Poll sends 28 solicitors to Parliament

ELECTION RESULTS: two sitting solicitor MPs lose their seats but six others win a place in the Commons for the first time

The number of solicitors in Parliament has risen to 28 after the election, with six candidates winning and two sitting MPs losing their seats.Labour has 11 solicitor MPs, the Conservatives 15 and the Liberal Democrats two.Norman Lamb, who stood for the Liberal Democrats in Norfolk North, was the only solicitor to gain a seat from another party.

His 483 majority over the Conservatives was attributable in part to tactical voting.For the Conservatives, Jonathan Djanogly easily held on to John Major's old seat of Huntingdon.

Greg Knight (Yorkshire North), former social security minister Alistair Burt (Bedfordshire North East) and Mark Field (Cities of London and Westminster) also entered Parliament.

For Labour, Ian Lucas had an untroubled win in Wrexham.Conservative Patrick Nicholls, a partner at Exeter law firm Dunn & Baker, lost his Teignbridge seat, after a 3% swing turned his slim 281 majority into a 3,011 majority for the Lib Dems.

He had been in Parliament since 1983.Labour's Keith Darvill enjoyed just one term in Parliament after a 5% swing to the Tories overturned his 2,770 majority in Upminster.Of the other 35 solicitors looking to enter Parliament for the first time, the most disappointing result came for CMS Cameron McKenna lawyer Shailesh Vara - touted as potentially the UK's first Asian prime minister - who failed to reduce Labour's 744 majority in Northampton South.Eilian Williams, who had been hoping to succeed Plaid Cymru president, fellow solicitor Ieuan Wyn Jones, in his Ynys Mn seat, saw a 2,481 majority wiped out by a 4% swing to Labour, which won by 800 votes.Tory Steve Barclay narrowly failed to win Lancaster & Wyre from Labour, trimming a 1,295 majority to just 481.Two big Lib Dem hopes - Emily Gasson in Dorset North and Richard De Ste Croix in Southend West - failed to get the 5% swings they needed to upset sitting Conservatives, who both actually increased their majorities.

Mr De Ste Croix was pushed into third place by Labour.Notable performances among the sitting solicitor MPs included: Labour's Alan Hurst (Braintree) who just hung on to his marginal seat with a 358 majority; Tory David Ruffley (Bury St Edmunds), who increased his majority from a perilous 368 to 2,503; the Lib Dem's legal affairs spokesman, John Burnett, who held his Devon West and Torridge seat despite a slight swing to the Tories which saw his majority fall to 1,194; while the Tories' Stephen O'Brien (Eddisbury), Eleanor Lang (Epping Forest) and arch Euro-sceptic Bill Cash all saw swings in their favour, which were well above the national average.Solicitors stood for both the Tories and Lib Dems in the safe Labour seat of Streatham, with the Lib Dem's Roger O'Brien leapfrogging Stephen Hocking into second place.

The two well-known civil liberties lawyers who stood for the Socialist Alliance both lost their deposits: Jim Nichol got 532 votes (1.3%) in Jack Straw's Blackburn constituency, while Louise Christian polled 1,106 (2.5%) in Hornsey & Wood Green.Neil Rose