UNTIL March 2003, he was one of the rising stars of Tony Blair's administration.

But last night, John Denham's decision to resign as a Home Office minister over the controversial war in Iraq appeared to have helped shore-up his support in Southampton Itchen during an election where voters seemed determined to give the Prime Minister a bloody nose.

Mr Denham won the seat with a majority of 9,302 votes over his Conservative rival Flick Drummond.

The result saw Mr Denham's vote tumble from 22,553 in 2001 to 20,871 this time. It means that Mr Denham's majority has been slashed by more than 2,000 from his winning margin in 2001.

Initially however, the announcement of the result by returning officer and Southampton Mayor Dennis Harryman had all the hallmarks of a massive upset. Councillor Harryman first read out to party workers and supporters who had crowded into the Guildhall that Mr Denham had received just 2,000 and not 20,000 votes - causing rival candidates to burst into laughter.

In his acceptance speech, Mr Denham said it had been a "real honour and responsibility" to represent Southamp-ton Itchen for the past few years.

But he acknowledged that some issues raised by other parties in the election needed to be addressed by a future Labour government.

He said: "Some of the issues raised by other parties in this election struck a chord and it will be our job as a Labour government that we address the issues and concerns that have been raised with us."

Flick Drummond, garnered 11,569 votes - in spite of having only been selected to fight the seat for the Tories just two weeks before the start of the campaign.

She was selected by Itchen Conservative Associa-tion after the deputy leader of Southampton City Council's Tory group, Councillor Royston Smith, failed to be put on the party's so-called "list" of approved candidates.

She said: "It was a difficult seat. I was brought in only six weeks ago and it is one of the reasons why I am so proud that we have done so well."

Lib Dem candidate David Goodall increased his party's share of the vote from 6,195 to 9,162.

He said he was "quite pleased" with his party's performance and said many Labour supporters had switched.

He said: "Education was a big issue but the war in Iraq didn't play quite so heavily because John resigned from the government. Council tax was another issue that came up."

Speaking after his acceptance speech, Mr Denham added that the interesting thing was that the Conservatives had made "no progress whatsoever".

He said: "We went down slightly and the Lib Dems went up slightly.

"Compared with some results across the country, our vote has held up extremely well."

Turning to Iraq he said: "Clearly a lot of people gave me some respect for speaking up on an issue I believed was right."

He also did not rule out a return to a role in the government at some future stage.

He said: "We have to see what happens in the next few days."

United Kingdom Indepen-dence Party candidate Kim Rose said that the party had doubled the number of votes that it had gathered in 2001.

SOUTHAMPTON ITCHEN 2005

John Denham (Lab) 20,871

Flick Drummond (Con) 11,569

David Goodall (Lib Dem) 9,162

Kim Rose (UKIP) 1,623

Majority 9,302

Hold

Turnout 55 per cent