Every word Karl McCartney said after losing his Lincoln seat to Labour's Hamish Falconer

The Conservative Party has suffered one its worst election results of all time, with the party losing more than 200 seats in a catastrophic night for the Tories. One of the many Tory MPs to lose their seat overnight was Lincoln's Karl McCartney, who fell to a significant defeat against Labour's Hamish Falconer.

In fact, Labour won with almost double the votes that the Conservative Party earned in Lincoln, with Reform UK taking a major part of the Tory vote share in the city. Mr McCartney dropped 24.9 per cent from his voting share at the 2019 General Election, where he defeated former Labour MP Karen Lee by 4,000 votes.

Speaking following the count in Lincoln last night, the now former MP said he had expected the result and "could read the tea leaves" ahead of the election, following a tumultuous few years in the Conservative Party.

Mr McCartney said it was: “Definitely not the result I was hoping for, obviously. But I put it down to people – that’s democracy, that’s how it works.

"The people have spoken, and the people have said, actually, divided parties do not win elections. We already knew that plenty of my colleagues, perhaps on my side of the political spectrum, and my side of the broad church, and in the Conservative party, we knew that too, and so some of my colleagues who perhaps aren’t on that side of the spectrum need to take a long, hard look at themselves and some of the things that they’ve done in the past three, four years.

“You know, the proof is in the pudding, we’ve ended up where we are today. I wouldn’t say it’s shocking, because I’ve got to say, you know, I’ve been around in politics quite a while. You know, you can read the tea leaves, but it’s still disappointing.”

Lincoln's new MP, Labour's Hamish Falconer, said he feels "so proud" after taking victory in the election. Mr Falconer told the Local Democracy Reporting Service: "I’m feeling so proud and so glad and so ready I hope.

"My message to locals and voters in Lincoln is thank you for the trust that you’ve put in me. Thank you for the time that thousands of you have spent with me on the doorstep. I will do my best not to let you down. I will work hard for you every single day, and I will remain accountable to you, and I’ll keep talking. So please keep telling me what your priorities are."

Speaking to the audience after his win he said: "Thank you. I spent most of my diplomatic service in places where democracy did not exist or it was a sham. So I feel particularly moved tonight after a proper competition with my colleagues to have been chosen by my neighbours and fellow residents in Lincoln.”