One year on

Just about everyone I know has now posted on how they feel one year on, so I thought I'd jump on that bandwagon. I waited 'til today because Councillors in Glasgow didn't find out their results until the afternoon of the 4th of May.

When we left the SECC, squinting into the sunshine, we didn't know whether there would be an SNP government. We knew that our numbers in Glasgow City Council had gone up from four to twenty-two, that every candidate we had stood had made it and that was amazing enough. In the weeks and months before the election, even that had seemed unlikely - I remember my boss of the time looking at previous election results in the old wards with me and saying it was a long shot. Nevertheless, we'd all made it.

We were all in the Ben Nevis when I got a call from my dad. He was driving home from work and had just heard on the radio that we'd won the election. I went back into the pub, not quite believing and not sure whether to tell everyone in case I'd got it horribly wrong. I told them. We were all nervous. And then, in this age of instant news and global communications... the result came up on ceefax.

It's been a short year - I can't believe how quickly it's flown past. It's also been a learning curve. It's not for me to say how I'm doing, but I do hope that the people that I've helped feel that I'm making a difference for them. I'm still as excited and proud today as I was on the 4th of May 2007.