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LABOUR'S Joanne McCartney has clung on to her Assembly seat by a margin of just 1,400 votes.

The Enfield and Haringey Assembly member, whose seat was one of the most precarious in London and predicted to swing to the Tories, beat Tory hopeful Matthew Laban by scoring 52, 665 votes to his 51,263.

The result was announced at 9.40pm this evening after a nailbiting contest in which she trailed by several percentage points for most of the day.

Turnout was 46 per cent across the two boroughs.

Ms McCartney, who said beforehand that the race would be close, said she was "delighted and relieved."

She said: "The Tories said it would be an 'easy sell' taking this seat. Well we have shown today that we are fighting back, and it is not."

She added: "I'm grateful to the people of Enfield and Haringey who have responded. I would like to think that the last four years I have responded to all the constituents who have contacted me and campaigned with them on local issues."

She said her priorities would be crime, and safety, policing, and the transport improvements such as Crossrail and the revamped Victoria Line that will take place over the next few years.

Mr Laban said: "Obviously I am extremely disappointed. We know we mounted a challenge. I reduced the majority - I had more of a majority than Boris does. We need to see the breakdown of the figures but I imagine I won Enfield and Haringey was Labour - and a lot of Liberal Democrats will have voted Labour. I think we did what we could and clearly the residents of Haringey weren't ready for a change."

10:31pm Friday 2nd May 2008

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