The

South Ayrshire South Ayrshire ( sco, Sooth Ayrshire; gd, Siorrachd Àir a Deas, ) is one of thirty-two council areas of Scotland, covering the southern part of Ayrshire. It borders onto Dumfries and Galloway, East Ayrshire and North Ayrshire. On 30 June 2 ...

by-election of 19 March 1970 was held after the death of

Labour Labour or labor may refer to: * Childbirth, the delivery of a baby * Labour (human activity), or work ** Manual labour, physical work ** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer ** Organized labour and the labour ...

Member of Parliament (MP) Emrys Hughes on 18 October 1969. The seat was retained by the Labour Party. In what was a fairly common occurrence at the time the Scottish Liberal Party did not run a candidate for the by-election. However, in this case the move had been in part instigated by former party leader Jo Grimond who had privately mooted the idea of an electoral pact with the

Scottish National Party The Scottish National Party (SNP; sco, Scots National Pairty, gd, Pàrtaidh Nàiseanta na h-Alba ) is a Scottish nationalist and social democratic political party in Scotland. The SNP supports and campaigns for Scottish independence from ...

. Whilst Grimond's idea was rejected by the Scottish Liberal Party as they opposed

Scottish independence Scottish independence ( gd, Neo-eisimeileachd na h-Alba; sco, Scots unthirldom) is the idea of Scotland as a sovereign state, independent from the United Kingdom, and refers to the political movement that is campaigning to bring it about. S ...

they did nonetheless agree to give the SNP a free run in this instance.Michael McManus, ''Jo Grimond: Towards the Sound of Gunfire'', Edinburgh, 2001, p. 308 The SNP had not contested the seat in the past, but during the campaign predicted that the result would be a "photo-finish" between their candidate and the Labour candidate. Both the Conservatives and Labour made complaints to the police about illegal posting of SNP posters during the campaign, while on polling day an incident involving an SNP and a Labour official led to the former making a police complaint. Marion McCutcheon who turned 18 the day before the election was at the time the youngest person to have voted at a parliamentary election in Scotland.

Result

They day after the election, but before the votes were counted, ''The Glasgow Herald'' reported that the Labour Party candidate seemed "certain to win the seat". After the result was known, the same newspaper's political correspondent, suggested that "so Handsome a victory" for Labour meant

Harold Wilson James Harold Wilson, Baron Wilson of Rievaulx, (11 March 1916 – 24 May 1995) was a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from October 1964 to June 1970, and again from March 1974 to April 1976. He ...

could keep considering the option of calling a general election in the summer.

References

1970 in Scotland 1970s elections in Scotland Politics of South Ayrshire 1970 elections in the United Kingdom By-elections to the Parliament of the United Kingdom in Scottish constituencies 20th century in South Ayrshire {{Scotland-UK-Parl-by-election-stub