Editing Torquay (section)

==Politics==
From 1974, when it was created, until 1997 [[Torbay (UK Parliament constituency)|Torbay constituency]] was a safe [[Conservative Party (UK)|Conservative]] seat, but [[Liberal Democrats (UK)|Liberal Democrat]] [[Adrian Sanders]] overturned spy writer [[Rupert Allason]]'s majority by just 12 votes in 1997, widened to 6,708 in 2001.

During the [[2005 United Kingdom general election|2005 general election]], the Conservative leader, [[Michael Howard]], visited the town. However, Sanders retained the seat with 40.8% of the votes (19,317, down from 23,012 in 2001). A swing of 9.7% away from the Liberal Democrats was split between the Conservatives (with a 4.9% swing), Labour – who gained a substantial increase in their vote as support for Lib Dems in 1997 and 2001 moved back and the [[United Kingdom Independence Party]] (UKIP), whose candidate [[Graham Booth]] improved on his deposit-losing 2001 performance with a 4.7% increase in his vote.

In 2005, a [[referendum]] was held to appoint Torbay's first [[Elected mayors in the United Kingdom|elected mayor]]. In the ensuing election in October 2005, the winning candidate was a former Liberal parliamentary candidate, [[Nicholas Bye]], who won the election as a Conservative.

In 2011, Gordon Oliver was elected as Torbay's new mayor beating the existing mayor, Nicholas Bye. Oliver finished with 12,716 votes and Bye 9,631 after the two reached the second and final round of counting.{{cn|date=December 2024}}