First meeting of the London Assembly. This meeting is by law required to take place within 10 days of the election. It is really a matter of formalities. We have now signed an agreement with the Tories which states clearly that there is no policy agreement – but which delivers the Chairs of 4 of the key committees between us. They will chair the Assembly and the Budget Committee in the first year and we will chair Business Managers and Transport Committee in the fist year.

Lots of concern that we have linked with the Tories – but it is a matter of power broking and keeping faith with London. As uncomfortable as it is to have any agreement with the Tories as we are diametrically opposed on most policy issues – it is important for London and holding the Mayor to account not to have a Labour member in these posts.

Can you imagine a Labour chair examining a Labour Mayor on his budget? How testing for him that would be – not!

All the other subject committees will be decided, hopefully consensually, by the now five party groups and will be sorted out over the next week.

I am extremely happy as I am elected Chair of Transport again – and retain my place on the Metropolitan Police Authority. I love both my portfolios – transport and policing and am keen to continue the work I have been doing to date.

One real addition to my role is that I am nominated and elected to the London board of the Commission for Racial Equality – which will tie in very well with my police work on race issues such as Stop and Search.

Really looking forward to the year ahead.

Group meeting of us Lib Dems to establish what has been offered so far in negotiations. Both Tories and Labour are offering us Chair and Vice Chair turnabout for the Assembly, Budget Committee, Business Managers and Transport Committee. We try and include the Greens – but they appear to be taking the Mayour’s shilling. Not unnaturally, the Mayor wants them stitched up for the budget – for without their votes he won’t be able to simply get his budget through. Hope they don’t sell out London for

patronage.

All the party groups head into City Hall for their own group meetings and then the ‘negotiations’. The arithmetic has delivered the unsurprising fact that only the LibDems and the Tories combined have a majority and all the ‘positions’ on the Assembly are decided by simple majority. The further arithmetic conunundrum for the Mayor is that he needs 9 votes in support of his budget to get it through. There are only 7 Labour members in their now reduced state – so undoubtedly they will be trying to buy the Greens’ two votes.

We have our group meeting, set our objectives, elect our leader – all say what we want out of the next term, etc.

Then, of course, both Labour and Tories want to come and talk to us and be our best friend. I am on the negotiating team with Graham Tope so for the first time witness how it goes. Jolly interesting. We are at the listening to what the others offer us stage at the moment – and as I write that remains the case.

I don’t go to the Ally Pally count – but head off to City Hall. The campaign team are using our offices (as are all the groups) as the nerve centre of the day to receive all the counts, results and to put together the lines and the data so we can see how it’s going.

My sister joins me for the day at City Hall. I don’t have a partner or parents – and she is a good person to have around on such a day!

It’s all good. Nothing much until the afternoon when the GLA constituency counts begin to come in. In our two key targets we have made significant advances – and on the list vote – and we get our ambition of an extra LibDem member taking us from 4 to 5.

Icing on our cake is Labour’s decline from 9 to 7 members and the Greens from 3 to 2.

Obviously, the arrival of 2 UKIP members is a bit of a new scenario – and has clearly affected the votes of the other parties – but that’s democracy.

Toby Harris, the Labour leader, loses his seat as does the Tory leader Eric Ollerenshaw and the Tories failed to gain the Enfield & Haringey seat which they had been very cocky about.

As for the Mayoral contest – Ken is back. Simon fought a fantastic campaign – but it just didn’t take off in terms of votes. What a pity.

So the new term will begin with a completely different dynamic and tomorrow we will begin to look at how the land lies. I don’t think London would want us to sell our soul to the Mayor by being bought off. I think London would want us LibDems to stand full square in holding him to account – but all that is for tomorrow and next week.

Election day dawns and I am up with the lark to deliver some early leaflets. It is such a beautiful day and time of day. I rush back home to change into something more suitable for knocking on doors the rest of the day and then onto a polling station in Campsbourne School. Great atmosphere, everyone very friendly and cheery.

Then out knocking on doors to see if our supporters are going out to vote, more leaflets, more polling stations, more everything with a final push, helped by one of our Euro candidates – John Stevens – to do some final knocking up in Muswell Hill which is my own ward and where I always like to finish my day.

I let out a great cheer at 10pm – it’s been a long, tough campaign – and I am super-glad that the work is over. I go home to watch the local elections coverage from the rest of the country. It is great to see Peter Snow again – this is the first time in ages I have not had to be at a count the night of an election and been able to watch on TV.

Sadly, whilst I have the opportunity and our results including taking Newcastle are absolutely brilliant, after only an hour or so, my 4am start catches up with me and I drift off to sleep.