Bill blogs the election

Friday 03.56 - OK, no more procrastination, I'm off to bed. See you all sometime (much) later this morning.

Friday 03.45 - OK Bill is definitely off to bed now! However, before I go Nicola Sturgeon gains Glasgow Govan for the SNP from Labour! Majority 744. For those nighthawks amongst you may I suggest you give Mr Eugenides, doctorvee and inquisitor a visit - they and some others seem still to be blogging. Oh, before I go, the LibDems have taken Dunfermline West from Labour.

Friday 03.38 - Bill is off to bed. However, before I go I give the latest overall positions as shown at present on the BBC Election pages:
- Scotland: Labour -3, SNP +4, LibDem -1 (23 of 129 seats declared)
- England: (Council elections) Conservative +201, Labour -131, LibDem -43, Others -27
(110 of 312 councils declared)
- Wales: Labour -2, Plaid +1, Others +1 (21 of 60 seats declared)

Friday 03.35 - I hear they are going to stop the count at one count (Bishopbriggs) and start again tomorrow. It is being said there will be 100,000 spoiled votes across Scotland - this new local government voting system has simply been a shambles.

Friday 03.29 - Stirling - SNP gain from Labour. 9.4 per cent swing from Labour.

Friday 03.21 - Amusing comments at Tartan Hero about the reaction by the BNP person to what the Labour victor at Glasgow Anniesland was saying when he switched from criticising the heckling from SNP (or Solidarity?) supporters to voicing his view of the need to support asylum seekers. Priceless!

Friday 03.14 - Fergus Ewing (Inverness East, Nairn & Lochaber) being interviewed at the Inverness count about Alex Salmond's win in Gordon. Is criticising the postal vote shambles. Although I got my postal vote quite normally it seems that many others did not, right across Scotland. One wonders whether it will have a material effect on the result, if it turns out to be close.

Friday 03.04 - Gordon - Alex Salmond wins seat! He's now doing his 'statesman' speech - ugh! To be fair to him, though, he is being very gracious in his comments. Is criticising the STV voting in local elections; I agree with him! Also the completely inadequate postal voting mechanisms; again I agree! Turnout 54 per cent. Majority 2,062. Salmond has unquesitonably increased his profile with this result. Unionists like me must tremble; he is now more likely to be able to push through his separatist agenda.

Friday 02.56 - Fife Central - Idiot (*) BBC anchor insisted on speaking over the results announcement with some stupid, pointless, discussion about Gordon and Salmond! Idiot!! I don't swear in this blog, but I'd have used a different word otherwise. SNP gain from Labour. Turnout 46.3. SNP +14 per cent, Labour -2 per cent. (*) - Actually this anchor is usually quite good, but he has obviously got carried away with getting to anchor a major programme, probably for the first time

Friday 02.45 - Reactionary Snob highlights the rowdy behaviour amongst the Glasgow 'neds' of Baillieston; I watched the good lady giving her acceptance speech for Labour; I would imagine she could wield a broken bottle handily (is this libellous?) so I wouldn't like to meet her in a dark alley - lol.

Friday 02.38 - Dumfries - Labour hold. Conservative Murray Tosh fails in his bid for an FPTP seat (and it is unlikely he will get a List seat either as he is 4th on their list) - their share has actually gone down! SNP up 7 per cent.

Friday 02.36 - My view since I returned home from Spain a couple of weeks ago is that the 'hype' for the SNP was much exaggerated; this seems to be being borne out. I don't think they are going to have a landslide tonight; Labour are probably safe(-ish).

Friday 02.33 - Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch - Labour hold. Turnout 53.6 per cent. Labour have done well to hold on to this one.

Friday 02.30 - Glasgow Baillieston - Turnout 43.1 per cent. Labour hold.

Friday 02.26 - Talking heads on the Beeb say Alex Salmond is believed to have won Gordon; no official declaration yet; this seems to be confounding other parties' soundings, so perhaps it is quite a close-run thing. It will certainly increase Salmond's personal prestige and credibility if the SNP does do similarly well overall tonight.

Friday 02.12 - Wales - first results declared - Labour hold Islwyn with a reduced majority, swing to an Independent. In Blaenau Gwent Labour lose to an Independent with a swing of 46.5 per cent!!

