MARK Pawsey has retained the Rugby and Bulkington seat for the Conservatives.
Mr Pawsey comfortably defended his seat, increasing his majority by 5,235 to 13,447.
Mr Pawsey, who has held the seat since 2010, polled 29,255 votes, followed by Labour’s Debbie Bannigan with 15,808, Liberal Democrat Rana Das-Gupta with 4,207, and the Green Party’s Becca Stevenson with 1,544.
Turnout was 51,000 (70.2 per cent).
Mr Pawsey said: “I’m delighted to have been voted for the fourth time to represent my home town in Westminster. I look forward to continuing to work for all residents across Rugby and Bulkington.
“My job now is to hopefully pick up on the work that I’ve been doing over the past nine years as Rugby’s MP and to carry on working for all of the residents of Rugby.
“We’ve had a great turnout in this election. One of the concerns I had was that turnout might be low because of people being frustrated with politicians.
“But the turnout has been high and I pledge to continue to work for all of Rugby’s residents.”
The result was equally straightforward in Kenilworth and Southam, which includes parts of Rugby borough, where Jeremy Wright comfortably held onto the seat for the Tories.
The former MP for the old Rugby and Kenilworth seat was defending an 18,000 plus majority, which increased to 20,353.
Mr Wright polled 30,351 votes, followed by Liberal Democrat Richard Dickson with 9,998, Labour’s Antony Tucker who polled 9,440, the Green Party’s Alison Firth with 2,351 and Monster Raving Loony Party candidate Nicholas Green with 457.
Turnout was 77.2 per cent.
Mr Wright said: “I want to thank my campaign team for their remarkable support.
“I want to thank all the candidates I have shared the campaign trail with. I think we can be justly proud we can maintain a standard of discussion that it is for the most part honest respectful and enables people of the constituency to see the arguments clearly, and I like to think that it something we will see more of in politics in future.
“Politics I believe has become too fractious, argumentative and hostile and it is time to move past that. I hope the picture not just in this constituency but nationally too shows the constituency wants us to move past that and work better together in future.”
