Seat turns red after a year away

Labour has snatched back the Leicester South seat that was in Liberal Democrat hands for less than a year.

Peter Soulsby romped home with 16,688 votes for Labour in a seat which had been held by Parmjit Gill, who is also a city councillor.

Mr Gill took 12,971 votes, with Tory candidate, Martin McElwee winning 7,549 votes in the constituency.

Meanwhile, trade and industry secretary Patricia Hewitt retained her seat in Leicester West.

'Learn lessons'

Leicester South had been held by the Liberal Democrats since a by-election in 2004.

Ms Hewitt took 17,184 votes - a total of 51.7% - to keep her seat in the House of Commons.

The constituency - a firm Labour seat - saw a turnout of 33,224 with their MP returned with a majority of 9,070.

In her declaration speech Ms Hewitt said: "I believe that in this historic third term, we in the Labour party need also to learn the lessons from this election campaign.

"We need to find ways of re-engaging, reconnecting with voters and listening to people all the time, and not simply at election time".

Large majority

Elsewhere in the county, the Conservatives held three seats at Blaby, Melton and Rutland and in Bosworth.

The Conservatives retained their seat in Bosworth with David Tredinnick, in Blaby, Andrew Robathan was returned by 22,487 votes.

At Rutland and Melton, Tory, Alan Duncan was returned to Westminster with 25,237 votes while Edward Garnier kept his seat on behalf of Harborough with 20,536 voting him in.

Stephen Dorrell, also returned to parliament for the party with 23,571 votes.

In Leicester East, Keith Vaz also kept his seat in Westminster for Labour with 24,015 voting him back with a majority of 15,876.

Further north in the county, Labour's David Taylor kept his seat at North West Leicestershire.

Labour also held its seat in Loughborough, Andy Reed scooped 19,098 votes.