Thatcher Conservatives Take Election Beating

The ruling Conservatives finished a humiliating third in a special parliamentary election that was widely seen as a test of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s popularity, results showed today.

“It is the end of the prime minister’s mandate, the end of Thatcherism,” declared the winner, Liberal Richard Livesy, to cheers from supporters gathered in the market town of Brecon.

He said Conservative cuts in public services were the main reason for the government’s defeat.

The centrist Social Democratic-Liberal Party alliance wrested this key Welsh district from the Conservatives, who ended well behind the strong-running Labor Party in the election, held Thursday.

Livesy, the alliance candidate, overturned a 8,784 Conservative majority to win with 13,753 votes, squeaking past Laborite Richard Willey by 559 votes.

Conservative Christopher Butler drew only 10,631 votes.

The Tories’ share of the ballots slumped from 48% in the June, 1983, general elections to 28% in the biggest special election swing against the government in four years.

Thatcher now is midway through her second five-year term.

The loss, which occurred among the Conservatives’ safest seats in traditionally socialist Wales, left Thatcher still holding a 140-seat majority in the 650-seat House of Commons.