Birmingham Yardley is a classic West Midlands marginal constituency and has changed hands seven times since the Second World War, often when the government changed.
However, the 1992 general election result was extraordinary even by the traditions of this most marginal seat. Labourís Estelle Morris defeated the sitting Tory MP David Gilroy Bevan by just 162 votes (0.4%).
Her victory was due to the fact that the Lib Dems had managed to pick up more votes from Conservative voters than they had from Labour.
The seat is a residential constituency on the eastern outskirts of the city bordering the Tory constituencies of Meriden and Solihull. The cityís airport is just outside.
Unlike some inner-city Birmingham seats unemployment is only just above the national average and there is a small ethnic minority population. Two thirds of households are owner-occupied but there are still a significant number of council homes - a quarter of all households are local authority tenants.