Journalist Fiona Jones lost her marginal Labour seat at the general election, claiming there had been a vendetta in her constituency of Newark, in Nottinghamshire.

She was a key target for the Conservatives, whose Patrick Mercer took the seat with 20,983 votes to the 16,910 of the sitting MP.

Fiona Jones, who has worked for the Lincolnshire Echo and Lincolnshire Standard Group, has previously accused her local paper, The Newark Advertiser, of failing to report on her activities.

Her tenure was dogged by controversy when two years ago she was convicted of falsifying election expenses in a high-profile court case and was stripped of her seat before being cleared on appeal.

She said Mr Mercer’s victory had been “tainted”.

Former Birmingham Post editor Nigel Hastilow suffered a reduction in his party’s share of the vote as he contested Birmingham Edgbaston for the Conservatives.

He lost out to rising Labour star Gisela Stuart, who polled 18,517 to 13,819 to hold her seat.

In the Derby North Barrie Holden, managing director of the Reporter and Chronicle series of newspapers in Derbyshire, polled 15,422 votes for the Conservatives – not enough to unseat Labour’s Bob Laxton, who was returned to Parliament with 22,415.

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