LABOUR candidate David Williams is disappointed not to have turned Crewe and Nantwich red again.

But he says he’d love the chance to try to claw back the seat from the Tories next time round.

Speaking shortly after the result came in, Mr Williams said he was delighted to have closed the gap on the Tories and increased Labour’s vote by nearly 5,000 on the by-election result of two years ago.

And he thought it was always going to take a couple of attempts before Labour could take back the seat the late Gwyneth Dunwoody had claimed for her own.

“I was glad to get an extra 5,000 votes,” said Mr Williams. “In some ways you can’t necessarily affect who votes Conservative – but you can affect who votes Labour.”

He said that, from the reaction on the doorstep, he believed the increased turnout this year was from Labour voters who had stayed at home in protest during the by-election.

He added he was disappointed not to have reduced the majority still further and admitted: “There’s still a big task ahead for Labour in Crewe and Nantwich but we’ve got to meet that challenge and get people’s support and confidence.”

The defeated Labour candidate, a national political officer for the Union of Shop Distributive and Allied Workers, said it was now time for him to go back to work and regroup.

“I go back to standing up for shopworkers instead of standing up for the people of Crewe and Nantwich which is what I was hoping to do,” he said.

“But the constituency Labour party will have the opportunity to select another candidate for the next general election whenever that is and I’m certainly going to throw my hat in the ring.

“I always felt we should look at this as a two election project to try and get Crewe and Nantwich back for Labour.

“If we could have done it at the first attempt, I’d have been delighted. But I think we’ve got a lot of work to do and in a sense we’ve got a bit of rebuilding in the Labour party as well.”