Meanwhile, back in the real world, the real winner was someone entirely different who wasn't even up for election...

IT'S THE TELE WOT WON IT — Daily Telegraph Front Page Mock Up

Actually, that triumphalist headline did not run in Rupert Murdoch's Daily Telegraph.

It's just a mock-up from our graphics department along the lines of The Sun's famous boast from 1992 when Murdoch's raucous red-top helped the Tories win power in Britain.

But the Tele could easily have made a similar claim after its tireless campaign to get rid of Labor and its leaders.

KICK THIS MOB OUT — Daily Telegraph, 5th August, 2013

I KNOW NUTHINK — Daily Telegraph, 8th August, 2013

STOP THE NOTES — Daily Telegraph, 12th August, 2013

DOES THIS GUY EVER SHUT UP? — Daily Telegraph, 22nd August, 2013

No doubt the academics will now examine how much difference that anti-Labor barrage made to the final result.

But it's hard to believe it had no effect, even if the Tele's western Sydney heartland failed to produce the Labor wipeout that many had predicted.

However, as the results rolled in on Saturday night, Rupert Murdoch took to Twitter to refuse any accolade.

"Tele wot won it"! No, Australians just sick of Gillard-Rudd incompetence and infighting wrecking great county. — Twitter, @rupertmurdoch, 7th September, 2013

Surely he meant country?

But whether the Tele swung votes or not, there's no question it was trying.

The final tally of the paper's coverage in the election campaign stacks up like this:

Out of a total of 293 political stories we scored only six as pro Labor. While 43 were pro coalition. On the negative side there were just five articles which we judged to be anti Coalition. While a remarkable 134 were anti Labor. The rest we scored as neutral

Among the highlights in the last week were:

KEVIN'S CHAOS DOES ALP'S HEAD IN — Daily Telegraph, 6th September, 2013

KEV'S $160M CARS DISASTER — Daily Telegraph, 5th September, 2013

HAIR BRAINED A fly takes a liking to Kevin Rudd's head yesterday — Daily Telegraph, 5th September, 2013

We aren't the only ones to find the bias in the Tele and some other Murdoch papers a little bit off.

The Press Council received around 200 complaints about election coverage, most of which appear to involve the Murdoch tabloids.

And Kevin Rudd, Christine Milne (Sky News, 5th August, 2013), Clive Palmer (Channel Seven, Sunrise, 5th September, 2013) and Bob Katter (612 ABC Brisbane, 2nd September, 2013) - that's everyone except the Coalition - got stuck into the coverage.