So then, the votes are counted, the rosettes discarded and the swingometer has swung its last. What did we get?

Somehow our crazy and unrepresentative electoral system gave us what I and I think a lot of other people wanted - Labour back in with a reduced majority. Is this Adam Smith's Invisible Hand at work or is this Genesis's Invisible Touch? Whatever it was congratulations to my friend Liam Byrne for holding on to Birmingham Hodge Hill, I'm glad he wasn't a casualty.

The Tories did do better than expected and most troublingly they did better against the Lib-Dems. I can see the next election the Lib-Dem/Backdoor theory really could happen. It happened to the south of me in Hammersmith and Fulham: leftie vote split between Lib-dem and Labour ergo new Tory MP - what a nightmare scenario. Still in the next election the People's Republic of Shepherds Bush will be part of Hammersmith and Fulham and I look forward to voting for Gordon Brown/Labour and letting the Tory spend more time with his family (or someone else's - you know how these Tories are).

The Lib-Dems did well but not well enough. The BNP didn't do that well but did better than I'd like.

As always the true election night highlights were Peter Snow's graphics - his swingometer, election battlefields, first-past-the-post thingy are becoming more and more elaborate that it must take the finest minds at TV Centre a good 4 years to think up what's next. It's becoming so close to The Day Today that I half expect Brant, the physical cartoonist, to be called on to illustrate matters in his own way soon. But you can't go wrong in the avuncular care of David Dimbleby all night - what a powerhouse.

Other highlights for me included the 59% swing away from Labour in Aneurin Bevin's old seat of Bleanau Gwent towards an independent ex-Labour councillor pissed off that the Party had foisted an all-woman shortlist on them. I don't know what to make of this - I think we should do what we can to advance the cause of woman in parliament and it does sound like reactionary old men not liking the sound of it. But part of me thinks it's great that they stuck it to the Man (Labour big wigs) for telling them what to do.

Lowlight was probably George Galloway beating Oona King in Bethnal Green and Bow. I've always been a fan of hers and I just don't get George Galloway, I certainly can't warm to him. He always seems so impressed by himself. I'd like to see if his record in parliament this time around is any better than before where he seldom voted or attended any debates as MP for Glasgow Kelvin.