We asked the five other candidates who stood in the general election to give us their views on the results.

Stroud News and Journal:

Caroline Stephens (Ukip) said: “I would like to thank the Ukip voters in Stroud for their support in our local campaign. The Ukip Stroud vote quadrupled compared to the national picture where the number of votes tripled overall.

“As for the various talks about our electoral system, the ‘first past the post’ system was designed in the age of the two-party contest yet there are now five main political parties in England.

“Overall, the Conservatives received about three times the number of votes that we did, but now have over three hundred times as many MPs. Ukip gained just one MP with 3,881,129 votes, and yet the SNP gain 56 MPs with 1,154,562 votes.”

Sarah Lunnon (Green Party) said: “Obviously I’m deeply disappointed with the result. The Green Party was squeezed by the broken electoral system which encouraged tactical voting.

“You can see that people do want the Greens having a say, which was demonstrated by the district election in Stroud, where we received a total of more than 9,000 votes. When it comes to the general election though, this system denies fair democratic representation, and it needs to change.

“The Greens will carry on fighting for the environment and social equality, because these issues aren’t going to go away, especially under a majority Conservative government. It’s sad to think that yet again we had a government that will continue to make the poor poorer and the rich richer.”

Adrian Walker-Smith (Lib Dem) said: “The result in Stroud was marginally worse than I expected, although I always knew that I would be lucky to save my deposit.

“I am, however, grateful to the 2,000 people who, despite the trend, voted Lib Dem as well as to the voters in Wotton who elected a Lib Dem councillor. I am also very pleased that the week since the election has seen an inflow of new members asking how they can help. In Stroud we have seem more new members in the past five days than in the five years after the 2010 election.”

Rich Wilson (independent, MyStroud MP) said: “The result on Thursday was certainly a surprise. The polls and all the data had David Drew as a clear winner, but we were all left shocked to see completely the opposite result. The key thing I think we’ve learnt is that we need to know how people feel about their representatives more than just once every five years, we need a better system of direct democracy.

“Whether you like the decision or not, the people of Stroud have voted for Neil Carmichael, so we are hoping to work with him in the coming months to implement the campaign.

“Our campaign has six MPs from around the country who have said they are going to work with us, and hopefully we can soon make that seven. We have spoken to Neil and so far had positive signs, so we are hopeful.”

David Michael (independent, Free Public Transport Party) said: “It’s good to have an MP re-elected who is committed to equality issues, especially gay rights, women’s right to choose and freedom of speech. I expect Neil to be on the more libertarian wing of the party and oppose the snoopers’ charter and other compromises to personal liberty.

“I was sad that the Free Public Transport party only got a 100 votes. This was a surprise as it was not a reflection of the feedback during the campaign, especially as we got 7,100 votes at the European elections in 2009.

“I think that five more years of austerity is not good for our economy, not good for poor people, public services including the NHS may suffer, despite the promises. We need a good opposition in Parliament.”