Former transport minister Karen Buck won Westminster North with a storming 11,512 majority after a count in the same building where James Corden was filming The Late Late Show.
Buck effortlessly held her seat, winning almost 26,000 votes compared to old Conservative rival Lindsey Hall’s 14,422. In 2015, Buck scraped a narrow victory over Hall, winning by just 1,977 votes. Consequently, the seat was considered a potential win for the Conservative Party.
After returning officer Ian Adams announced the result, Ms Buck said “young people had been at the heart of the election”, adding the result showed the British public did not want a “hard Brexit.”
“I am incredibly honoured that people have put their trust in me again. The young people have been at the heart of this campaign both politically and in terms of voting. All power to them, and long may they stay in politics,” she said.
“They [the voters] want to avoid a hard Brexit and that is clear. They want to preserve their public services on which we depend and which we cherish. We need to make sure those wishes come true.”
She joked the campaign has been won with “great humour and a lot of coffee”.
Later Ms Hall said to her supporters: “Here we are again, but this time it was by quite a large majority.”
Thanking her team, she said her failure to steal the seat from her old rival was “not for a lack of trying.”
Moments after the result was called, the results for Cities of London and Westminster were announced, with Conservative candidate Mark Field holding his seat.
Before the result was called, Ms Buck said the campaign had been her team’s “best ever.” She added: “It has been fantastic. All things aside, locally this has been a brilliant, positive and warm campaign and I have really enjoyed it.”
It was an exciting evening at Methodist Hall, the historic building a stone’s throw from Parliament Square. Just an hour in to the count, the place was evacuated when an emergency alarm sounded.
The hundreds of count staff, campaigners, media and workmen did not have to stand outside in the rain for long - with a false alarm declared within a few minutes.
A star-studded special edition of Corden’s Emmy-winning CBS series was being filmed in another area of the hall. Before the count started, tour buses, make up vans, technicians fixing lights and scaffolders could all be seen outside the venue.
According to one staff member, a hoard of screaming girls had been waiting outside for hours in the hopes of glimpsing Harry Styles, Emily Blunt and David Beckham, who were guests on the show.
General Election Night 2017 - In pictures
