Around Midnight One

By the witching hour we Labour tellers are performing our duties beautifully. The other parties are random this time. We are efficient and effective. The one Lib Dem who knows the score is pulled off this count about now as the sudden marginal of Manchester Withington needs her skills.

We do samples of the vote in our various key council seats. Newton Heath - because of the fascists. Hulme - because we have a solitary Green seated there. Whalley Range - because that's home turf for half the team. City Centre - because that too is a marginal three-Lib Dem target.

Once crazy Anne has gone we are the only ones applying ourselves to sampling the vote. And on a very hard night for Labour nationally we are very happy with what we see.

Though the students have not checked Tony's record - Anti-War, Anti-Foundations, Anti-Fees etc etc - and in a small number of polling stations they have voted against willy nilly.

But there are dozens of boxes. And a couple of tough ones are no problem when we can bob over to one of the other tables and watch an Ancoats or a Moss Side voting 7-3 or 10-nil respectively for our man Lloyd.