Elections over.

So it is the day after a fascinating election at County Hall, where the Tories did as well as expected and the Labour party's support simply upped and left. They will have four councillors now, compared to 13 before and I wonder if they can ever recover from this in Leicestershire.
My guess is that yes, they will to an extent, it can't really get any worse after all and these things are always in cycles. But for the next four years their influence will be minimal.

Their biggest humiliation was the loss to the BNP in Coalville, and when the result came in there was a sharp intake of breath in the room at County Hall where I was and I'm told boos rang out at the count. Tory leader David Parsons said to me at the time that now that they have a councillor he would work to involve them in the democratic process, which will show them up for what they are.

Nationally the BNP have amongst the worst attendance record at meetings and have been thrown off several councils because of it. It will be interesting to see what happens here and whether we will have a by-election in Coalville before too long.

So the new council will have a new opposition in the Lib Dems, and Simon Galton will be their leader again. Simon is a man who quietly gets on with his business and I am glad he has had some success. He and Kevin Feltham have spearheaded the anti-Pennbury campaign but despite agreements the Tories started to cut him out of photo opportunities and even removed him from existing photos for their campaign literature on his patch, so I am glad he retained his seat. And as for Kevin Feltham, the man sacked from the cabinet two years ago, he romped in with 71 % of the vote, and a massive majority, so his hard work has paid off too.

I've seen the paper this morning online and I have to say I am proud of all the hard work. We had seven reporters at the counts with photographers and me at County Hall. I really wanted to go all out on it and we all did. I'm thrilled.

Anyway, I'm in London with the future wife and off to a birthday party later. So a few drinks, some sleep and then back to Leicester for the Euro count on Sunday.