 Hunt, on the left of the Conservative party, held the seat (renamed Ravensbourne in 1974) until 1997.The Chislehurst seat had a Labour Party MP from 1966 until 1970.A by-election was held on 29 June 2006, upon the death of the previous MP Eric Forth the month before, which returned London Assembly member Bob Neill as the new Conservative MP with an electoral majority of just over 600 votes - compared to the previous Conservative majority of over 13,000 in the 2005 general election.