THE General Election result, as far as constituencies in North Yorkshire and County Durham were concerned, was in line with our prediction of four weeks ago. No surprises, with the sole exception of Scarborough and Whitby, and perhaps that wasn't a surprise at all. Mr Blair's presence in Scarborough on the eve of poll simply seemed to galvanise the Tory vote in the town.

The safe Conservative seats in the rest of North Yorkshire simply got safer, with William Hague and Anne McIntosh boosting their already handsome majorities. Across the Tees, Labour lost a little ground, mostly to the Liberal Democrats, but not to a worrying extent.

The Conservatives will be particularly disappointed with their performances in Darlington and Harrogate. In Darlington, Alan Milburn bucked the national trend and actually increased his majority. Anthony Frieze made no impact at all which may speak more about the poor state of party organisation in the town than any inadequacy on the part of the candidate.

In Harrogate, the Conservative challenge also faltered, but here the Liberal Democrats strengthened their hold through Phil Willis, a candidate who has developed a national profile while remaining an assiduous constituency MP.

Elsewhere the Conservatives did regain a significant number of the rural seats they lost in 2001 but this was not enough. As the Tory election inquest has continued this week, there has been universal agreement that Harrogate and Darlington, and Stockton South, are the sort of seats the party has to seize back if it is to return to government.

While the country vote is once more secure - the hunting debacle may have played a part - the party is still a long way from regaining its vote in the towns.