1988 Kensington by-election

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.

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.

Candidates

 * John Connell was a peace advocate who opposed what he saw as manipulation of the news by ITN.
 * John Crowley described himself as an 'Anti Yuppie Revolutionary Crowleyist, Vegetarian Visionary'.
 * John Duignan was a supporter of the Class War organisation.
 * Roy Edey called for equal redistribution of wealth and a policy of social housing construction.
 * Dudley Fishburn was a former editor of The Economist.
 * William Goodhart was a leading human rights lawyer who has since taken a seat in the House of Lords.
 * Brian Goodier described himself as an 'Anti-Left Wing Fascist'.
 * Phylip Hobson was the Green Party candidate.
 * Ann Holmes was again a candidate for this seat in the 1992 general election. and subsequently became a councillor in the City of London.
 * 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.
 * Cynthia Payne, who had been convicted of controlling a brothel, ran under the 'Rainbow Alliance Payne and Pleasure Party' banner.
 * William Scola represented his own 'Leveller Party'.
 * 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.

Results
The results for the previous election were: