Worcester

Lab

Gain

1997 Result:	Foster, Michael Lab 25,848 50.10% Bourne, Nicholas Con 18,423 35.70% Chandler, Paul LibDem 6,462 12.50% Wood, Patricia UKIP 886 1.70% Majority 7,425 10% swing from Con to Lab
1992 Notional Result:	Con 23,960 45.48%   Lab 21,013 39.88%   LibDem 6,890 13.08%   Others 823 1.56% Notional Majority 2,947 5.59%
Description:	The seat is one to watch at election time, not just because of its marginality, but because in terms of its social make-up it is almost a microcosm of the country as a whole: data from the 1991 census shows the constituency to be very similar to the national average in terms of its class composition, proportion of ethnic minority voters, average age and housing tenure. Unemployment however is below avarege. Employment in the service sector such as administration, hotels, distribution and shops takes up about 80% of the total. Manufacturing employs around 14% and includes companies such as Metal Box and Yamasaki (computerised machine tools). Both tourism and shopping are areas of economic growth. In August 1996 the press revealed that Conservative Central Office had identified "Worcester woman" as the type of voter the party most needed to win over. Worcester woman, it was explained, had replaced Basildon man as the critical swing voter. The type of woman the party strategists apparently have in mind is in her late thirties, married to a skilled tradesman in the West Midlands and has a household income of around £18,000.