North Shropshire by-election: Ten shock polls that made their mark on history

As we move into the week of the North Shropshire by-election, many bookmakers believe the Liberal Democrats could overhaul a majority held by former Tory MP Owen Paterson of almost 23,000.

That would make it one of the biggest electoral shocks of all time, coming at a time when Boris Johnson's government is experiencing a major mid-term wobble.

Few things in politics are more electrifying than a by-election shock, the names of the constituencies resonating like battle honours.

They bring on dreams of a wind of change, a breaking of the mould of British politics...

That's what surprise victors tend to say, although occasions where by-elections really have shaped history are rare.

They do though give voters a chance to give their verdict on the performance of the politicians in power, and, come to that, those who aspire to power.

Of course with a by-election there must be an underlying reason for the poll, which may influence things – the death of the sitting MP, for instance, or an MP standing down. In North Shropshire, where the by-election countdown is in its final stages, Mr Paterson quit over the Owen Paterson Affair.

It will be a sensation if the Tories lose North Shropshire. Boris Johnson has a huge Commons majority so what is at stake is party morale – and perhaps after the Christmas party affair, even his own future – and not the balance of power which might be the case with a hung Parliament or minority government.

The good thing about by-elections is that in the end there are no losers. A defeated government candidate can shrug and say "It's only a by-election, and these things happen at by-elections." A defeated opposition challenger can point to the swing in their favour, and if there isn't one adopt the "It's only a by-election" line.

And the defeated minor candidates – a total of 14 candidates are contesting North Shropshire – get publicity for their cause, although it's not entirely free publicity because if they lose their deposit (they need at least five per cent of the vote to retain it) that's £500 gone.

Electoral history is littered with shock by-election results, some of which have brought, or returned, notable figures to the Commons, and a few really have changed things. Here is a selection...

1 Oswestry 1904

Might as well kick off with one that's topical, and the last time the Tories lost this, the forerunner to the North Shropshire seat. Liberal Allan Bright unexpectedly beat Unionist – that is, Tory – candidate Clive Bridgeman by 385 votes. It was the first time the Liberals had won the seat in over 70 years.

The campaign had seen a young Winston Churchill speak in Ellesmere and Oswestry for the Liberal cause. Churchill had crossed the floor of the House of Commons to desert the Conservatives and sit with the Liberals, resulting in him being called a "traitor."

The big issues of the day were free trade and tariff reform. The poll was in July and the turnout was a massive 90 per cent. Bright didn't hold the seat for long, as it returned to the Tories in the 1906 general election and has been a Conservative seat ever since.

2 Orpington 1962

In what is regarded as one of the biggest by-election upsets in British political history, Liberal Eric Lubbock snatched the seat from the Tories on the back of a near 22 per cent swing.

It was a humiliation for Harold Macmillan's Conservative government and is often cited as the start of a modern revival of the Liberal Party, which had been at its lowest ebb in the 1951 general election, with just 2.5 per cent of the national vote.

Lubbock was a local councillor and stepped in at short notice when the adopted Liberal candidate agreed to "retire" amid press interest in the question of whether he was a bigamist.

The Liberal resurgence proved stuttering. Lubbock held the seat until general election defeat in 1970, and afterwards became Lord Avebury.

3 Newport 1922

For those who think ultimately by-election results don't make a difference, here is one that did – it brought down the coalition government led by David Lloyd George and precipitated an immediate general election which the Tories won.

The by-election in South Wales was caused by the death of the Liberal MP, a supporter of the ruling Liberal-Conservative coalition. The Tory winner, Reginald Clarry, did not support the coalition. Prophetically he said on the eve of the poll: "What Newport thinks tomorrow, Great Britain will think on Wednesday."

After the result Tory MPs met at the Carlton Club and, crying "Newport! Newport!", rebelled against the leadership to vote 187-87 to leave the coalition and to fight a general election on their own Tory policies. The coalition government promptly fell. That MPs' meeting gave birth to the "1922 Committee" which is today synonymous with Tory backbench power.

4 Fulham East 1933

Did this result leave Britain less prepared in the fight against Hitlerism?

The October poll was triggered by the death of Tory MP Kenyon Vaughan-Morgan and the surprise winner was Labour's John Wilmot on a massive swing of 29.1 per cent.

But the wider significance was that the heavily defeated Tory candidate supported rearmament, while Wilmot was widely regarded as anti-war.

So this was a win for peace, and it became known as the "peace by-election" and an indicator of a public mood of pacifism at the time, making Fulham East notorious as an alleged factor in delaying the government's rearmament programme to meet the rising threat of Hitler.

5 Lincoln 1973

They were arguing about Europe back then too.

Dick Taverne was Lincoln's Labour MP who resigned, or was forced out of, his seat in 1972 after his pro-EU views – in those days it was known as the Common Market – upset his local party.

