The Chronicle
Newspaper

One of the shock results of the night was in Stockton South where Tory James Wharton not only held his seat in this key marginal constituency but increased his majority from 332 to 5,046, external.

Support for Labour went up across the region by 3% with Chi Onwurah, the Labour MP for Newcastle Central, enjoying the biggest bounce, adding an extra 9.1% to her vote share.

UKIP moved to second place in the vast number of constituencies and even came close to a breakthrough in Hartlepool.

@BBCPolitics

Labour leader Ed Miliband is going to address Labour party staff shortly, says BBC political correspondent Iain Watson. He understands from some sources that Mr Miliband is to stand down.

Barrister Greg Callus tweets, external: Next LibDem leader must be nominated by 10% MPs. That's now a single MP: Clegg, Farron, Pugh, Mulholland, Williams, Lamb, Carmichael, Brake

Labour's Mary Glindon increased her majority from 12,884 to 17,194 in Tyneside North, 55.9% of the votes.

Conservative Martin McGann came second with 19.2%, UKIP's Scott Hartley third with 16.3% up from 2.8% in 2010.

Liberal Democrat John Appleby saw his share plummet from 22.9% to just 4.4%.

Catherine Lee
BBC News

People in the Middlesbrough and Copeland council areas are also voting for a directly-elected mayor.

Image source, BBC news grab

In Middlesbrough, it is the end of an era, as previous incumbent Ray Mallon - who served three terms in the post since its introduction in 2002 - is no longer in the fray.

The Copeland election comes after a referendum held in the Lake District borough a year ago.

Ed Thomas
North of England Correspondent, BBC News

Westmorland and Lonsdale MP Tim Farron said he backs Nick Clegg, but could he be the Lib Dem leader by Monday?

Richard Moss
Political editor, North East & Cumbria

We'll have analysis and reaction to the North East and Cumbria results with a BBC Look North special at 09:05 on BBC One with Carol Malia, several guests and I.

Remember, we still have a handful of results to come later this afternoon.

Enter your postcode to see your local result here.

Laura Kuenssberg
Chief correspondent, Newsnight

The Balls moment - the one many people, maybe most, will remember. The political bruiser fighting back tears, talking with obvious passion and concern for his party. Loved and loathed, maybe in equal measure, as a political colleague and opponent he was probably universally respected. The scalp of such a big Labour figure, such a big part of Ed Miliband's team, surely must hasten the departure of the leader himself out of the door.

So let's recap all the main headlines from the elections in the North East.

• Labour take Redcar seat from Lib Dems

• Conservatives hold Stockton South

• First female MP for Cumbria

• UKIP make gains and come second in Gateshead

• North East now has SNP neighbours

• Hexham, Wansbeck, Blyth Valley, Berwick-upon-Tweed to declare later

• Conservatives set to win overall majority nationally

• Watch a Look North video round-up on Facebook, external

Colin Briggs
BBC Look North

Here's everything you need to know about the General Election results so far in the North East and Cumbria - exclusively for Facebook!, external

You can also scroll down this live page and see everything as it happened over night.

Duncan Leatherdale
BBC News Online

All six seats in the BBC Cumbria area have now been declared, meaning we can confirm there was a 66.5% turnout in the region, down 1.7% from 2010.

Westmorland and Lonsdale had the highest turnout with 48,929 of the 65,857 people registered to vote voting, that's 74.3%, while the lowest turnout was in Barrow and Furness with 63.3% getting to the polls.

The Conservatives received 104,627 votes securing them two seats while Labour's 76,420 won them three constituencies.

The Liberal Democrats got 34,271 votes, almost half of their 2010 tally, winning one seat, while UKIP saw their numbers rise from 5,740 at the last election to 32,417 yesterday.

Labour's Andy McDonald secured three times as many votes as second-placed UKIP's Nigel Baker in Middlesbrough.

Mr McDonald received 18,584 votes compared with Mr Baker's 6,107 - that's a vote share of 56.8% and 18.7% respectively, and a majority of 12,477 which is 3,788 more than the Labour MP got in 2010.

Simon Clarke came third for the Conservatives with 5,388 votes, 16.5%, followed by Hannah Graham from the Green party who received 1,407 votes, 4.3%.

Liberal Democrat Richard Kilpatrick came last after seeing his share slashed from 19.9% (6,662 votes) to 3.7% (1,220).

Tom Burrow tweets, external: Allerdale council confirmed polling station at Victoria Hall in Cockermouth briefly ran out of ballot papers yesterday. #GE2015

David Rhodes
Politics Reporter, BBC North East and Cumbria

The North East now has noisy Scottish National Party neighbours.

Berwickshire Roxburgh & Selkirk has been lost by the Lib Dems to the SNP, Calum Kerr won 20,145 votes, a 27% swing, with the Conservatives second and the Liberal Democrats relegated to third.

The SNP now have 56 MPs and they are going to say to Mr Cameron 'we'd like some more powers on top of the ones you promised'.

This means the North East of England is going to be confronted by an SNP with immense powers, and it now has to question where it goes next and how it responds.

Colin Briggs
BBC Look North

We've put together a round-up of the election results so far in the North East and Cumbria including results, reaction and analysis - take a look here., external

Andy McDonald has retained Middlesbrough for Labour.

Image source, Middlesbrough Council

Conservative James Wharton, who had previously won the marginal seat of Stockton South by just 332 votes, now has a majority of 5,046 over Labour's Louise Baldock.

Mr Wharton secured 46.8% of the votes, 9.8% more than Ms Baldock.

UKIP's Ted Strike came third with 10.6% with the Liberal Democrats' Drew Duning fourth having seen his share drop from 15.1% to 2.6%.

Northern Echo editor Peter Barron

Here's today's Northern Echo front page

Image source, Northern Echo

David Rhodes
Politics Reporter, BBC North East and Cumbria

With the majority of the seats now declared it's fair to say that the North East has been a lonely bright spot in what has been long and disappointing night for the Labour party nationally.

The party strengthened its grip on what can now be described as its only heartland, increasing its share of the vote and winning back the seat of Redcar from the Liberal Democrats.

However in what surprised many pundits the Conservatives not only hung onto the marginal seats of Stockton South and Carlisle, they in fact increased their majorities.

So what next for our region?

Well with the SNP winning the majority of seats in Scotland and the Prime Minister pledging to devolve more power north of the border our new elected politicians will no doubt feel they need more than ever to ensure our region's voice is heard within the corridors of power in the coming months.

Labour's Jon Woodcock has kept Barrow and Furness.

All the Cumbrian constituencies have now been declared.