The 1982 Beaconsfield by-election was a parliamentary by-election held on 27 May 1982 for the British House of Commons constituency of Beaconsfield in Buckinghamshire. Previous MP The seat had become vacant on 27 February 1982, when the constituency's Conservative Member of Parliament (MP), Sir Ronald Bell, died at the age of 67. He had been Beaconsfield's MP since the constituency was created for the February 1974 general election, having previously been MP for South Buckinghamshire since 1950. Bell had first entered Parliament at the Newport by-election in 1945, but lost that seat two months later at the 1945 general election. Candidates The Conservative candidate was Tim Smith, aged 34, who had been the surprise winner of the 1977 Ashfield by-election, where he overturned a Labour Party majority of nearly 23,000 votes. However, he lost the Ashfield seat at the 1979 general election, and was seeking to return to Parliament. The SDP-Liberal Alliance chose 40-year-old Paul Tyler, who had been Liberal Party MP for Bodmin from February 1974 to October 1974. The Labour Party selected as its candidate an unknown and untested 29-year-old barrister called Tony Blair, an aspiring politician who had been advised by Labour MP Tom Pendry to seek the party's nomination to gain political experience. Three other candidates stood, including Tom Keen, from the Campaign for a More Prosperous Britain, who held the record for the most candidacies in a single general election, and 78-year-old by-election veteran Bill Boaks, an eccentric campaigner for road safety, who usually described himself as "Air, Road, Public Safety, White Resident" or "Democratic Monarchist, Public Safety, White Resident". On this occasion, he chose the latter label. Result Beaconsfield had been one of the safest seats held by the Conservative Party, and a Conservative victory was expected. The real fight was for second place; the Liberal candidate had finished a close third in 1979. Labour fought to remain the main opposition party for the seat. In the March 1982 Glasgow Hillhead by-election, the SDP's Roy Jenkins won a traditionally Conservative seat for the Alliance, with Labour, previously the main challengers in Hillhead, in third place. With the SDP winning three of four by-elections since its formation in March 1981, The Glasgow Herald speculated that the new party threatened the Conservatives' hold on Beaconsfield. However, in the intervening weeks the Falklands War began. The 53% turnout was almost 20 percentage points below 1979's, and unusually