He became an independent social democrat. The by-election caused by his resignation was not held until March 1973. Standing as "Democratic Labour" he was victorious, with a majority over the Labour candidate of 8,776 votes.

It made him a torchbearer for the social democratic movement which was to follow, but he was considered a traitor by some of his former Labour colleagues. He clung on to the seat in the February 1974 general election before Labour regained it in October that year.

He was later to join the new Social Democratic Party, for which his electoral exploit had laid some of the groundwork.

6 Crosby 1981

The background. Mrs Thatcher's Tory government. A Labour Party heading left under Michael Foot. The emergence in 1981 of a new centre-ground political party, the SDP.

The SDP founders were the so-called Gang of Four, four breakaway senior Labour politicians unhappy at that party's direction. They were Bill Rodgers, Roy Jenkins, David Owen, and Shirley Williams.

Just seven months after the party's advent came a second opportunity (Jenkins had narrowly lost at a by-election in Warrington) to put themselves to the electoral test, this time at Crosby, following the death of the long-serving Tory MP who had had a 19,272 majority in the 1979 general election.

The Liberals did not field a candidate which helped Shirley Williams' cause that November night as she polled 28,118 votes – a majority of 5,289.

She made history then as the SDP's first MP in a tremendous boost for the new party, which seemed to be on its way.

However subsequent events were to show that despite the SDP being able to garner an impressive share of the votes Britain's first-past-the-post electoral system strongly worked against its prospects and, not for the first time, the centre-ground breakthrough eventually petered out.

7 Bradford West 2012

Respect to George Galloway. With typical understatement, he told the folk of Bradford they had seen "the most sensational result in British by-election history, bar none." It was the start, he added, of the "Bradford spring" – his phrase echoing the "Arab springs" which were talked up at the time.

Galloway, one of the most colourful and controversial figures in modern British politics, was kicked out of Labour in 2003 for "bringing the party into disrepute" but got satisfying revenge by taking Bradford West by 10,140 votes, overturning Labour's 5,763 majority from the 2010 general election.

He was standing for the Respect Party, which had been born in 2004 out of opposition to the Iraq war. Bradford West was a Respect flash in the pan, as Labour retook the seat in the 2015 general election.

7 Dudley 1968

Remarkably this was one of three Tory by-election gains from Harold Wilson's government on the same night, with Donald Williams taking George Wigg's supposedly safe Labour seat, which had become vacant with Wigg's elevation to the House of Lords.

The swing was 21 per cent and taken with Labour's same-day losses at Acton and Meriden underlined popular discontent with government policy of the day, following devaluation and a tough Budget. Two further by-elections that night saw the Tories hold the Warwick and Leamington seats with near-record swings.

John Gilbert was the defeated Labour candidate at Dudley. The Tory majority was 11,656, but he won the seat back in the 1970 general election and went on to serve as a Dudley MP for many years before becoming a life peer, Baron Gilbert, in 1997.

8 Hartlepool 2021

We're only going back to May, but this was a staggering Tory victory which underlines the challenge Sir Keir Starmer faces as he strives to win back ground for Labour.

Formed in 1974, the constituency had always returned a Labour MP. In May Jill Mortimer defeated Labour rival Paul Williams by nearly 7,000 votes to become the first ever Tory MP for the seat. She had a 52 per cent share of votes cast and the swing from Labour to the Conservatives was 16 per cent.

And Labour couldn't even blame this one on Jeremy Corbyn. The party's vote fell nine points to 29 per cent.

9 Hamilton 1967

Described by Professor Sir Tom Devine as the "the most sensational by-election result in Scotland since 1945," Winnie Ewing's stunning victory for the SNP lit the blue touchpaper under the campaign for Scottish independence.

The nationalists had been written off as a spent force, so Ewing's win in a seat in which the SNP had not even fielded a candidate in the previous general election was a political earthquake and a special shock to Labour, which was on the wrong end of a 38 per cent swing.

Ted Heath, leader of the Tories who were then in opposition, responded with a commitment to advancing Scottish devolution, but the SNP did not do well in the 1970 general election, Ewing lost her Hamilton seat, and the devolution plans were shelved by Heath's incoming Tory administration.

Nevertheless Winnie Ewing's victory is seen as a watershed moment in Scottish political history.

10 Pick your own

By-election shockers are like hit records, everyone has their favourites, and everyone's favourite will probably, and naturally, be from the times they themselves remember.

So let's quickly visit some other candidates which may come to mind. The ousting of Zac Goldsmith, for example, who said goodbye to a 23,015 majority. The arrival of the SDP's Rosie Barnes in Greenwich in 1987. And surely you haven't already forgotten what happened in Chesham and Amersham, which was only in June?

For defeated candidates, there is the consolation of knowing that when the tide is against you, there is not much you can do. The first time Winston Churchill ran for Parliament was in a by-election at Oldham. He lost.