PHILIPPA Whitford has voiced her delight after being elected as Irvine’s MP.

In a landslide victory, the Scottish National Party candidate romped to victory with a majority of 13,589 - ending her predecessor Brian Donohoe’s 23-year reign as MP for Central Ayrshire.

In the months and weeks leading up to the election, many could not pick a winner between Ms Whitford and her Labour rival.

To the surprise of many at the tense count at the Citadel Leisure Centre in Ayr, early rumours circulated that Mr Donohoe - who had a 12,000 majority coming into the election - was on course to finish third.

However, although Mr Donohoe managed to finish runner-up, the Labour candidate faced a crushing defeat at the hands of the Ms Whitford and the SNP.

Overall, Ms Whitford gained 26,999 votes while 13,410 people voted for Mr Donohoe.

Conservative candidate Marc Hope finished third with 8,803 votes while Liberal Democrat Gordon Bain (917 votes) and Veronika Tudhope of the Green Party (645 votes) finished fourth and fifth respectively.

Speaking to the Times immediately after her election, Ms Whitford insists jobs will be top of her agenda to “make Ayrshire better”.

She said: “It’s been an incredible day and an incredible evening.

“I’ve things to learn as an MP and it will depend on what the set up is we can’t guarantee to be in a coalition or in power but what we can absolutely guarantee is Scotland’s voice because everything in the House of Commons is in proportion to the number of seats.

“Looking at the complete change of the colour of Scotland, we will be in committees, we will have questions, we will have a role to play and what we will be doing is putting Scotland’s voice into that and that’s what we’ve not had in the past.

“I’m quite a good ideas person, I’d hope all four constituencies in Ayrshire could get together quite quickly. Let’s look at what we’ve got that’s good, let’s meet businesses and see how we join things up because what we need is jobs, we need people working.

“The estimates were varied, some people thought it was a done deal but some more experienced people in the group thought it might be a recount. But I was absolutely astounded when I saw the votes stacking up.”