MP’s joy after he increased majority

CRAIG Tracey has retained his seat for the Conservatives in North Warwickshire and Bedworth.

In what turned out to be a solid victory, increasing the majority from the 2015 elections, Craig came away with the spoils after receiving 26,860 votes, with Labour’s Julie Jackson finishing second with 18,350 votes.

Liberal Democrat candidate James Cox received 1,028 votes and Keith Kondakor of the Green Party received 940 votes.

The number of spoilt ballot papers was 137.

The re-elected candidate had served as MP for two years before Theresa May called a snap-election this year, and now the Durham-born politician can continue his work within the community and in the House of Commons.

After receiving the news that he would serve once again as MP for North Warwickshire and Bedworth, Craig told the Telegraph: “When you start off thinking you’re going to get five years and you plan ahead, I did feel that it stopped quite abruptly in the end.

“I’m delighted to get a bigger majority and I’m really looking forward to getting back and starting a lot of the things we want to do.

“It was quite nice to have a bit of time back in the constituency to talk to lots of residents, but also to reflect on some of the achievements that we had made.

“When you’re in Parliament things move so quickly so it was nice to sit back and see what we had done for the constituency.”

Craig, who started his own insurance brokers business at the age of just 21, was selected by North Warwickshire Conservative Association in September 2014 – he won on the first round in a secret ballot vote.

In 2015, Mr Tracey won his seat by 2,973 votes above then-Labour candidate Mike O’Brien.