91Èȱ¬

Hilarious goings-on at Granada TV in Manchester tonight, where strangely ITV had agreed to host Labour's big election rally with Gordon Brown and his Cabinet.

At one point a workman was seen unscrewing a big sign with the ITV logo. In the studio itself studio-hands were told to replace their T-shirts which had ITV logos.

Funniest of all my 91Èȱ¬ reporter colleagues have been asked to do their pieces to camera so that the Granada TV sign is not in view.

I am told that at one point a flustered Granada manager came out and said to the TV crews something to the effect of "Archie Norman doesn't want to be associated with the fact that the Labour Party is using the studio".

Mr Norman, the new boss of ITV, was of course a Conservative MP not long ago, and a member of the shadow Cabinet.

Time was when Granada TV was the most socialist of all the ITV companies. Its founder Lord Bernstein was a Labour peer, and in their younger days both Jack Straw and Margaret Beckett worked for the company.

Perhaps the booking was made before Archie Norman took over.

UPDATE: And then Gordon Brown must have infuriated Archie Norman when he opened his speech by thanking Granada for allowing Labour to hold the rally there.