1990 Conservative leadership election

[Guy Barry]

I suspect that Wikipedia is wrong here, but can anyone confirm?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservative_Party_%28UK%29_leadership_election,_1990

"To win the contest in the first round, as Thatcher had done one year
before, a candidate needed to do better than winning the support of an
absolute majority of Conservative members of the House of Commons. He
or she needed also to have a margin of victory over the runner-up of
15 per cent of the total electorate. This latter rule had been changed
in the 1975 review, having previously required a majority equal to 15
per cent of those voting. In the event, in the 1990 contest, this was
to prove a crucial distinction, as Margaret Thatcher narrowly missed
the new target but would have met the old one."

After giving the result - Thatcher 204, Heseltine 152, 16 abstentions
- it continues:

"Although receiving the support of a clear majority of MPs, Thatcher
narrowly failed to achieve a lead over Heseltine that comprised at
least 15% of the number of all Conservative MPs, abstentions and
spoilt ballots included. In this case, Thatcher needed a margin of 56
votes to win outright; she came up four votes short. (Had the contest
been run on the pre 1975 rules, she would have won outright at this
stage.) The contest therefore had to move into a second ballot."

But 15% of 356 is 53.4, so by my calculations she'd still have lost
under the old rules. Is this right?

--
Guy Barry

[David North]

"Guy Barry" <guy....@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote in message
news:16dfc672-baac-4db3...@b10g2000vbu.googlegroups.com...

Yes, someone has obviously miscalculated.
--
David North

[Tim Roll-Pickering]

David North wrote:

>> But 15% of 356 is 53.4, so by my calculations she'd still have lost
>> under the old rules. Is this right?

> Yes, someone has obviously miscalculated.

I've got a feeling that one's been passed down for a long time and my
sources when I wrote that (in the old days Wikipedia wasn't so keen on
footnoting everything) repeated the error and no-one spotted it until now.
The definition of 15% was one of two changes brought by the 1974/5 review;
the other was certainly a critical factor because it introduced an annual
election at all times (previously the leadership was held at the incumbent's
pleasure though in late 1974 Heath agreed to put himself up for re-election
no matter what rules were changed; Labour's rule then only had annual
elections in opposition) and allowed for repeated challenges within the same
Parliament.

--
My blog: http://adf.ly/4hi4c

[Guy Barry]

On Apr 16, 2:43 am, "Tim Roll-Pickering" <T.C.Roll-

Picker...@qmul.ac.uk> wrote:
> David North wrote:
> >> But 15% of 356 is 53.4, so by my calculations she'd still have lost
> >> under the old rules.  Is this right?
> > Yes, someone has obviously miscalculated.
>
> I've got a feeling that one's been passed down for a long time and my
> sources when I wrote that (in the old days Wikipedia wasn't so keen on
> footnoting everything) repeated the error and no-one spotted it until now.

Thanks for owning up to that one! I've removed the two inaccurate
sentences.

--
Guy Barry