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The Conservatives held on to the West Suffolk constituency in yesterday's General Election with an increased majority - but over the Lib-Dems rather than Labour.

Labour's second place of last time evaporated as its vote haemorrhaged away by 14.2 per cent in the constituency in which Haverhill is the largest town.

The beneficiaries were mainly the Lib-Dems, who took over in second, while the Tory vote went up by a small amount, resultoing in an overall swing of over two per cent from Tory to Lib-Dem.

At the last General Election the victor Richard Spring had a majority of over 8,000. He stood down this time but his successor Matt Hancock increased the majority to over 13,000, topping 50 per cent of the vote in an increased turnout of 64.6 per cent, 3.8 per cent up on last time.

The full results were: Matthew Hancock(Conservative) 24,312; Belinda Brooks-Gordon (Liberal Democrat) 11,262; Ohid Ahmed(Labour) 7,089; Ian Smith (UKIP)3,085; Ramon Johns (BNP) 1,428; Andrew Appleby (Independent) 540;
Colin Young (Christian Peoples Alliance) 373. Majority 13,050, turnout 48,089.

The Tory vote was up 1.7 per cent and the Lib-Dem vote up 6.2 per cent. The Tory polled 50.6 per cent of the votes, the Lib-Dem 23.4 per cent and Labour 14.7 per cent, a swing from Conservative to Lib-Dem of 2.3 per cent.