looked more like a stereotypical Liberal Party member, unrepresentative of the newly formed Social Democratic Party, which was working in alliance with the Liberals. The choice of Pitt as by-election candidate was resisted by some senior members of the party, who were keen to give the SDP a chance to win its first Parliamentary election (potentially with a big name like Shirley Williams as the candidate), but Pitt and the local Liberal Association were insistent, and there was no way to force them to cede the candidature. He had "nursed" the seat since 1974 and was the approved Candidate at national, regional and local level. Considerable pressure was put on the CNW Committee, especially on Alan Mead—Chairman at the time—who was also at the time Chair of Croydon CHE (which prompted a Guardian article entitled "the queering of Croydon"), as well as the Regional Party. The Liberal Party Council of 17 July 1981 further endorsed Pitt and thus put an end to any speculation or manipulation. Pitt was elected at the Croydon North West by-election on 22 October 1981 with a majority of 3,254 (standing as "Liberal with SDP support"). During the campaign, posters summed up the relationship between the two parties as "The Alliance" and the term stuck as the official name thereafter, although it had originally been intended as a stopgap slogan. Pitt's was the first in a sequence of SDP-Liberal by-election victories during the period when support for the Labour Party was at a low ebb. Pitt's win delighted Liberal leader David Steel who said after the result was known that the party had won a greater majority than they had expected. Pitt himself claimed that his victory showed that the Alliance had "caught the imagination of the voters" and that as consequence there were "no longer any safe seats for Tory or Labour in the country." Parliament He served in the House of Commons as Liberal Home Affairs Spokesman and led for the Alliance throughout the first Police and Criminal Evidence Bill, which fell when Margaret Thatcher called a general election. Pitt lost his seat to the Conservative, Humfrey Malins, in the 1983 general election. He fought two further elections for the Liberals in South Thanet in 1987 and 1992. Later career Taking a break from campaigning, Bill took a degree in Classics and Philosophy at Polytechnic of North London, graduating with a BA in 1987,