The Target - 132,905 votes

THANKS to Tricky, a fellow elections anorak on the Vote 2007 website, we now know our target for tomorrow night.

It's 132,905 votes which is 8% of the total number of votes cast in the North West region for the European Election campaign.

The turnout across the region was 31.9% which is a full 9% down on 2004 and this means that Nick Griffin in fact needs to secure 2,000 less votes to get elected than the British National Party received five years ago.

Then we polled 134,959 votes which was a 6.4% vote share but now on the reduced turnout a similar vote will do quite nicely thank you.

Your Armchair Guide for tomorrow night (below) breaks down the huge Euro constituency into its 39 local authorities and pinpoints the 8% mark in the votes cast in that authority.

If we have reached the 8% you fill in the BNP vote under "Yes", if we don't it goes under "No". If it's "Yes" or "No" I shall be writing the number of votes over or under that 8% mark in the opposite column as +558 or -558 to give me an idea of the balance of the way the results are going.

I can't guarantee the figures are correct but this is my copy for the count and I shall be using it.