By Mashaal Mir

The people of Wimbledon decided to paint the town blue once again as they re-elected their Conservative MP with a decisive majority.

Stephen Hammond received around half of the votes cast, and won with an increased majority of 12,707 votes over his Labour and Liberal Democrat rivals.

Mr Hammond said: “I hope that the Government to be formed, hopefully by David Cameron tomorrow, will give this country renewed hope to face the economic crisis and steer this country out of difficulty.

He added: “It is now clear that the Labour Party’s mandate to govern is no longer valid and this will become increasingly apparent.

“They’ve been wrong on most of the economic issues this year. This government looks like one which has run out of ideas.”

Mr Hammond also criticised the Liberal Democrats for using “negative campaigning” and called Nick Clegg’s surge in popularity a “bubble”.

Lib Dem candidate Shas Sheehan received 11,849 votes, while Labour’s Andrew Judge came third with 10,550.

One voter at the count said: “Wimbledon is very Tory. Especially now when many Tory voters see that they actually have a chance of winning the election, turnout amongst their supporters has gone up.”

The official turnout for the constituency was 72.4 per cent, up from the last election.