When will we get a result?

Dire rumours flying about the Mayoral count, hopefully all untrue. The worst is that we may not have a winner by midnight. Adam Boulton at Sky News confident of getting one tonight – but perhaps not until 10.30pm. One Tory Shadow Cabinet member says he has been told there’s 1% in it, so they will have to do a recount anyway – this conflicts with numerous reports that Boris is comfortably ahead. Even Brian Paddick has called it for Boris. But we were supposed to get the first vote at 3pm and the final result at 5pm. It’s now 6pm and most votes remain uncounted. The high turnout has overwhelmed the system, I’m told.

What strikes me is not just the scale of the results – although Labour’s loss of 295 seats and Tory gains of almost 400 is certainly an unalloyed disaster. It’s the way Cabinet members have nothing to say apart from “yes, really bad.”