AS Labour melted down around it, even the bedrock that is County Durham struggled to withstand the heat.

In Northumbria, Labour wilted.

North Tyneside buckled and went Tory for the first time since its creation in 1973.

Hartlepool slipped away again. In Sunderland, the Tory temperature rose by a further five seats.

And in Durham - the first council that Labour ever won in the country in 1919 - the edges went soft, and some long-established names were swept away by the lava flow.

Among them were Phil Graham in Coundon, who was once spoken of as Bishop Auckland's MP; Vince Crosby, a dedicated servant for decades in Aycliffe, and Ken Manton, a former leader who might have been a big player had he survived in Bishop Auckland.

Yet when all the votes were counted, the Durham bedrock had just enough mettle to win a slim majority.

The county's political landscape, though, has been transformed by the volcanic eruptions caused by Gordon Brown's deep unpopularity.

For a start, the old guard is going.

Only one of the seven district council leaders - Alan Napier - has made it onto the new unitary, which will be an authority with a feminine touch.

Whereas the old county had only ten women councillors out of 54, the new county has 37 out of 126. Not even a fifth has turned into nearly a third.

More fundamentally, since Peter Lee formed that first council in 1919, Durham has been a one party state.

Any opposition to the Labour leadership came from disaffected factions within the Labour group.

Now there is real external opposition, which will be open and organised.

The Lib Dems, who should be delighted with their performance, will be a force with a voice. They will win the Durham City Parliamentary seat should this showing be replicated.

The Conservatives will have been pleased to pick up ten seats, but the most fascinating opposition grouping will be the 22 independents.

They dominate in Derwentside and have representatives in most districts.

Some are ex-Labour - such as Crook's Eddie Murphy who resigned over women shortlists - but most are truly independent. Can they come together to be effective?

There were good turnouts - Framwellgate Moor was 46 per cent - and the last result of the night - weary Weardale at gone 3am - returned independent John Shuttleworth with the biggest personal vote of the night: 2,035.

This summed up the other big change caused by the meltdown.

Rather than vote Labour en masse, people put personality before party.

Twenty of the 63 divisions sprayed their votes around and schizophrenically elected candidates from different parties.

"No politics, no promises, no spin,"

said Becky Brunskill's Conservative leaflet, and so Willington gave her a thumping endorsement and contradictorily sent along a Labour member to keep her company.

The Lib Dems, the independents and the Conservatives all benefitted from this meltdown in traditional Labour voting patterns, but the British National Party could not make the breakthrough.

It came within 129 votes of winning a seat in Tudhoe and 169 votes in Spennymoor and Middlestone.

But although it polled heavily in its fiercely contested Chilton target, the Labour vote there, for once, proved rock solid.