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.