Conservatives in Britain Lose Race; Poll Tax Is Cited

LONDON —  The ruling Conservative Party lost a parliamentary by-election today in a sharp rebuke of a new poll tax.

Liberal Democrat Mike Carr won the Ribble Valley House of Commons seat with 22,377 votes, easily beating Conservative Nigel Evans, who had 17,776 votes. Labor’s Josie Farrington received 4,356 votes.

“When the poll tax is finally put to rest in the grave, its epitaph will read ‘here lies the poll tax, killed in Ribble Valley,’ ” said Carr, a 44-year-old schoolteacher.

It was a stunning defeat for the Conservatives, who won the northwest England seat in 1987 with a nearly 20,000-vote majority. The swing in the vote from the Conservatives to Liberal Democrats was 25%.

The loss came despite Prime Minister John Major’s popularity after the successful conclusion of the Persian Gulf War. After 100 days in office, he is the most popular prime minister in 36 years, with a 59% approval rating.

But voters turned their backs on the party over the poll tax, a levy imposed in England last year to fund local services.

The tax heralded by former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher as a way to make local councils accountable to voters is reviled by many as being unfair. It forces the richest and the poorest to pay the same levy.