Todmorden News

Tories Win Back Calder Valley After 13 Years

Voters in the Calder Valley constituency have elected Conservative candidate Craig Whittaker as member of parliament with 39.4% of the votes cast and a majority of 6,431, restoring the seat to the Tories after 13 years in Labour Party hands.

The result appears to closely mirror the national swing toward the Conservative Party, which looks increasingly likely to result in a hung parliament for the first time in decades. Who will actually be running the UK government remains largely undecided at present.

In second place locally was Steph Booth for the Labour Party with 27.0%, and Hilary Myers of the Liberal Democrats maintained the same third place position from 2005 with 25.2%. One surprise local result among the candidates from other minority parties was a decline of nearly half of the votes won in 2005 by the Green Party. Their candidate, Kate Sweeny, had been tipped by some to be extremely successful in the 2010 election.

Here are the Calder Valley election results in full: