Chris Took thanks Woking voters following election results

To the 6,047 people who voted for me on Thursday, thank you. I'm sorry that we could not win over enough people to overcome the Conservative dominance that has engulfed Woking since 1950.

Many more thousands voted for our local council candidates and I am sorry that we lost such tremendous local councillors in Tina Liddington and Louise Morales. Happily Will Forster was re-elected and will continue as our group leader.

Right now, it is a tough time to be a Liberal Democrat. The outcome of the elections both nationally and locally was worse than the most pessimistic of predictions.

It has been an absolute pleasure to work alongside such a committed and tremendous team as parliamentary candidate. Our fightback has already begun - at the time of writing our membership nationally has soared past 50,000 (with a number of new members in Woking). As a party we will regroup and recover - Britain needs a party espousing Liberal values - that party is our party.