Preston 2000 By-Election

The Conservative candidate polled 25 per cent, and the Liberal Democrat achieved 17 per cent. Click here for full story and table of results.

Preston2000.com is a resource about the Preston by-election, created by Online Journalism students on the Masters course at the University of Central Lancashire. It is aimed at researchers and reporters covering the by-election and those who have a general interest in the subject. The by-election, which took place on 23rd November, was called following the death of sitting MP Audrey Wise. The website covers the candidates, the constituency, the town and local issues.

NEW Visit our Experts section for contact details for local experts on all the topics covered in the site. The Education section has been expanded.

Key Takeaways

• The Preston by-election of 23 November 2000 was triggered by the death of the sitting Labour MP, Audrey Wise, and was won by Labour’s Mark Hendrick with a majority of 21 per cent on 46 per cent of the vote.
• Preston2000.com was produced by Online Journalism students on the Masters course at the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) as a live, real-world reporting resource rather than a classroom exercise.
• The site is organised around distinct editorial beats — candidates, constituency, doorstep issues, town profile and experts — each of which maps onto a recognisable reporting task.
• For working reporters, the value of a resource like this lies in its structured background material: electoral history, boundary changes, local authority composition and named expert contacts.
• By-elections are disproportionately useful for training because they compress a full campaign cycle into a few weeks, exposing students to candidate scrutiny, doorstep reporting and deadline pressure at once.

About the Site

Preston2000.com is a resource about the Preston by-election, created by Online Journalism students on the Masters course at the University of Central Lancashire. It is aimed at researchers and reporters covering the by-election and those who have a general interest in the subject. The by-election, which took place on 23rd November, was called following the death of sitting MP Audrey Wise. The website covers the candidates, the constituency, the town and local issues.

The Feedback section offers an Online Discussion Forum where visitors to the site can debate issues raised by the election campaign.

What distinguishes a project like this from a conventional student assignment is that it was built to be used. The intended audience was not an examiner but a working journalist on deadline, a press officer preparing a briefing, or a researcher trying to establish the electoral history of a seat in a hurry. That framing shapes every editorial decision: information has to be verifiable, attributable and organised so that a stranger can find it without guidance.

For anyone studying journalism or media training today, the structure of the site is worth reading as a template. It demonstrates a core principle of political and civic reporting — that a single news event sits on top of a deep layer of context, and that the context is what separates a report from a press release.

The Candidates and the Campaign

In the Candidates section the nine candidates and key campaign issues are introduced. Nine candidates on one ballot paper is a useful reminder of how crowded UK parliamentary by-elections can become: alongside the three main parties, contests of this kind routinely attract independents, minor-party candidates and single-issue campaigners, each of whom is entitled to the same basic treatment in a balanced report.

For reporters covering a multi-candidate field, a few practical rules of thumb apply:

• Cover the field, weight the coverage. Every candidate should be identified accurately, but coverage should reflect genuine electoral relevance. A candidate polling in single figures still gets named; they do not automatically get a profile of equal length.
• Verify nominations against the official notice. The returning officer’s published statement of persons nominated is the authoritative list of names, descriptions and addresses. Never rely on a party press release alone.
• Watch the descriptions. The wording a candidate is permitted to use on the ballot paper is regulated, and disputes over descriptions are a recurring source of stories in their own right.
• Track the issues, not just the people. The site’s decision to pair candidates with “key campaign issues” reflects the reality that voters on the doorstep rarely talk in party labels — they talk about services, safety and money.

The Constituency and Its Electoral History

In the Constituency section previous results, maps and boundary changes show the electoral history of the Preston constituency and this is enhanced by information on the political make-up of the local authorities.

This is the part of the resource with the longest shelf life. Constituency profiles are the backbone of political journalism, and getting them right requires understanding three separate things that are often confused with one another:

1. The parliamentary constituency — the seat that returns an MP, defined by the Boundary Commission for England and subject to periodic review.
2. The local authority area — the council or councils that deliver services, with their own wards and election cycles.
3. The informal “town” or community — the area people actually identify with, which rarely matches either of the above exactly.

Preston illustrates why the distinction matters. The parliamentary seat, the borough council and the wider travel-to-work area around the town do not share the same boundaries, and the political complexion of each can differ. A reporter who conflates them will produce a profile that is subtly wrong in ways that are hard to spot and easy to repeat.

Boundary changes compound the problem. When a seat’s boundaries are redrawn, historic majorities become misleading, and comparing a new result with an old one requires care. The honest approach is to state the boundary in force at each election and note when it changed, rather than presenting a single continuous series as if the electorate had stayed constant.

Doorstep Issues: Reporting the Local Perspective

In the Doorstep Issues section crime, education, health, environment and transport are examined from a local perspective. A leading Preston police officer urges the town’s next MP to back community policing, Preston is seen in the light of its status as one of the top ten deprived boroughs in the country and we consider how recent policy on education has affected schools in the area.

