Well although the election campaign was fought as hard as ever, and probably even harder judging by the blisters that appeared on my feet, the count on Friday morning was a huge disappointment as we lost our seat in Tilehurst, along with seats in Katesgrove and Redlands, leaving us with just 6 councillors in Reading.

We lost Tilehurst to the Tories by 200 votes and they were almost as surprised as we were at the result.

Can I take this opportunity of saying a big thank you to all our helpers in Tilehurst for contributing to a really tough campaign for us. In the end it appears that we lost the election on national issues rather than local concerns. It was a very sad day for my colleague Chris Harris who lost his council seat.

The job now is to pick ourselves up and get into gear for the next campaign.