The Conservatives have failed to land a key Merseyside marginal despite a second recount on Friday.

The Tories were looking to take the Wirral West constituency and had requested a second recount after it emerged that 45 ballot papers had apparently gone missing.

The recount, which took place at noon on Friday, resulted in TV presenter Esther McVey failing to defeat Labour's Stephen Hesford.

He was returned with a majority of just over 1,000 after a five per cent swing to the Tories.

Elsewhere in Merseyside, the Labour Party has held on to all of its seats.

Labour retained seats including Halton, Bootle, Crosby, Knowsley South, West Derby, Birkenhead, Liverpool Garston and Weaver Vale.

Another recount in the Labour-held seat of Crawley saw Labour's Laura Moffat retain the seat.

And a second recount in the key Conservative target of Harlow in Essex has been postponed until Saturday.

Election officials were deemed too exhausted to carry on with the count and were told to go home.

Around 80 volunteers had begun work at Harlow sports centre at 9.30pm last night, with the first ballot box arriving at 10.20pm.

The returning officer at Harlow halted work shortly after 6.00am on Friday and staff will return to determine the result following a further count tomorrow morning.

A spokesman for Harlow Council said: "Due to the tiredness of the count staff, a recount will now take place tomorrow.

"The decision to stop the count today was taken by the returning officer and followed consultation with the council's legal adviser."

Labour won a 5,228 majority over the Conservatives in the constituency in 2001.

The seat is being defended by Bill Rammell, a Foreign Office minister.