Gosport
Conservative hold

South Hampshire is a rapidly expanding area, but Gosport is a compact, geographically confined and self-contained town on a peninsula over the harbour from Portsmouth, with which it shares a naval and Right-wing tradition, which belies its working class socio-economic structure: it has one of the lowest percentages of professional and managerial workers of any Conservative constituency - only 25 per cent. Unlike Portsmouth though, Gosport remained strongly in the Tory ranks even in 1997 and it looks even more like an aberrant seat now: working class but not Left-wing, or even centrist, densely populated with almost no rural element, resistant to the new appeal of New Labour.

Peter Viggers is a fading, locally born (1938) company solicitor and Lloyds underwriter, educated at Portsmouth Grammar School and Trinity College Cambridge, who nearly drowned in a sailing accident in 1993 but thought of John Major. He was elected here in 1974, and spent three years as a Northern Ireland Minister in the eighties. Since then he has concentrated on defence-related issues without being gung ho, for example on Serbia and Kosovo, where he feared British casualties. Paradoxically a Thatcherite who was also pro-European, he claims to have sung every part in Handel's Messiah and was overdue for a knighthood when the Tories lost office in 1997.

Area Percent GB Percent Index GB=100   Thriving Wealthy Achievers, Suburban Areas 11.81% 14.99% 78.76 Affluent Greys, Rural Communities 0.00% 2.13% 0.00 Prosperous Pensioners, Retirement Areas 5.67% 2.49% 227.90 Expanding Affluent Executives, Family Areas 8.40% 4.43% 189.75 Well-Off Workers, Family Areas 9.85% 7.27% 135.41 Rising Affluent Urbanites, Town & City Areas 2.68% 2.56% 104.49 Prosperous Professionals, Metropolitan Areas 0.00% 2.04% 0.00 Better-Off Executives, Inner City Areas 0.00% 3.94% 0.00 Settling Comfortable Middle Agers, Mature Home Owning Areas 8.61% 13.04% 66.07 Skilled Workers, Home Owning Areas 27.11% 12.70% 213.44 Aspiring New Home Owners, Mature Communities 7.91% 8.14% 97.14 White Collar Workers, Better-Off Multi Ethnic Areas 0.27% 4.02% 6.61 Striving Older People, Less Prosperous Areas 2.67% 3.19% 83.92 Council Estate Residents, Better-Off Homes 10.43% 11.31% 92.20 Council Estate Residents, High Unemployment 2.00% 3.06% 65.37 Council Estate Residents, Greatest Hardship 2.51% 2.52% 99.71 People in Multi-Ethnic, Low-Income Areas 0.00% 2.10% 0.00 Unclassified Unclassified 0.08% 0.06% 130.85

Area Percent GB Percent Index GB=100   £0-5K 8.42% 9.41% 89.41 £5-10K 17.18% 16.63% 103.28 £10-15K 18.28% 16.58% 110.27 £15-20K 15.17% 13.58% 111.70 £20-25K 11.36% 10.39% 109.33 £25-30K 8.15% 7.77% 104.84 £30-35K 5.76% 5.79% 99.41 £35-40K 4.06% 4.33% 93.74 £40-45K 2.88% 3.27% 88.23 £45-50K 2.06% 2.48% 83.08 £50-55K 1.49% 1.90% 78.35 £55-60K 1.09% 1.47% 74.06 £60-65K 0.81% 1.15% 70.19 £65-70K 0.60% 0.91% 66.71 £70-75K 0.46% 0.72% 63.57 £75-80K 0.35% 0.57% 60.74 £80-85K 0.27% 0.46% 58.19 £85-90K 0.21% 0.37% 55.87 £90-95K 0.16% 0.31% 53.77 £95-100K 0.13% 0.25% 51.85 £100K + 0.58% 1.34% 43.22