Roger Lowrey White was a British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 Conservative Party

Conservative Party (UK)

The Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...

 politician and company director.

At the 1970 general election

United Kingdom general election, 1970

The United Kingdom general election of 1970 was held on 18 June 1970, and resulted in a surprise victory for the Conservative Party under leader Edward Heath, who defeated the Labour Party under Harold Wilson. The election also saw the Liberal Party and its new leader Jeremy Thorpe lose half their...

, he was elected as Member of Parliament

Member of Parliament

A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...

 (MP) for Gravesend

Gravesend (UK Parliament constituency)

Gravesend was a county constituency centred on the town of Gravesend, Kent which returned one Member of Parliament to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom from 1868 until it was abolished for the 1983 general election....

 in Kent

Kent

Kent is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent and the unitary borough of...

, a marginal seat which traditionally was won by the party in power (the 1970 general election resulted in a surprise victory for the Conservatives). At the general election in February 1974

United Kingdom general election, February 1974

The United Kingdom's general election of February 1974 was held on the 28th of that month. It was the first of two United Kingdom general elections held that year, and the first election since the Second World War not to produce an overall majority in the House of Commons for the winning party,...

, which resulted in a hung parliament

Hung parliament

In a two-party parliamentary system of government, a hung parliament occurs when neither major political party has an absolute majority of seats in the parliament . It is also less commonly known as a balanced parliament or a legislature under no overall control...

, White lost to the Labour

Labour Party (UK)

The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...

 candidate John Ovenden

John Ovenden

John Frederick Ovenden was a British Labour Party politician.Ovenden served as Member of Parliament for the marginal seat of Gravesend from 1974 to 1979, when he lost to the Conservative Timothy Brinton...

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White was a member of the right-wing Conservative Monday Club

Conservative Monday Club

The Conservative Monday Club is a British pressure group "on the right-wing" of the Conservative Party.-Overview:...

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