Hereford had been a potential Liberal target for many years before their eventual breakthrough in 1997. They finished less than 3,500 votes behind the Conservatives in February 1974 and a mere 1,100 adrift in October of the same year. Decades earlier, the Liberals had managed to win the seat in their landslide victory of 1906 and gained it again in 1929, the last time they won a significant number of parliamentary seats before 1997. For 20 years from 1974, Colin Shepherd held on to the seat for the Conservatives with a series of low majorities, which peaked at just under 5,000 in 1979. It seemed as though the Liberals/Alliance/Liberal Democrats would never regain Hereford, continually falling just short of victory.

Finally in 1997, Shepherd could avoid defeat no longer when his vote dropped by 12%, and former Hereford councillor Paul Keetch won the seat by 6,600 votes, ironically a larger majority than Shepherd ever achieved himself. Since then however the Lib Dems have been completely massacred in the 1999 Euro election, receiving less than 15% of the vote in Hereford and finishing behind Labour in third place. Clearly they will need to continue squeezing the Labour vote to hold on in the forthcoming general election, though this is one constituency where any perceived national relationship between the Liberal Democrats and Labour could have voters returning in droves to the new Conservatives candidate, Virginia Taylor.

Parliamentary Statistics pre-Election 2001

Liberal Democrat majority 6,648 (12.6%)  Conservative target 104
MP Paul Keetch
1997 (Turnout 75.2%)
Liberal Democrat	25,198	47.9%
Conservative	18,550	35.3%
Labour	6,596	12.6%
Referendum	2,209	4.2%

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For Hereford 2001 Election result - click here.