Kensington and Chelsea
Formerborough constituency for theHouse of Commons
Boundary of Kensington and Chelsea in Greater London for the 2005 general election
County	Greater London
1997–2010
Created from	Kensington &Chelsea
Replaced by	Kensington,Chelsea and Fulham

Kensington and Chelsea was aconstituency represented in theHouse of Commons of theParliament of the United Kingdom 1997–2010. It was one of the safest Conservative seats in theUnited Kingdom, and since its creation in 1997 became a prestigious seat, withMPAlan Clark, the formerDefence SecretaryMichael Portillo and the formerForeign SecretaryMalcolm Rifkind all holding the seat for the Conservatives. The seat was abolished for the2010 election, when the 1974–1997Kensington constituency was recreated and Chelsea formed a new constituency together with the southern part of the former Hammersmith and Fulham constituency, called theChelsea and Fulham constituency.

The constituency covered the central and southern portions of theRoyal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, covering the centres of bothKensington andChelsea. This covered the following wards of the borough:

• Abingdon,Brompton, Campden, Cheyne, Church, Courtfield,Earls Court, Hans Town,Holland, Norland, North Stanley, Pembridge,Queen's Gate, Redcliffe,Royal Hospital, South Stanley.

Following their review of parliamentary boundaries inNorth London, theBoundary Commission created two new constituencies based on the existing Kensington and Chelsea constituency, which were first contested atthe 2010 election. The northern section (Earls Court, South Kensington, Kensington High Street andHolland Park) was combined with the southern section ofthe previous Regent's Park and Kensington North constituency (includingLadbroke Grove andNotting Hill) to createa new Kensington constituency, whilst the southern part (Chelsea) was combined with the southern half ofthe former Hammersmith and Fulham constituency to createa new Chelsea and Fulham constituency.

The constituency was created for the1997 general election. Notional calculations indicated that it would be one of the safestConservative seats in the country and so the Conservative nomination was much sought. In the run-up to the 1997 election the nomination was initially won byNicholas Scott, MP forthe previous Chelsea constituency, but following allegations of alcoholism he wasdeselected.

The nomination was subsequently secured byAlan Clark, the former minister and diarist who was seeking to return to the Commons after standing down at the1992 general election. Clark was elected, but died of brain cancer in 1999 after only two years in office. As a safe Conservative seat in London there was much speculation that formerDefence Secretary and widely predicted future Conservative leaderMichael Portillo would seek to return to the Commons after losing theEnfield Southgate constituency in the 1997 election. Portillo was elected inthe subsequent by-election and becameShadow Chancellor but his subsequent career stalled and he crashed out of the2001 Conservative Party leadership election and returned to the backbenches. In 2003 he announced his intention to retire from politics at the next general election to pursue a career in the media. Another former Cabinet Minister, who had also lost his seat in 1997,Sir Malcolm Rifkind, was nominated for the seat in Portillo's stead and elected at the2005 general election.

In October 2007, amid speculation that then-Prime MinisterGordon Brown was about to call a snapgeneral election, formerLabour ministerTony Benn announced that he wanted to come out of retirement and return to the Commons, offering himself to the Kensington and Chelseaconstituency Labour Party to challenge Malcolm Rifkind.^[1][2] Ultimately, however, no election was held that year, and the Kensington and Chelsea seat was abolished for the 2010 election.

• List of parliamentary constituencies in London
• 1999 Kensington and Chelsea by-election

• BBC News (2005).Election 2005 - Kensington & Chelsea. Retrieved May 3, 2005.

• Kensington and Chelsea UK Parliament constituency (boundaries April 1997 – April 2010) atMapIt UK

51°29′38″N0°11′10″W / 51.494°N 0.186°W /51.494; -0.186

• Politics of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea
• Constituencies of the Parliament of the United Kingdom established in 1997
• Constituencies of the Parliament of the United Kingdom disestablished in 2010
• Parliamentary constituencies in London (historic)

• Wikipedia articles incorporating an LRPP-MP template with two unnamed parameters
• Pages using gadget WikiMiniAtlas
• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Use dmy dates from April 2022
• Coordinates on Wikidata