THE outspoken and prominent Assembly Member David Davies' victory over Huw Edwards regains the Monmouth seat for the Tories for the first time since 1997.

Mr Edwards was defending a slender majority of 0.9% or just 384 votes after his triumph in 2001.

In recent years the battle for the Monmouth constituency was a titanic one between Labour and the Conservatives - two giants slugging it out for power.

This morning Mr Edwards was denied his third successive election triumph after beating Roger Evans in 2001 and 1997.

Between 1992 and 1997 Mr Evans served as Monmouth's MP during John Major's reign as prime minister.

Mr Evans wrestled the seat back from Mr Edwards after he won in 1991 during a famous by-election victory.

Prior to Mr Edward's arrival on the local political scene, Monmouth, an Anglicised, largely prosperous and rural border constituency, was largely Tory country and Labour wasteland.

The only victory Labour recorded prior to 1991 was in 1966 when Harold Wilson entered Number Ten after a landslide Labour triumph. Now after changing hands four times in five election campaigns, Monmouth is back in Tory hands.