Friday 02.07 - SNP hold Dundee East. Turnout 49.9 per cent. Majority 4,524. SNP +10 per cent, Labour -7 per cent.

Friday 02.06 - SNP hold Moray easily.

Friday 02.03 - English locals - BBC is reporting 72 Councils (out of 312) declared.
So far Conservatives +86, Labour -37, LibDems -28, Others -21.

Friday 01.52 - Airdrie and Shotts - Labour hold. Turnout 49.77 per cent. Majority 1,446 - Labour down 13 per cent, SNP up 17 per cent! Still no upsets, but perhaps this may start to have an effect when the List results come through.

Friday 01.46 - East Kilbride - votes having to be rescanned. Same nonsense in Fife, where the screens have gone blank - I had that problem tonight myself, or at least one of the external hosting systems on which my blog depends (blogrolling.com) was down for a while, but thankfuly has come back to life.

Friday 01.42 - Glasgow Anniesland - Labour hold. Turnout 45.8 per cent. Majority 4,306. Labour up 2 per cent; SNP up 10 per cent!

Friday 01.27 - no results yet from Wales. Perhaps our Welsh friends are more pre-occupied with their sheep than counting the votes? (Will this earn me a slap on the wrists for impugning the good name of the leek-eaters?)

Friday 01.24 - On a much more important topic than the election I must report that the bottle of Chapel Down English 'sparkling wine' (aka 'champagne') which I opened about an hour ago, to follow on from the bottle of Prosecco I polished off throughout the evening, is drinking very well; it has a really nice dry biscuity, toasty flavour with quite a long finish.

Friday 01.13 - Dundee West - SNP gain from Labour. They're now discussing on the Beeb the risk that Alex Salmond may suffer in the List if there are too many SNP constituency MSPs in his region - sweet irony - Gordon requires a swing of 7+ per cent from the LibDems for him to win it.

Friday 01.02 - Glasgow Kelvin - results in - very low turnout 42.7 per cent. Labour hold (majority 1,207) against SNP. Labour down 2.2 per cent, SNP up 7.6 per cent. Absence of SSP may have helped Labour, or at least slightly disadvantaged the SNP - the Greens did pretty well there, too.

Friday 00.59 - I've just popped the nifty code about who is 'blogging tonite' (a bit like 'chicken tonite' I suppose) kindly supplied by doctorvee.

Friday 00.41 - Mr Eugenides keeps up a lively and pithy running commentary, only slightly laced with profanity.

Friday 00.38 - Motherwell & Wishaw - SNP votes up 7 per cent, Labour down 6.6 per cent. Could be significant later in the night in other areas, specially as this is such a strong Labour area.

Friday 00.31 - Motherwell & Wishaw declared - Jack McConnell 12,574 - re-elected - healthy majority (5,938). No surprise there really. 48.5 per cent turnout - pretty low.

Friday 00.28 - First Scottish declaration - Wishaw - Jack McConnell seems to be happy - baited breath...

Friday 00.24 - English locals - I'm not going to post further info. about these until at least 2am - the best updates seem to be on Sky News bottom-of-screen results tables - BBC News24 seems much less timely. Hopefully by then we will also have had at least SOME of the Scottish declaration!

Friday 00.16 - Edinburgh - torn ballots - being stuck - together with sellotape!! How did this happen? Sabotage? Just an 'accident'? (Some 'hunky' looking counting staff - gotta introduce a more important aspect to this whole boring phase of the evening - lol!)

Friday 00.14 - English locals - LD hold West Lindsey - Conservstives hold Broxbourne.

Friday 00.06 - English locals - Conservatives hold Tamworth and Brentwood.

Friday 00.04 - three arrested in Peterborough near a polling station for electoral offences, thought to relate to the theft of polling cards.

11.59pm English locals - Kingston upon Hull - LD 30 - Labour 20 - Conservatives 2 - Others 7.

11.52pm I've just seem Jack McConnell walking into his count - presumably the result there will be out soon.

What a jerk Tommy Sheridan is - and why is he wearing a bizarrely defaced sunflower? I've had to soften the screen to prevent sunburn from the orange glow.