Phew! Well done Fiona and Frank!

Having spent the evening at our count in Darlington, where we were beaten into fourth place by UKIP, as we were in neighbouring Stockton, despite retaining our share of the vote, I dashed home to catch the results on TV, worried that Fiona Hall might lose her seat to UKIP.

As it turned out, Fiona retained her share of the vote across the region and the UKIP surge was insufficient to win a seat. The collapse in the Labour vote benefitted mainly UKIP, but thankfully not enough to seriously challenge Fiona.

The Darlington result includes the Conservative-voting villages from the Sedgefield Constituency, so it is difficult to identify clearly how this result would translate into a General Election result in Darlington. The probable result, based on tonight's figures, would be a narrow Conservative victory, with "Six Jobs" Milburn becoming "Five Jobs". However, with politics in such a state of flux, we shall be redoubling our efforts in the constituency, going for those Labour votes which went to UKIP this time.

Clearly, although it is two years until the next local elections, the Labour Party will lose heavily in 2011 based on these results.

For the record, the party figures in the Borough of Darlington were:
Conservatives 6775
Labour 4739
UKIP 3783
Lib Dems 3480
BNP 1779
Greens 1446
English Democrats 534
Socialist Labour 357
No 2 EU 270
Christians 264
Pro Democracy 108
Jury Team 97