1988 Leeds City Council election

The 1988 Leeds City Council elections were held on Thursday, 5 May 1988, with one third of the council and a vacancy in Headingley to be elected.

Following national patterns, the newly merged Social and Liberal Democrats, seen a substantial fall in vote to their lowest share in a decade, with former candidates standing against them as SDP in opposition to the merger. The SLD collapse was largely uniform, mostly transferring to Labour, except in northern wards – where support tended to disperse between the main parties and any minor candidate standing (usually Green or the aforementioned breakaway SDP) – or wards in which Independents stood. Importantly for the SLD, their support in the three wards they were defending notably withstood that collapse, although hopes of retaking Armley after their councillor turned Independent were dashed by large swings away to allow a Labour gain there (with Michael Meadowcroft later alleging racist campaigning by Labour). Elsewhere, the incumbent Independent in Pudsey South was comfortably re-elected, tripling his majority there. As the chief recipient of lost SLD support, Labour won their highest share of vote since the council's inception in 1973, and their greatest vote and majority on the council since 1980's re-warding.^[1]

[1]

	Seats	Gains	Losses	Net gain/loss	Seats %	Votes %	Votes	+/−
Labour	21	1	0	+1	61.8	46.2	94,347	+8.1
Conservative	9	0	0	0	26.5	33.0	67,550	-0.1
SLD	3	0	0	0	8.8	17.1	35,033	-11.2
Independent	1	0	1	-1	2.9	1.8	3,600	+1.7
SDP	0	0	0	0	0.0	0.9	1,894	+0.9
Green	0	0	0	0	0.0	0.8	1,549	+0.5
Communist	0	0	0	0	0.0	0.2	414	+0.1

Party		Previous council	New council
	Labour	58	59
	Conservative	25	25
	SLD	14	14
	Independent	2	1
Total		99	99
Working majority		17	19

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Conservative	R. Hughes-Rowlands	3,096	43.8	+6.9
	Labour	M. Dunn	2,211	31.2	+11.8
	SLD	S. Denby	1,769	25.0	−18.7
Majority			885	12.5	+5.7
Turnout			7,076
	Conservative hold		Swing	-2.4

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Labour	James McKenna	3,312	55.0	+18.8
	SLD	Mohammed Riasat	1,688	28.0	−17.7
	Conservative	P. Netzel	1,026	17.0	−1.0
Majority			1,624	26.9	+17.3
Turnout			6,026
	Labour gain from Independent		Swing	+18.2

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Labour	Keith Sturgess	4,381	58.8	+7.0
	Conservative	B. Caro	2,616	35.1	+1.8
	SLD	R. Hutchinson	448	6.0	−8.8
Majority			1,765	23.7	+5.2
Turnout			7,445
	Labour hold		Swing	+2.6

1988 Leeds City Council election

Election result

Ward results

By-elections between 1988 and 1990

References

Wikiwand - on

Beeston^[1]
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Labour	A. Beevers	2,949	67.9	+12.8
	Conservative	H. Woodhead	1,083	24.9	−2.7
	SLD	K. Lee	270	6.2	−11.1
	Communist	W. Innes	44	1.0	+1.0
Majority			1,866	42.9	+15.5
Turnout			4,346
	Labour hold		Swing	+7.7

Bramley^[1]
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Labour	C. Cliff	3,539	68.8	+13.2
	Conservative	H. Hinchcliffe	861	16.7	−1.8
	SLD	M. Tones	747	14.5	−11.4
Majority			2,678	52.0	+22.3
Turnout			5,147
	Labour hold		Swing	+7.5

Burmantofts^[1]
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	SLD	N. Mackie	3,044	49.5	+0.9
	Labour	J. Lister	2,728	44.4	+0.1
	Conservative	J. Galbraith	378	6.1	−1.1
Majority			316	5.1	+0.8
Turnout			6,150
	SLD hold		Swing	+0.4

Chapel Allerton^[1]
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Labour	J. Frankland	3,795	65.4	+7.0
	Conservative	I. Baxter	1,388	23.9	−1.7
	SLD	J. Levy	301	5.2	−10.9
	Green	S. Needham	165	2.8	+2.8
	SDP	S. Cohen	158	2.7	+2.7
Majority			2,407	41.4	+8.6
Turnout			5,807
	Labour hold		Swing	+4.3