I'm finally getting back to normality after the madness of last week. It was a weird election campaign for me, and a weird election day. Instead of the usual running around, delivering and knocking doors, I spent election day in an office, on the telephone, ringing voters in Edgbaston for 10 hours. The mere thought of telephone work fills me with dread, though once I got going I quite enjoyed. While most of the calls were straightfoward, I did have some interesting conversations with people, and I think I may even have helped to persuade a couple of waverers. I also got an indication that people were doing what I suspected they would do - wavering until the last minute, but in the privacy of the polling booth realising that they couldn't not vote Labour - whether with gritted teeth or nosepeg, they voted to keep the Tories out, if not to keep Blair in. Hence the importance now in my mind to get a definitive timetable for sucession into place. Yesterday there was talk of 2008..I think a lot of people are going to want a change sooner rather than later, and certainly sooner than 2008.

Like Political Hack, I'm pleased with Thursday's result overall - obviously a great result in Edgbaston, a strong showing in my own constituency of Erdington and in Birmingham generally (With the exception of Yardley - truly a cloud without a silver lining if John Hemming intends to keep his promise to stay on as a Councillor - the only advantage to him becoming an MP would be if we no longer had to put up with him in the Council Chamber..). I didn't go to the count on Thursday. After last year's marathon local election count, hanging around the NIA for several hours didn't really appeal. As there are two 'tranches' of counts on election night, if you are in the second tranch (as Erdington was) your count will likely not even start until well after midnight - and this year Erdington didn't declare until around 4.20am. I watched the results on TV instead- election night isn't really the same without Peter Snow and his surreal computer graphics. This year I was particularly taken with the sliding door at No.10, and the odd CGI figures of the party leaders running to cross the finishing line..a good night overall.

We held the final evidence gathering meeting for the mobile masts scrutiny today. The focus was on TETRA systems, so we had representatives from the Police and a pressure group called TetraWatch giving evidence. O2 Airwave, who provide the Police TETRA service were due to attend the meeting and submit evidence, but their representative pulled out yesterday, apparently due to concerns about the possibility of disruption during the meeting. I'm not sure who they thought might be disruptive in a meeting in the Council House, but they didn't show up. A written submission will be requested, but I'm not too optimistic about getting a response.  

We held Part 1 of the Labour Group AGM on Saturday morning - elections of Leader and Deputy Leader, Shadow Cabinet and Group Officers took up the best part of the morning. Part 2 will not be held until Monday, so we all have to wait a week to find out what Committees we are on. I suspect next weekend, we will be waiting to find out who the new Lib Dem Leader will be. My knowledge of the political machinations of the Lib Dems is sadly limited, so I can't make any predictions on that one..

Another busy week. Monday was the second part of the Labour Group AGM, where we found out about Shadow Cabinet positions and Committees. I'm continuing as a member of the Housing Scrutiny Committee for another year, and joining the Transportation and Street Services Scrutiny Committee, plus the usual appointments to related outside bodies. I got what I asked for anyway! Tuesday was the Council AGM and Mayormaking; we had the ceremonial bit where we elect the Lord Mayor and the Deputy Lord Mayor, and everyone says nice things about each other; then the new Lord Mayor goes out to get robed and comes back to chair a short Council Meeting, which mainly dealt with Council appointments - there was a minor bust up over the Sutton Park Advisory Group, mainly from those Sutton Tory Councillors who seem to be of the view that no-one from outside Sutton Coldfield uses Sutton Park. We lost that vote, and the vote on the Police Authority, where the Tories and Lib Dems voted in Deirdre Alden - presumably as consolation for her failure to win Edgbaston..

Yesterday I went to a meeting with an organisation who may be able to help us out with employment issues in Kingstanding. They have done some excellent work elsewhere in the District and we are hoping to get them in to do some work with us - hopefully more on that soon, if we can get them in. I did an Advice Bureau last night at Witton Lodge, and walking back to the bus stop I was please to see huge amounts of rubbish out on the pavement. Not usually something I'm happy to see, but as a bulky rubbish collection was due this morning, it was good to see that people are taking advantage of the service.