POLICING minister David Hanson clung onto his seat in Delyn as the Conservatives chopped his majority back by around 5,000 votes.

Mr Hanson, who has served 18 years as Delyn’s MP went into the election under some pressure.

Political heavyweights Gordon Brown and Peter Hain had both flown into the constituency during the last week to help fight off the challenge posed by the Conservatives’ Antoinette Sandbach.

As a result Hanson held on but his majority fell from 8,605 in 2005 to 2,272 last night, while the Conservatives increased their turnout by around 4,000.

The Lib Dems were the surprising losers, dropping about 350 votes compared to 2005.

A relieved Mr Hanson said: “I’m very pleased with the increase in the turnout tonight, and obviously very pleased to be returned by the people of Delyn.

“It was a very tough election and I’d like to pay tribute to my fellow candidates.

“The swing of about 5% was in line with what opinion polls appeared to show may happen, but we’ve taken votes off the Lib Dems and Plaid Cymru as people turned to the Labour Party once again as the anti-Conservative solution in Delyn.

“I am now the anti-Conservative standard bearer, and I know many people have voted for Labour because they have no appetite for the Tory approach to politics.”

This interpretation of the polls was entirely contradicted by Ms Sandbach, who polled 12,811 votes, around a 30% increase in votes cast for the Tories in 2005.

She said: "I’d like to have won, obviously, but thousands have come out tonight to vote for hope, thousands more then came out five years ago.

“It’s very sad to see that the politics of fear ruled in Delyn, and that’s because Conservative policies were misrepresented in election literature, across North Wales,” she claimed.

Lib Dem candidate Bill Brereton, a former North Wales Deputy chief constable, admitted that he’d concentrated too much of his efforts supporting the campaign of colleague Tom Rippeth in Wrexham, while the Liberal Democrat vote in Delyn slumped by more than 300 votes.

He said he was proud of the performance in Wrexham. He said: “This is my first foray into politics and you don’t expect to win the Premier league on your first time out.

“For me it’s been about learning how to handle a campaign. We didn’t want to spread ourselves too thinly and so focused on the seats we thought we’d win.

“But I will be back.”

Plaid Cymru’s Peter Ryder came in fourth place with 1,844 votes. BNP candidate Jennifer Matthys, who is BNP leader Nick Griffin’s daughter, polled 844. UKIP’s Andrew Haigh polled 655.