In a seat made famous by Portillo’s collapse in 1997, there was to be no fairytale ending for Labour candidate Bambos Charalambous.

Instead, Conservative David Burrowes held firm to secure a third term in Enfield Southgate and beat Cllr Charalambous for a second time.

Mr Burrowes, who ousted Labour’s Stephan Twigg in 2005 with a 1,747 majority, commanded a 7,626 majority before tonight’s verdict.

Early murmurs suggested Cllr Charalambous was in with a chance as Labour were buoyed by last year’s local election after taking seats in Enfield Southgate wards.

But sources suggest that a low turnout of 66 per cent was not enough to give the candidate a chance.

That said, a UKIP vote of more than 2,000 for David Schofield would only have helped the Labour candidate.

Brief excitement for the Labour Party turned into despair as the adjudicators were called early in the night to verify the number of votes.

When the news of no recount came, the bell had almost tolled for the Labour candidate’s second crack of the whip in Enfield Southgate.

“We will be back,” said Mr Charalambous, in high spirits despite being up since 6am on Thursday morning.

Elsewhere there was no surprise that UKIP significantly increased their vote from 505 in 2010 to 2,109 this time around, the third largest in the constituency.

Jean Robertson-Molloy for the Green Party also saw a rise from five years ago, polling 1,690 compared to 632 previously.

It was no surprise to see the Liberal Democrats struggle and they lost more than 4,500 votes compared to 2010.