Despite Labour's Partygate poll bounce and six weeks of relentlessly door-knocking, Paulette Hamilton was "not overly sure" the people of Birmingham Erdington had elected her an MP.
So when she arrived at Thursday's by-election count at the local sports centre and "staff were all smiley", she was dumfounded.
"Then somebody said to me 'I think we've got this'," she says. But even then, Birmingham's first ever Black MP was not convinced.
