There were shock results all round last and early this morning in the general election. Theresa May's plan has gone wrong beyond her worse nightmares and her most trusted lieutenant in Rye and Hastings came closer that she had ever expected to losing her seat. Having taken the constituency from Labour in 2010 and increased her majority in 2015, all the work to keep her seat secure has now come to virtually nothing with a majority cut to just 346.
The full results are as follows:
Conservative 25,668
Labour 25,322
Liberal Democrat 1,885
UKIP 1,479
Independant 412
Amber Rudd actually increased her share of the vote to 46.9% (from 44.5%) but Labour went from 35.1% to 46.2%, however the total numbers voting went up slightly, the LibDem share remained roughly the same but the UKIP vote collapsed from 6,786 in 2015. Many of the UKIP votes have clearly gone to Labour - which would not have been part of the Conservative plans - along with probably much of the Green vote.
The result was so close that a recount was called and the tension was certainly getting to Amber when she was interviewed by the BBC in the early hours. The result had originally been expected around 2am but it was nearly 4am before the decision for a recount was announced and the final result came just before 6am.
