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Hundreds of , shouting matches rows with stressed officials, police being called... no, not an election scene in downtown Bagdhad, this was a Manchester suburb last night.

We started getting calls in the news room just after 10. The first caller said a scarcely believable 200 people had been shut out of - in the marginal seat.

Hardly had our camera crew piled out of the door before the phones lit up with callers from two more stations in Didsbury. One man told us us angry voters were threatening to occupy a polling station in protest. "Honestly - I think it went better than this in Afghanistan," said one furious punter.

The calls kept coming in... In Liverpool a polling station in another key marginal had - incredibly - run out of ballot papers. In voters who had registered at the last minute found they were unable to vote because the ballot list hadn't been updated.

Like referees after a dodgy decision it was difficult to get returning officers to explain how things had gone so badly wrong. Perhaps they were all still queueing up to vote.

We asked to speak to Manchester City Council's Chief Executive Sir Howard Bernstein but he was, in that time honoured phrase, "unavailable for comment".

The press office at the city council told us they "didn't think it was an issue" and that the problems affected less than 100 people.

They said they doubted it was "mathematically possible" for any more than a handful of people to have been locked out.

Bearing in mind that we have credible witnesses at three polling stations who gave us estimates of up to 200 people locked out of each that seems a little odd.

Still, after last night, maybe counting isn't their strong point.

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