The Kensington by-election, in Kensington, on 14 July 1988 was held after the death of Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) Brandon Rhys-Williams. Normally a relatively safe Conservative seat, it was narrowly won by Dudley Fishburn, who would retain the seat in 1992.

Quick Facts Constituency of Kensington, Turnout ...

1988 Kensington by-election

← 1987 14 July 1988 1992 →
Constituency of Kensington
Turnout	51.6% ( 13.1%)
First party Second party   Lab Candidate Dudley Fishburn Patricia Holmes Party Conservative Labour Popular vote 9,829 9,014 Percentage 41.59% 38.14% Swing 5.9% 4.9%   Third party Fourth party   SLD SDP Candidate William Goodhart John Martin Party SLD SDP Popular vote 2,546 1,190 Percentage 10.77% 5.04% Swing 6.5% N/A
MP before election Brandon Rhys-Williams Conservative Subsequent MP Dudley Fishburn Conservative

Close

It was the first by-election of that parliament, which had begun after the general election of June 1987, and would last until the next election in April 1992.

• John Connell was a peace advocate who opposed what he saw as manipulation of the news by ITN.^[1]
• John Crowley described himself as an 'Anti Yuppie Revolutionary Crowleyist, Vegetarian Visionary'.^[1]
• John Duignan was a supporter of the Class War organisation.^[1]
• Roy Edey called for equal redistribution of wealth and a policy of social housing construction.^[1]
• Dudley Fishburn was a former editor of The Economist.^[2]
• William Goodhart was a leading human rights lawyer who has since taken a seat in the House of Lords.^[3]
• Brian Goodier described himself as an 'Anti-Left Wing Fascist'.^[1]
• Phylip Hobson was the Green Party candidate.
• Ann Holmes was again a candidate for this seat in the 1992 general election.^[4] and subsequently became a councillor in the City of London.^[5]
• John Martin was a candidate for the dissident wing of the SDP that had rejected membership of the Social and Liberal Democrats.
• Thomas McDermott was the founder of the Free Trade Liberal Party and campaigned on a platform of the UK leaving the European Community.^[1]
• Cynthia Payne, who had been convicted of controlling a brothel, ran under the 'Rainbow Alliance Payne and Pleasure Party' banner.^[1]
• William Scola represented his own 'Leveller Party'.^[1]
• Screaming Lord Sutch was the leader and founder of the Official Monster Raving Loony Party.
• Kailash Trivedi ran as candidate for the 'Janata Party' (Peoples Party in Hindi and the name of a former governing party in India), his own creation.^[1]

The results for the previous election were: