Useless speculation as counting begins

As the nation's main dailies continue with useless London-centric speculation, even locally there is little hard news.

This is the best I could find:

By-election count

Early figures indicate that turnout for the Norwich north by-election has hit a new low with just 45pc of people turning out to vote.

The figure is a massive drop from 2005 when a by-election was last held and 61pc of people voted.

The turnout figure was revealed as counting began at the Norwich-north by-election base at the Royal Norfolk Showground.

This morning, amid a tense and excited atmosphere and with the world's media watching, the candidates received a brief from returning officer Colin Bland about what was going to happen over the next few hours.

The morning started with a verification process, getting rid of all the unmarked or spoiled papers. All of the postal votes cast arrived late last night and had been checked and sorted into piles.

The count of votes cast in polling stations around Norwich north has now begun. The votes will be sorted into the political parties and in bundles of 25 and then added to the postal votes cast before a final count begins.

The result is expected around lunchtime.

Norwich Evening News 24