Editing Beckenham (UK Parliament constituency) (section)

==History==
The constituency has only elected Conservatives as its MPs since 1950.

The constituency shared boundaries with the [[Beckenham (electoral division)|Beckenham electoral division]] for election of councillors to the Greater London Council at elections in 1973, 1977 and 1981.

The closest the Conservatives have ever come to losing this seat was at [[1997 Beckenham by-election|a by-election in November 1997]], at the height of [[Tony Blair]]'s '[[honeymoon period]]' as Prime Minister, following the resignation of the previous MP [[Piers Merchant]] in a sex scandal. Even then, the former MP for Hastings who lost her seat in the earlier 1997 general election, [[Jacqui Lait]], managed to win the seat by just over 1,000 votes.

Between 1957 and 1992 the long-serving MP for Beckenham was [[Philip Goodhart|Sir Philip Goodhart]], who was soon after 1979 discovered by [[Margaret Thatcher]] to be a right-of-centre or 'wet conservative' and consequently his career as a junior minister came to a quick end.  Goodhart is best known for his book on the workings of the Conservative MPs' 1922 Committee, and for his brother Charles, who was a famous economics professor at [[London School of Economics|LSE]] and sat for some time on the [[Bank of England]]'s monetary policy committee.

Before Sir Philip Goodhart, the former Conservative [[Chief Whip]] Patrick Buchan-Hepburn represented Beckenham in Parliament.