LONDON, May 23: British Prime Minister Gordon Brown suffered another severe blow to his authority on Friday as his Labour Party saw the Conservatives seize a seat it has held for two decades in a by-election.

Just three weeks after trouncing Labour in local elections, the Tories recorded their first by-election victory since 1982 to win control of the Crewe and Nantwich constituency in northwest England.

The extent of the victory was far greater than expected, with the centre-right party’s candidate Edward Timpson receiving 19 per cent more votes than Labour’s Tamsin Dunwoody, whose late mother had held the seat.

The winning margin represented a swing from the last election in 2005 of nearly 18 per cent.Conservative leader David Cameron hailed the victory as “the end of New Labour”, the term given to the revamped centre-left party under the stewardship of Brown’s predecessor Tony Blair as he took it into office in 1997.—AFP