and all 59 seats in Scotland were contested. The election result in Scotland was unusual in that there wasn't any change of seats from the 2005 general election, although the Labour Party took back two seats that it had lost in by-elections. This was the last general election at which the Labour Party won a majority of seats and plurality of votes in Scotland until 2024.
The 1967 Glasgow Pollok by-election of 9 March 1967 was held after the death of Labour MP (MP) Alex Garrow:
There was a 1927 by-election for the UK House of Commons constituency of Leith, which took place on Wednesday, 23 March 1927.
A general election was held in the United Kingdom on 7 May 2015 and all 59 seats in Scotland were contested under the first-past-the-post, single-member district electoral system. Unlike the 2010 general election, where no seats changed party, the Scottish National Party (SNP) won all but three seats in Scotland, gaining a total of 56 seats. The SNP received what remains the largest number of votes gained by a single political party in a United Kingdom general election in Scotland in British history, breaking the previous record set by the Labour Party in 1964 and taking the largest share of the Scottish vote in sixty years, at approximately 50 per cent.
Calum Robert Kerr is a Scottish National Party politician who was the Member of Parliament for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk from 2015 to 2017. During his tenure in Parliament, he was the SNP's Environment and Rural Affairs spokesperson in the House of Commons.
A general election was held in the United Kingdom on Thursday 8 June 2017; all 59 seats in Scotland were contested under the first-past-the-post electoral system.