These five beats — crime, education, health, environment and transport — are close to a universal template for local political coverage, because they are the services residents interact with most directly. Each has a distinctive reporting challenge:

• Crime and policing. Crime statistics are notoriously sensitive to how offences are recorded and how boundaries are drawn. A rise in recorded crime in one area may reflect a change in recording practice as much as a change in offending. Always ask which measure is being used and over what period.
• Education. School performance data is published, but it is heavily context-dependent. Free school meal eligibility, prior attainment and pupil mobility all shape outcomes, and comparing schools without accounting for them produces misleading conclusions.
• Health. Health stories sit at the intersection of national policy and local service delivery. The useful question is usually not “is the service good or bad” but “what has changed, for whom, and according to what evidence”.
• Environment. Local environmental stories — planning, air quality, waste, green space — tend to be long-running and document-heavy, which makes them fertile ground for reporters willing to read the paperwork.
• Transport. Transport is where local and regional governance overlap most visibly, and where responsibility is most easily misattributed. Establish who actually controls the service or the road before assigning blame.

The reference to Preston’s standing among the most deprived boroughs in the country is the kind of contextual fact that transforms a doorstep quote into a story. Deprivation indices are published officially and updated periodically; used carefully, they allow a reporter to say something meaningful about the conditions behind the headlines without overclaiming.

The Town Profile and Local Economy

In the Town Profile section Preston’s socio-economic and cultural profile is considered and a history of Preston, with significant dates, reflects on its part in the industrial revolution. Leading local employers are described.

A town profile is essentially an economic and social briefing. Done well, it answers the questions a visiting reporter would otherwise have to ask: What does this place do for a living? Who employs people? What is the demographic shape of the population? What is the town’s self-image, and how does it differ from the outside perception?

Preston’s identity as a textile town shaped by the industrial revolution is not merely historical colour. It explains the built environment, the pattern of employment, the transport links and, in many cases, the political culture. Local employers — historically the mills, later the public sector, higher education, aerospace and manufacturing — determine how a downturn or an upturn is felt on the doorstep.

For students and trainees, the discipline of writing a town profile is one of the most transferable skills in the trade. The same method works for a council ward, a health trust area, a police division or a parliamentary seat anywhere in the UK.

The Experts Section and Why Contacts Matter

NEW Visit our Experts section for contact details for local experts on all the topics covered in the site.

An experts directory is one of the most practical things a journalism resource can offer, and one of the most frequently neglected. The reasoning is straightforward: on deadline, the difference between a story and a hole in the paper is often whether the reporter can reach someone credible within the hour.

A useful experts list is more than a set of names. It should record:

• What the person is actually expert in, stated narrowly enough to be useful.
• Their institutional affiliation, so the reader can judge independence and any conflict of interest.
• How to reach them, including out-of-hours routes where available.
• Whether they are willing to speak on the record, and in what capacity.

The same logic underpins the media training and press office side of the relationship. A press officer who maintains an accurate, current list of spokespeople and subject experts is doing the journalist’s job half for them — and is far more likely to see their organisation quoted accurately as a result.

The Feedback Forum and Audience Engagement

The Feedback section offers an Online Discussion Forum where visitors to the site can debate issues raised by the election campaign.

Reader forums were an early expression of what is now standard practice across news organisations: inviting the audience into the story. They also carry familiar risks, and the same editorial judgements apply today as they did then.

• Moderation is an editorial responsibility. A forum attached to a news brand inherits that brand’s credibility, and unmoderated content can undermine it quickly.
• Distinguish debate from sourcing. A lively forum is not a substitute for verification. Comments can suggest leads; they cannot confirm facts.
• Be transparent about the rules. Participants should know what will be removed and why.

Frequently Asked Questions

What was the Preston by-election of 2000 and why was it held?

The Preston by-election took place on 23 November 2000 and was called following the death of the sitting Labour MP, Audrey Wise. By-elections in the UK are triggered when a seat becomes vacant between general elections, most commonly through the death or resignation of the sitting MP. They attract intense national attention because they offer an early, if imperfect, signal about the political mood.

Who won the Preston by-election?

Labour’s Mark Hendrick held the seat for Labour, being elected at 12.30am on Friday 24 November with a majority of 21 per cent. He polled 46 per cent of the vote, against 25 per cent for the Conservative candidate and 17 per cent for the Liberal Democrat. Nine candidates contested the seat in total.

What is Preston2000.com?

Preston2000.com is a resource about the Preston by-election created by Online Journalism students on the Masters course at the University of Central Lancashire. It was aimed at researchers and reporters covering the by-election as well as anyone with a general interest in the subject. It covers the candidates, the constituency, the town and local issues, and includes an experts directory and a reader discussion forum.

Why are by-elections useful for journalism training?

By-elections compress an entire campaign cycle — candidate scrutiny, doorstep reporting, results night — into a few weeks, which makes them unusually efficient training ground. Students get real deadlines, real sources and real consequences for error. Building a public-facing resource rather than a private assignment adds the discipline of writing for an audience that has no obligation to be forgiving.

How should a reporter approach a constituency profile?

Start by separating the parliamentary constituency, the local authority area and the informal community, because their boundaries rarely coincide. Establish the boundary in force at each past election before comparing results, and check the political composition of the relevant councils. Then layer in socio-economic context using official published data rather than impression.

What makes a good experts directory for journalists?

A good directory records what each person is narrowly expert in, their institutional affiliation, how to reach them including out-of-hours, and whether they will speak on the record. Vague entries (“local academic”) are of little use on deadline. Accuracy and currency matter more than length, and the list should be reviewed regularly as people move roles.

Further reading

• Audrey Wise — Wikipedia
• Mark Hendrick — Wikipedia