Brighton and Hove's first female Member of Parliament will today take her place on the green benches of the House of Commons.

Celia Barlow defied predictions when she was elected Labour MP for Hove and Portslade with a tiny majority last week.

Nicholas Boles, her Conservative opponent, ran a strong election campaign and all the signs were that voters would end their eight-year affair with Labour and return to the Tories.

On the night the result could hardly have been closer. Only 420 votes separated the two front runners after a partial recount.

It was a nail-biting night and the new MP, a former BBC journalist, maintains she had no idea she was going to win until five minutes before the announcement.

Ms Barlow, who has refused to reveal her age, was born in South Wales and later lived in Birmingham, Bradford, London, Hong Kong, New York and Chichester.

She joined the Labour Party at the age of 16 to "fight for social justice and equality" and won the Labour nomination for Hove with the help of an all-woman shortlist after Ivor Caplin decided to stand down.

Ms Barlow, who studied at Cambridge University, was reluctant to describe her political views in terms of New or Old Labour but cited only two issues on which she has disagreed with the Labour leadership: further education, where she believes more should have been done to encourage vocational education in schools, and Iraq.

Although she said she wanted to draw a line under the Government's highly damaging decision to go to war, she admitted it was unlikely she would have won if she supported the invasion.

However, Ms Barlow has refused to join some Labour colleagues, including Kemptown MP Des Turner, calling for Prime Minister Tony Blair to step down sooner rather than later.

She said: "The timing of any handover from Tony Blair to Gordon Brown is up to them. Gordon will make a great prime minister but it's up to Tony Blair when he wants to go."

Ms Barlow, whose interests include cooking, gardening and playing computer games, said she was eager to get to work on her number one priority - securing the Falmer stadium for Brighton and Hove Albion.

Another first will be set for Sussex today when Conservative Nick Herbert, 42, becomes the county's first openly gay MP.

Mr Herbert, who won Arundel and South Downs, said: "I'm absolutely delighted to have won and I'm looking forward to sitting on the benches for the first time."

Mr Herbert, who is still waiting to be given an office and computer, said his priorities would be defending rural communities, opposing development on greenfield sites and being a good constituency MP.