Battersea re-elected MP Jane Ellison described Labour’s campaign as ‘loud and fizzy’ after successfully holding on to her seat with a 7,938 majority.
While Ms Ellison led what many people thought was a quiet campaign, Labour’s Will Martindale made full use of social media to get his points across in the run up to the general election.
However, Ms Ellison’s win tonight showed that going back to basics worked for her.
She said: “Selfies are fun, but don’t win elections. At the end of the day general elections are about something extremely serious.
“Things like photos and social media are all good fun, add to the buzz of the election, but ultimately it’s not the thing that it’s on people’s minds really who are in the voting booth.”
The re-elected minister won 26,730 votes, while Martindale got 18, 792.
The Tories increased their share of the vote by 5% since 2010.
Ms Ellison was hopeful she would win, but admitted that because she is naturally a very cautious person it was a better result than expected.
“It was an enormous privilege to be able to serve such a brilliant constituency,” she said.
“When we were campaigning we had a sense that locally people felt that I worked hard and I’ve done a good job.”
She said: “I’m feeling relieved, excited and of course honoured. It’s a huge privilege to serve such a brilliant constituency as this. I’m delighted.”
With Mr Martindale describing the lack of affordable housing at the Nine-Elms regeneration at Battersea Power Station unacceptable, Ms Ellison said: “I think there is a housing challenge right across London and indeed across the country and I think it is particularly through London.
“The point I often made, which I’m not sure everyone took on board, on housing was that in a constituency like this you come across different price ranges for housing and it’s not just about affordable housing.”
Conservative policy would look to extend the Thatcherite housing strategy opening the right-to-buy option to 1.3m families. The policy would see London-based families cap their right to buy at just under £103,000.
After her victory Ms Ellison said: “It is a debate about creating different ranges of housing. I think people do understand that to be able to do that you need to invest. There are a number of important issues we are beginning to see tackled with very ambitious housing policies and I will be certainly be pushing them to make sure they follow through.”
The reelected MP was quick to dismiss criticism of foreign investment in the Battersea Power Station development.
She said: “I think statistics on Nine Elms are a little unfair, across the Nine Elms development area the council has committed to 20% affordable housing and that will be once the whole scheme is delivered.”
