The World - News from July 15, 1988

Britain’s governing Conservative Party narrowly retained a parliamentary seat in a by-election, the first electoral test since the 1987 general election. The party’s majority in the London borough of Kensington was cut from 4,447 votes last year to only 815. The Labor Party, split by leadership policy disputes, fared better than had been predicted, winning 38% of the votes compared to 41.5% for the party of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Voter turnout was only 51% in the election, which was won by Dudley Fishburn, 42, a former senior editor of the weekly magazine The Economist.