John Heddle Conservative Sylvia Heal Labour The Mid Staffordshire constituency of the United Kingdom Parliament held a by-election on 22 March 1990.
The result was the election of Labour candidate Sylvia Heal to succeed the previous Conservative Member of Parliament John Heddle, who had precipitated the by-election by committing suicide.
[7] The Green Party candidate Robert Saunders was 29 years old and had lost his job as a buyer in an engineering firm at the start of the campaign.
[7] On 6 March the newly formed NHS Supporters Party announced that its candidate would be Dr Christopher Abell, a 34-year-old General practitioner from East Dereham in Norfolk;[8] the party had hoped to find a local candidate and blamed the political connections of the chairman of the Staffordshire Family Practitioner Committee, who was also chairman of Mid Staffordshire Conservative Association.
[10] Lindi St Clair, nicknamed "Miss Whiplash" and famous for running a brothel in London where she claimed there were many MP clients, stood as the "National Independent Correct Edification - NICE" candidate.
[3] However Margaret Thatcher decided, in conjunction with Conservative Party chairman Kenneth Baker and Chief Whip Tim Renton to "take it on the chin" and hold the by-election two days after the budget.
Labour also attempted to focus on the Conservative proposals for the National Health Service, challenging Prior to say whether he supported them and the rise in prescription charges.
Liberal Democrat leader Paddy Ashdown highlighted the fact that their candidate, alone among the main parties, was local and had not been "chosen in London and parachuted in".
[19] The Conservatives denounced 'rent-a-mob Militants' but pointed to the Labour MPs who had declared that they would refuse to pay the poll tax, demanding that Kinnock remove the party whip.
[20] Labour noted that Staffordshire police's budget for vehicle replacement had been cut by £1m which meant that the force could not update its motorway patrol cars although they had done 250,000 miles and were on their second engines.
[20] Heseltine arrived on 14 March, drawing a far greater number of Conservative activists than had campaigned with Cecil Parkinson three nights previously.
[24] The other parties were angered by this approach, with Liberal Democrat leader Paddy Ashdown denouncing the way Sylvia Heal was "packaged and handled .. as if she was some Walworth Road barbie woman", and that her leaflets said nothing about her ideas or Labour policies.
The Daily Mail sent a reporter armed with a long list of questions to try to get answers from Heal, but her minder Peter Snape determined to stop him.
[29] Labour leader Neil Kinnock visited the campaign in Lichfield on 16 March, forecasting victory which he said would be a notice to quit for Thatcher.
[34] The party claimed its canvass had shown more than 50% support, and Roy Hattersley appealed for a resounding Labour victory to force changes in the poll tax.
Labour were so confident of winning that a champagne celebration was held for the benefit of news photographers who would have deadlines long before the result was declared.