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.

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