The accountants’ election: How they fared
With control of the UK government still up for grabs, the one predictable aspect of the general election was that the 50 or so accountants standing for Parliament would signal how the results would play out.
On the eve of the poll, AccountingWEB.co.uk estimated that around 20 of the profession's representatives stood a chance of winning. The quirks of each constituency threw up a few surprises, but in line with pre-election opinion polls and the news media's exit poll, the Conservatives made the biggest gains.
While a handful of incumbents lost their seats, what we're calling the Accountancy Party made overall gains - and it is to be hoped that they bring a stronger element of financial understanding and business sense to government, whichever party or parties ultimately assume power.
Read on to discover who are the profession’s new MPs, and who lost their seats:
How they fared - 2010 election results
Tory gain
Mark Weatherley, Hove
Karen Bradley, Staffordshire Moorlands
Jeremy Lefroy, Stafford
David Mowat, Warrington South
Alok Sharma, Reading West
Nigel Mills, Amber Valley
Tory held
Therese Coffey, Suffolk Coastal
Justine Greening, Putney
Mark Hoban, Fareham
Elizabeth Truss, Norfolk SW
Karen Lumley, Redditch
Nick Gibb, Bognor Regis
Peter Bone, Wellingborough
Mark Harper, Forest of Dean
Lib Dem gain
Ian Swales, Redcar
Lib Dem held
Michael Moore, Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk
Labour loss
Michael Foster, Worcester
Sarah McCarthy-Fry, Portsmouth North
Tory loss
David Heathcoat-Amory, Wells
Continued...
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Many thanks for Glasgow East tip
Your input is invaluable to help fill out the full list - let's hope John gets a chance to regain Glasgow East before too long.
Thank you Brian
I should have found him before, but thanks all the same for helping to fill out our collection.
We'll add Joe to the tally and keep an eye on him for next time.
Some late additions, including two Labour accountant-MPs
I hope we made it clear how difficult it was to check the professional qualifications of 2,000-3,000 candidates, so we were aware that some of our representatives might have been missed. Thanks to the efforts of the writers on Accountancy and Accountancy Age, we've picked up news of a few candidates we missed, including chartered accountant Iain Wright, who retained his Hartlepool seat for Labour (previous MP: Peter Mandelson) and Teresa Pearce, a CIOT member who held Erith for Labour.
Stephen Williams (Lib Dem), a tax consultant who worked ewith PwC and Grant Thornton before entering Parliament in 2005, retained his Bristol West seat.
For the Liberal Democrats Chris Nicholson, also head of public sector for KPMG, was narrowly defeated by Labour in Streatham.
While the overall gains are small, with 19 accountants (or former trainees) serving as MPs, the profession is better represented than we thought. With so much uncertainty in the air over coalition politics, we'll update our database on accountant-candidates, as we might be seeing more of them before too long.