He moved house, gave up his job, and invested time, money and his reputation on a tilt at a seat in parliament - for nothing.

Last week Matthew Maxwell Scott missed out on becoming Carshalton and Wallington MP by about 1,500 votes, leaving Tom Brake one of only eight remaining Liberal Democrats at Westminster.

Mr Maxwell Scott has spoken of his experience on the campaign trail, and the pain of managing the rare feat of coming second to a Liberal Democrat.

He said: "Obviously I was pleased with the overall result, but I was disappointed that I did not get much in the way of support from the party.

"They had a number of seats that were their priority, like Sutton and Cheam, but I fell just outside of their target seats.

"Much of what I did was of my own doing and out of my own pocket.

"It was devastating to lose, and lose publicly, but to lose to one of the few Lib Dems who won was particularly hard to swallow.

"All the candidates find out before the results are announced in so they can compose themselves before hand.

"It's not, after all, very British to show your emotions in public, but, that said, it is devastating."

The former BBC speech writer and Wandsworth councillor took a cheeky swipe at MPs and former Labour leader Ed Miliband before saying where he would go from here.

He said: "All MPs are geeks, about election results, and some are just geeks. 

"And I'm not saying I'm 'Joe Cool,' but I am interested in politics and the political process and I thought that I could have done a better duty than our current incumbent, Tom Brake.

"If there can be a positive I can take away from it all though that is I have more time to spend with my family.

"I haven't got the money to move, but I wouldn't want to anyway. My son has been accepted to a good school and we're settling in now.

"And who knows what I'll do in the future with many different elections coming up, but right now I'm in Carshalton, I love Carshalton. I'm not going any time soon."