Mid Staffordshire by-election, 1990

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 byelection by committing suicide.

John Heddle was first elected to Parliament in the 1979 general election when he had gained the Lichfield and Tamworth constituency from Labour. After boundary changes, he represented Mid Staffordshire from 1983. He was a popular extrovert at Westminster but in the late 1980s he found himself with severe financial problems due to the property price crash, and on 19 December 1989 he was found dead in his Jaguar car in an isolated spot near Chartham, Kent. At the previous general election in 1987 the result had been:

Reports in the press indicated that the local Conservative Association was reported to be in 'some disarray' at the start of the byelection campaign; an experienced agent was sent up from London to run the campaign. The party received 250 applications to stand as candidate, among whom were said to be Lady Olga Maitland; the Conservatives denied rumours that Jeffrey Archer was hoping to stand. On 2 February the Conservatives selected Charles Prior, a 43-year-old chartered accountant from Newbury who was a former member of Berkshire county council and a member of the Bow Group. Prior, managing director of a publishing and training company, was the nephew of former Northern Ireland Secretary James Prior, and beat former MP Richard Ottaway in the final selection.

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