SIR David Crausby was elected as MP for Bolton North East for the sixth time, as Conservative hopes of winning the seat for the first time in 25 years evaporated.

From the moment Theresa May launched her election campaign from a parish hall in Egerton in April, the constituency had been earmarked as a crucial battleground.

As the Tories enjoyed a substantial lead in the polls, Bolton North East was exactly the kind of seat that the Prime Minister hoped would be crucial in handing her a new and improved majority in Parliament.

But as soon as the exit poll released at 10pm on Thursday predicted a night of disaster for the Tories, the narrative quickly changed.

Local Conservative Party figures said that they were “bemused” by the predictions, which bore little relation to their own polling.

However, it was soon evident that Sir David had once again won the backing of the voters who first elected him in 1997.

After his victory was formally declared, he said that the Tories could not “kid” the Bolton North East electorate into switching its allegiance, even though he admitted he would have been happy to force a recount just a few short weeks ago.

Sir David added: “I am delighted that the good people of my constituency have given me another vote of confidence. It’s all down to them and I am just grateful that they have elected me for another term. I will do my best to serve them in the way that I have done for the last 20 years.

“What I’m looking forward to over the next two weeks is the complications of any negotiations. We will have to wait and see who the Prime Minister is. It looks like a vote of no confidence in Theresa May and I think she should seriously consider her position.

“The Tories fought this election on the basis of ‘Theresa May for Prime Minister’ and the public have clearly rejected that.

“This was not a presidential election, though the Tories tried to turn it into that. But they aren’t going to kid the people of Bolton into that. Voters here wanted to pick their own individual and I’m just glad they picked me.”

The 70-year-old’s majority has reduced slightly from 4,377 to 3,797 — but he did claim a larger share of the vote than in 2015.

Sir David won 22,870 votes, which constituted 50.62 per cent of the vote.

His Conservative opponent, James Daly also posted a significant improvement to his 2015 showing — in fact, the Tories polled more votes on Thursday than Sir David won with two years ago.

Mr Daly, a solicitor, said he was proud of his campaign team and would have normally expected his haul of 19,073 votes to be enough for victory.

He said: “I am very proud that we increased the vote by 5,000 in the seat. I think we should take a lot of pride from that.

“Clearly, a significant proportion of the Bolton North East electorate found our positive programme for change here something they could vote for.

“Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough but that is the nature of democracy.

“It has been a great experience working with the Conservative team here.

“The reason we couldn’t win is that David has increased his vote as well.

“If you had said to me at the start of the campaign that 19,000 votes would not be enough to win this seat then I would have been very surprised, but the Labour Party have performed well tonight.”

UKIP’s Harry Lamb finished third for the second election running, but saw his share of the vote collapse from 18.81 per cent in 2015 to just 3.47 per cent.

Liberal Democrat Warren Fox finished in fourth with 1,316 votes, ahead of the Green Party’s Liz Spencer with 357.

In his acceptance speech, Sir David said: “Four weeks ago I would have been happy for a recount but now I think we are looking at a completely different picture.

“I think it is really important in politics to see young people engaged in a campaign that has been very successful for the Labour Party.”

He added: “Most of all I want to thank the people of Bolton who have registered a vote of confidence in me.

“It’s to them that this is a real victory, we will not be cowered in Bolton.

“Locally this has been a decent campaign, a word of congratulations to all the candidates who have fought this campaign

“I know what it is like to lose an election campaign, I know it is difficult.”