By Ed Carrasco and Damian Johnson

Amidst loud fanfare, Conservative candidate Zac Goldsmith scored an upset in Richmond Park from MP Susan Kramer.

Mr. Goldsmith garnered 29,461 votes while Ms. Kramer obtained 25,370, with a seven per cent swing.

There were emotional scenes as family, friends and supporters of the Tory candidate gathered at Richmond upon Thames College in Twickenham for the results with chants of “Zac! Zac! Zac!” as his numbers became clear.

Mr. Goldsmith, the son of billionaire James Goldsmith and former editor of The Ecologist, said in his short victory speech that he would put the people of Richmond Park first.

He said: “This is the end of a long and hard campaign and the beginning of an even bigger campaign.”

Meanwhile, the outgoing MP Ms. Kramer thanked her constituents for five years as their MP in her concession speech.

She said: “You gave me five absolutely wonderful years and I can’t more than grateful for that.”

As for the upsetting outcome, she lamented: “That’s the way it goes in politics.”

Turnout for this election increased 3.7 per cent to 76.9 per cent, which resulted in a late delay in the counting until nearly 6 a.m.

Lib Dem Councillor Bart Ricketts, who supported Kramer, said that the campaign was a hard fought battle.

He said: “It’s been a very close election. It’s the hardest full campaign I’ve been involved in.”

Richmond Park, which includes Kingston University’s Kingston Hill campus, was the 65th target for the Conservatives this election. Kramer won the seat in 2005 with 46.7 per cent of the vote and a majority of 3,731.

Other candidates on the ballot included Eleanor Tunnicliffe of the Labour Party, Peter Dul of the UK Independence Party, independent Charles Hill, Susan May of the Christian Peoples Party and James Page of the Green Party.