Skipton & Ripon
Conservative hold

The southern part of the Yorkshire Dales, this seat offers many familiar haunts for the day trippers from the West Yorkshire and Lancashire conurbations: not only the medium sized towns of the constituency title, but more specifically tourist targets like Grassington and Burnsall, Malham Tarn and Bolton Priory and Fountains Abbey. These have a softer and more commercial area than the more rugged country further north, for example that in William Hague's Richmond constituency. They elected the moderate pro-European Tory David Curry very comfortably, against evenly divided opposition in 1997.

David Curry, a One Nation Clarke-backing Europhile casualty of the Conservatives' current orthodoxy, spent four months as William Hague's Agriculture spokesman until quitting over the "not-for-a-decade" commitment against the single currency, in November 1997. Elected here in 1987 after two terms as an MEP, he served as an Environment or Agriculture minister from 1989 to 1997. A duck-voiced, short-tongued ex-journalist, born in 1944 into a family of teachers, and educated at Ripon Grammar School, Corpus Christi College Oxford and Harvard University, he is in the Conservative minority prone to vote for lowering the homosexual age of consent to 16. In April 1996 he had been given added responsibility as "Minister for the South West" to stop Cornwall going Liberal or Labour - which it duly did in its entirety.

Area Percent GB Percent Index GB=100   Thriving Wealthy Achievers, Suburban Areas 20.81% 14.99% 138.78 Affluent Greys, Rural Communities 14.07% 2.13% 661.76 Prosperous Pensioners, Retirement Areas 2.13% 2.49% 85.82 Expanding Affluent Executives, Family Areas 2.09% 4.43% 47.16 Well-Off Workers, Family Areas 4.23% 7.27% 58.13 Rising Affluent Urbanites, Town & City Areas 1.69% 2.56% 65.81 Prosperous Professionals, Metropolitan Areas 0.00% 2.04% 0.00 Better-Off Executives, Inner City Areas 0.08% 3.94% 1.96 Settling Comfortable Middle Agers, Mature Home Owning Areas 21.13% 13.04% 162.03 Skilled Workers, Home Owning Areas 14.77% 12.70% 116.30 Aspiring New Home Owners, Mature Communities 7.95% 8.14% 97.59 White Collar Workers, Better-Off Multi Ethnic Areas 5.55% 4.02% 138.10 Striving Older People, Less Prosperous Areas 2.53% 3.19% 79.41 Council Estate Residents, Better-Off Homes 2.58% 11.31% 22.77 Council Estate Residents, High Unemployment 0.08% 3.06% 2.53 Council Estate Residents, Greatest Hardship 0.25% 2.52% 9.86 People in Multi-Ethnic, Low-Income Areas 0.00% 2.10% 0.00 Unclassified Unclassified 0.07% 0.06% 119.20

Area Percent GB Percent Index GB=100   £0-5K 7.34% 9.41% 77.98 £5-10K 14.75% 16.63% 88.70 £10-15K 16.01% 16.58% 96.56 £15-20K 13.89% 13.58% 102.26 £20-25K 11.04% 10.39% 106.22 £25-30K 8.46% 7.77% 108.84 £30-35K 6.40% 5.79% 110.51 £35-40K 4.83% 4.33% 111.52 £40-45K 3.66% 3.27% 112.09 £45-50K 2.79% 2.48% 112.38 £50-55K 2.14% 1.90% 112.47 £55-60K 1.66% 1.47% 112.46 £60-65K 1.29% 1.15% 112.37 £65-70K 1.02% 0.91% 112.25 £70-75K 0.81% 0.72% 112.12 £75-80K 0.64% 0.57% 111.98 £80-85K 0.52% 0.46% 111.85 £85-90K 0.42% 0.37% 111.74 £90-95K 0.34% 0.31% 111.64 £95-100K 0.28% 0.25% 111.56 £100K + 1.51% 1.34% 111.99