Graham Brady rules himself out of leadership challenge as he prepares to grill Theresa May on election outcome

That represented a slight increase on the total number of votes he had won in 2015, but his overall majority was slashed from 13,290 to 6,426 as Labour candidate Andrew Western secured 20,507 votes.

And he has today thanked constituents and promised to work hard for all “whatever their politics”.

He said: “I would like to thank all those who voted for me in the General Election to allow me to serve for another term as your Member of Parliament. It is a real privilege and a pleasure to represent my home town at Westminster. Throughout my service in Parliament I have worked hard for all my constituents, whatever their politics: I will continue to do so.

“Our country faces serious challenges over the coming years. I promise that I will continue to do my very best to serve the national interest.”

He told ITV’s Good Morning Britain this morning that the government’s “huge task” has been made “much more difficult by the result of the election” as he hit out at the Tory campaign as “one of the worst that I can recall”.

Brady himself had been touted by one commentator  as a contender for the leadership:

But Brady told interviewer Piers Morgan: “No, I thought you were going to be Prime Minister, Piers. What I really think is important is to try and have the best government we can, to try to work with the circumstances we have in the House of Commons, with the numbers the public have given us.

“We’ve had a general election, we didn’t get the result we wanted, we’ve got to make it work.

“I accept that the election campaign was one of the worst I can recall. We will doubtless have a post-mortem and come up with all sorts of people who might share some of the blame for that. We should have done better. What I will do is continue to do what I think is in the national interest which is to keep the Prime Minister in office and maintain a period of steady, stable government.”