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Constituency of Cynon Valley | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Turnout | 65.7% ( 7.7%) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The 1984 Cynon Valley by-election was a parliamentary by-election held on 3 May 1984 for the British House of Commons constituency of Cynon Valley.
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Constituency of Cynon Valley | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Turnout | 65.7% ( 7.7%) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The 1984 Cynon Valley by-election was a parliamentary by-election held on 3 May 1984 for the British House of Commons constituency of Cynon Valley.
The seat had become vacant on 10 February 1984. The constituency's Labour Member of Parliament (MP), Ioan Lyonel Evans (10 July 1927 – 10 February 1984), had died at the age of 56.
Evans was a Labour Co-operative politician. He was educated at Llanelli Grammar School and Swansea University College. He served on the West Bromwich education committee and acted as Labour Party agent for the general elections in 1955 and 1959 in Birmingham Small Heath. He was secretary of Birmingham and District Co-operative Party.
Evans was elected as Labour Co-operative MP for Birmingham Yardley at the 1964 general election, but lost the seat in 1970. He was Comptroller of the Household from 1968 to 1970.
At the February 1974 general election he was returned for the Welsh seat of Aberdare which was abolished in 1983, with Evans taking the new seat of Cynon Valley.
Seven candidates were nominated.
1. Mrs Ann Clwyd Roberts (usually known as Ann Clwyd), born 21 March 1937, a broadcaster and journalist was selected to run for Labour.
She had been a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for Mid and West Wales 1979–1984 and had contested the Westminster seat of Denbigh in 1970. After winning the by-election, she held the seat until her retirement in 2019.
2. Felix Franc Elfed Aubel, a postgraduate research student born in 1960 was the candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and represented the SDP-Liberal Alliance. He had contested the same seat in the 1983 general election.
3. Clayton Francis Jones was nominated by Plaid Cymru. He was a 31-year-old coach operator and was a member of Taff-Ely Borough Council and Mid-Glamorgan County Council.
4. James Norwich Arbuthnot, a barrister born in 1952, represented the Conservative Party. He had been a Councillor in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea since 1978. Arbuthnot contested this constituency in 1983. He became a Conservative MP in 1987 and sat until 2015, when he joined The House of Lords.
5. Mrs Mary Winter represented the Communist Party. She was a senior social services officer with Mid-Glamorgan County Council and was aged 36 at the time of the by-election.
6. Noel Edmundbury Rencontre was an Independent candidate, who sought election under the ballot paper label Womble Independent.
7. Paul Nicholls-Jones was an Independent candidate.
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
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| Labour | Ann Clwyd | 19,389 | 58.8 | +2.8 | |
| SDP | Felix Aubel | 6,554 | 19.9 | −0.7 | |
| Plaid Cymru | Clayton Jones | 3,619 | 11.0 | +1.8 | |
| Conservative | James Arbuthnot | 2,441 | 7.4 | −6.8 | |
| Communist | Mary Winter | 642 | 1.9 | N/A | |
| Independent | Noel Rencontre | 215 | 0.6 | N/A | |
| Independent | Paul Nicholls-Jones | 122 | 0.4 | N/A | |
| Majority | 12,835 | 38.9 | +3.5 | ||
| Turnout | 32,982 | 65.7 | −7.7 | ||
| Registered electors | 50,237 | ||||
| Labour hold | Swing | ||||
« 1900–1949 « By-elections in Wales to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom 1950–present | |
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James Norwich Arbuthnot, Baron Arbuthnot of Edrom,, is a British Conservative Party politician. He was Member of Parliament (MP) for Wanstead and Woodford from 1987 to 1997, and then MP for North East Hampshire from 1997 to 2015.
Ann Clwyd Roberts was a Welsh Labour politician who served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Cynon Valley for 35 years, from 1984 until 2019. Although she had intended to stand down in 2015, she was re-elected in that year's general election and in 2017 before standing down in 2019. Clwyd is the longest-serving female MP for a Welsh constituency.
Cynon Valley was a constituency in Wales, of the House of Commons of the UK Parliament from 1983 to 2024. Its last MP from 2019 to 2024 was Beth Winter of the Labour Party.
Ogmore was a constituency created in 1918, represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament.
Rhondda was a constituency in Wales in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament. It was represented since its 1974 recreation by the Labour Party.
Aberdare was a constituency in the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It was created for the 1918 general election and returned one Member of Parliament (MP) by the first past the post system until it was abolished for the 1983 general election. The Labour Party gained the seat in 1922 and held it comfortably until its abolition.
Ioan Lyonel Evans was a British politician. He served as a Labour and Co-operative Member of Parliament (MP) from 1964 to 1970 and from 1974 until his death.
John Edward Tomlinson, Baron Tomlinson was a British Labour Co-operative politician. He served as a life peer in the House of Lords from 1998 until his death, and had previously been a Member of Parliament from 1974 to 1979, and a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from 1984 to 1999.
Robert Thomas Ellis was a Welsh politician who was elected several times as a Labour Party Member of Parliament, and later joined the Social Democratic Party (SDP).
Jesse Dickson Mabon, sometimes known as Dick Mabon, was a Scottish politician, physician and business executive. He was the founder of The Manifesto Group of Labour MPs, an alliance of moderate MPs who fought the perceived leftward drift of the Labour Party in the 1970s. He was a Labour Co-operative MP until October 1981, when he defected to the SDP. He lost his seat in 1983, and rejoined the Labour Party in 1991.
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