LABOUR last night held onto Tony Blair's former Sedgefield seat, but with a reduced majority.

The Liberal Democrats pushed to the Tories into third, with the British National Party in fourth.

Phil Wilson got 12,528 votes to become the constituency's first new MP since Mr Blair was elected in 1983.

At the last election, Mr Blair's majority was 18,457, but with a low turnout Mr Wilson's 7,000 majority is still healthy even if his share of the vote dropped.

Mr Wilson, who made much of his Trimdon roots, ran a PR firm but is expected to start work as an MP this morning in his office in Newton Aycliffe.

It follows a short low-key campaign where the only issue of note was the state of Newton Aycliffe's town centre.

This allowed Paul Gittens, a newly-elected independent district councillor in the town, to claim fifth place.

The Lib Dems candidate Greg Stone, a Newcastle councillor, polled 1,500 votes more than the Conservative, Darlington businessman Graham Robb.

The BNP's Andrew Spence, the former fuel protestor from Consett, also appeared very satisfied with his ten per cent share of the vote.

Turnout, though, was very low at less than 40 per cent.