AS today's Oxford Mail was going to the printers last night, many of us were still on the edge of our seats waiting to find out the results from our police and crime commissioner election.

Having waited all day to hear the news, the officials said the result from people's first preference votes was so close that they needed to begin again and start counting second choices.

Many of our readers were there with us, glued to the website waiting for the latest updates.

It comes after a whole weekend of edge-of-the-seat live coverage of our county, city and district council elections, where surprise results included Tory county council leader Ian Hudspeth losing his seat.

Then, late on Sunday night, we had the news that Oxford East MP Anneliese Dodds had lost her chair as Shadow Chancellor.

Putting all the individual results and politics to one side, one thing we can say about these elections is that they have been a massive boon for democracy.

Many who would not normally take an interest have been drawn in by the drama, and we consider that a victory: anyone getting involved in local democracy is a victory as far as we're concerned.