Rory Palmer’s a charmer isn’t he?

I turned up to last night’s Castle by-election count in my finest overcoat, a new shirt and pair of jeans, and took a seat. “Have you come straight from the boozer David?” he asked.

Presumably he was more flattering to Castle constituents when out on the doorstep, because Labour managed to claw back the seat from the Greens.

But while Labour managed to win by more than 100 votes, don’t think of this as an easy win. Twenty minutes before the result was announced Patrick Kitterick, hovevering around in his Barcelona shirt, said it was still too tight to call.

And although the turnout was tiny, the votes were counted and the results announced pretty sharpish, by about 11pm.

“Perry [Holmes] had to do a quick job this time, after the shambles at the General Election count back in May,” one councillor noted.