Nick Boles holds Grantham and Stamford seat with larger majority as Conservatives race ahead

This is compared to 26,552 votes in the 2010 General Election.

UKIP’s Marietta King came second with 9,410, followed by Barrie Fairbairn (Labour) on 9,070, Harrish Bisnauthsing (Lib Dem) on 3,263, Aidan Campbell (Green) on 1,872, Ian Selby (Independent) on 1,017 and Jan Hansen (Lincolnshire Independent) on 724.

It reflects the picture nationally, with the Conservatives on track to receive the most seats by a sizeable margin and just shy of enough to form a government, contrary to pollsters’ predictions in the run-up to the election that it would be a much closer race between the Conservatives and Labour.

Asked about the national result at the election count, Mr Boles said: “I’ve consistently found for the last six weeks that things were much more positive on the doorstep than the opinion polls suggested. So I’m not surprised by the result, but I’m delighted by it and obviously all of the opinion polls do have quite a lot of egg on their faces because we kept on saying no things are looking pretty positive out there.”

“It seems like we were right and they were wrong,” he added.

After the Grantham and Stamford result was announced, Mr Boles said that he was surprised at gaining a larger majority. In his speech he said: “I believe that in the last five years we have managed to get the economy back on to a good track. We now need to ensure that everybody in our society, that everybody in Grantham and Stamford and Bourne, everybody benefits from a successful economy.

He added: “I want to thank the people of this constituency who have done me the great honour of re-electing me, from whom I have learnt so much in the last five years and from whom I look forward to learning so much more in the next.”

Meanwhile their former coalition partners the Liberal Democrats have been suffering heavy defeats across the country. The party’s down-heartedness was expressed by Grantham and Stamford candidate Harrish Bisnauthsing, who has fallen from second place in the 2010 election to fourth, although he admitted that this was better than he feared.

He said: “I think we have to go back to the drawing board and to think again. Probably at the moment I feel it’s like a punishment for being in a coalition supporting a Conservative government.”

UKIP’s Marietta King was delighted to come second, and described it as ‘a springboard to the next election’.

Turnout was down in Grantham and Stamford on the from 68% in 2010, to 66.5% of the current 81,150 electorate voting.

Results in Grantham and Stamford in 2010 were Nick Boles (Con) 26,552, Harrish Bisnauthsing (Lib Dem) 11,726, Mark Bartlett (Lab) 9,503, Christopher Robinson (BNP) 2,485, Anthony Wells (UKIP) 1,604, and Mark Horn (Lincs Indp) 929.