General Election 2019: Old election shocks smoothed out in North East

If 2017 was a year of high-voltage election results in the North East, 2019 was the year that balance was restored.

SNP supporters on hearing Gordon, Alex Salmond's old seat, has returned to the Nationalists.

Two years ago, the Conservatives took four out of five seats in Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire off the SNP.

Former SNP leader Alex Salmond was one of the casualties of the cull, as was Dr Eilidh Whiteford, whose Banff and Buchan constituency, where voters had stayed loyal to the Nationalists for 30 years, fell to the Tories.

Last night, the Conservative grip loosened to just two out of the five constituencies.

The Conservative majority of just under 8,000 in West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine was substantially reduced to just 843 as Andrew Bowie scraped a win for the Tories.

Here, support for Leave was at 61.38 per cent in 2016 - the highest in Scotland.

Meanwhile, Kirsty Blackman, the SNP deputy leader and spokesperson on economics, described her win as overwhelming after her majority rose to 12,760 in Aberdeen North. There, Labour has always been the main rival to the Nationalists but they slipped into third place behind the Conservatives.

Support for Labour, a party voted for by Aberdeen North for 100 years, disappeared like "sna aff a dyke," Ms Blackman said.