No doubt it will have been a night full of passion and emotion at the Horntye Park centre. My prediction is that the Tories will be the ones with smiles on their faces this morning. I expect them to have overall control. I may, of course, be wrong, as I am writing this column on Tuesday afternoon. Whatever happens, Michael Foster, and no doubt some of his colleagues, feel that we have been anti-Labour over the past few weeks. We have certainly been critical of their actions, especially over Old Town Post Office, and nationally the 10p tax rate row, and with good reason. It's fair to say that the Labour government is currently very unpopular, and this is bound to be reflected at the ballot box across the country. The LibDems think we have been pro-Tory - absolute rubbish. To my mind, the Tories have kept pretty quiet, left Labour to make a mess of it, and, of course, the LibDems are a long way behind in terms of seats. We will have to wait and see. By the way, all the results and reaction are on our website now, staff were working through the night to bring you all the up to date information, so log on.

SO the Hastings Beer and Music Festival is having a year off. It's no secret that the 2007 event was a financial disaster - a combination of bad weather and not the best of line-ups, and of course its a huge financial risk to a group like Round Table to take on. They are a group of volunteers who serve the community - and very well they have done so in past years - but to put on the event costs around £100,000. This year their kitty is bare so all outgoings would have been a gamble. I can understand why they have reached this decision, now they have to look forward to 2009. They are determined some kind of event will happen next year - it may be smaller, who knows - and they are asking for input from anyone who has decent ideas.

THE Lions Club staged its annual Half-Marathon prizegiving last Friday evening, and it would appear more than £100,000 was raised for charity at the event. What an incredible amount, and Eric says the final total figure is likely to be much higher than that. An amazing effort, and its worth saying again what a wonderful job our Lions club does in this borough.

TODAY we launch a campaign where we're giving away £5,000 to local charities and organisations. The money has kindly been donated by the Park Lane Group, and in the coming weeks we hopefully will be identifying some very good causes. We need your help to do that - so get in contact and tell us who deserves a share of the money.

FINALLY, it seemed strange this week that three of our struggling schools - Hillcrest, The Grove and Filsham Valley - have been named by the government as schools which may close unless results improve. As readers, and parents will know, the county council is bringing in a private company to, in effect, sort them out. One can only assume they will be removed from that danger list by this time next year. We are expecting big things from Sir Dexter and his people.