With just 45 hours to go until the polls opened, Sood slammed the leader of his own party. As every media outlet in the country picked up the story, Peter Mandelson picked up the phone – and gave Manish an ear-bashing.

The phonecall ended on bad terms, and one of them hung up. Mandelson then toured the TV channels, making some questionable slurs on Sood’s character.

We all thought that was the end of the matter.

However word reaches me that Lord Mandelson, in his rage, forgot to withhold his mobile telephone number when he made the call.

Suddenly, the hyperactive councillor had a personal hotline to the Labour Party’s chief strategist. And, predictably, he’s been using it.

Lord Mandelson will presumably dial 141 before calling off-message candidates in future.

As the lobbying scandal exploded Liz emphasised that she’d worked with Patricia ‘in the past’ and that she wanted to focus on her own record.

On another occasion she said:

“I don’t think people closely associate me with Patricia Hewitt. I’m the new candidate. Judge me, on me.”

But figures from the Electoral Commission that the all-new candidate’s campaign was funded by the controversial old one – at least in part.

The most recent published figures show that Patricia Hewitt herself donated £3,100 to the Leicester West constituency Labour party on March 1 this year.

It was the only donation made to the constituency party in the first quarter of this year, and the first in at least a decade from Ms Hewitt to the local party.

£3,100 is, of course, slightly more than Ms Hewitt’s claimed daily rate…

At noon today I tweeted:

At 1pm today it was revealed that the former shadow attorney general had been pipped to the post by Dominic Grieve.

I was preparing to discuss Tory gains in Leicestershire with Nick Ferrari on LBC radio in London at the crack of dawn. I’d already set my alarm clock for 6am.

But when the biggest story of the week broke yesterday afternoon, the station’s news schedule rapidly had to change.

I managed to have a snooze until 8am after all…

From ConHome torydiary:

Forget the meat of election night, I’ve got a bone to pick.

Why did the counts in the city take so long on Thursday?

While rural seats – some of them originally predicting 6am finishes – managed to announce the outcome of tight races as early as 1.30am, in the city we were left hanging around until 5am for official outcomes.

The original estimates were between 2.30am and 5am. But that still means they only just hit their most pessimistic target by a few minutes.

A pointless phased system of checking questionable ballot papers seemed to be at fault, but I’m not an expert in electoral procedure.

However, I admit that my anger is mainly down to the fact that I was affected by the delay more than most, and was left frantically filing copy with just minutes to spare until the paper went to print.

I was so tired that I managed to spell my own name wrong on the Leicester South results article.

Challengers in the county’s marginals don’t look quite so confident of victory, while incumbents in safe seats across the city and beyond are beginning to think the unthinkable: “Could I lose on May 6?” One or two seats which were seen as untouchable at the start of the campaign now look dead-heat marginals.

The polls say Britain has a Labour Party with falling support, a Conservative Party unable to seal the deal with the British public, and an unexpected Liberal Democrat surge which is either the dawn of three party politics, or a bubble waiting to pop.

There’ll be no clarity before next Thursday, but one thing is already guaranteed:

There won’t be a single candidate who can sleep soundly on May 5.

So if the two parties are happy to share government, then it’s no surprise that they’re happy to share advertising space on the same building here in Harborough.

Zuffar Haq’s way ahead of the game on the coalition front…

The man who many say has ambitions to be Prime Minister arrived in a humble Ford Focus – the era of austerity has already begun.

Before mounting a serious challenge to be a future occupier of Number 10 – and a smart new chauffeur-driven Jaguar – he might want to work on his image.

As he slowly walked up the steps while snappers snapped away, a local Labour councillor turned to her friend inside and said: “Which one is Ed Balls?”

• We are seen as serious players for the first time
  

• Our popularity surge may not last

• Now is a good time to cash in…
  

Subject: SUNDAY POLLS.

Dear all,

Remember the following:

1. The Tories probably have a very narrow lead.
2. Labour and Lib Dems are too close to separate.
3. The Lib Dem surge is statistically very significant but may not last. It may be a short term response to the manifesto launch and the leaders debate, similar to post party conference rises that all parties benefit from but disappear quickly.
4. The Lib Dems are taking support off both parties but more from the Tories than from Labour.
5. There is evidence that perhaps a majority of voters would like to see a hung parliament.
6. There must be a chance that Lib Dem support will take off because we are seen to be serious players for the first time and a vehicle for the deep disillusionment with traditional party politics.
7. NOW IS A VERY GOOD TIME TO APPROACH BUSINESS PEOPLE FOR MONEY. WE NEED TO ACT AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE TO CASH IN ON THE HIGH LEVEL OF INTEREST IN NICK AND THE PARTY. Candidates won’t necessarily have the time to do it. They need to appoint someone to do it for them.