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What a remarkable night.

Swings all over the place, surprises with seats changing hands, surprises with seats not changing hands.

But above all, the message from last night's results was clear even if the result wasn't.

An election is about 650 contests in 650 constituencies, with all the potential uncertainty and variation that entails. And the local factors you don't hear about in Prime Ministerial TV debates have played a part in making the picture complicated and unpredictable.

summed that up.

I'll put my hands up now and say at the start of the campaign I thought Liberal Democrat ambitions there were just that - ambitions.

They believed they could win, but their achievement there is still remarkable.

A 20%-plus swing turning Vera Baird's 12,000 majority into a 5,000-vote victory for Ian Swales.

He certainly harnessed the palpable anger over the closure of the Corus steelworks.

But this was also an area that had been worked on for five years. Council seats had been won in safe Labour areas, Vera Baird's support chipped away.

And that produced a result totally out of character with the national and regional picture.

Yet overall it was a disappointing night for the Liberal Democrats.

They failed to win their top target . They failed to win any seats in Newcastle. They lost in and .

In a significant number of North East seats - , , - they slipped from second to third as the Conservatives overtook them.

But then how are we to explain some of the variations in that Conservative vote?

They achieved some spectacular swings to take Carlisle and Stockton South. They achieved similar leaps in support to push close in and .

And they got double digit swings in safe Labour seats like .

But then in the top target there was barely any swing at all, and Labour's Alan Campbell survived quite easily in the end.

And - the one Wearside seat where they'd put huge effort in - failed to return the same spectacular swing as the neighbouring constituencies.

Again there have to be local factors involved. Personal support perhaps for Alan Campbell in Tynemouth, perhaps an ability for Labour to get their vote out in crucial seats. (Turnout was 70% in Tynemouth)

But however local the factors, in many ways our election results mirror what's happened in the country.

There are questions for all three main parties to answer.

Labour have lost seats and lost ground, the Liberal Democrats have failed to make the progress they'd hoped for, and the Conservatives have advanced but not over the finishing line.

There are still seats to declare - four in Northumberland, as well as Copeland and Westmorland and Lonsdale in Cumbria. They are counting this morning.

There may be plenty of potential twists yet before we know who will govern the country.

We have several key players in that process. Chief Whip Nick Brown may be involved in any negotiations, David Miliband may yet have a critical role to play, and William Hague waits to see if he will become Foreign Secretary and Deputy Prime Minister.

Many of the counts are complete but the story of election 2010 isn't over yet.

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