Flash.
A white flash of light appeared suddenly in the middle of the small black rounded rectangle screen with a brief blip sound accompanying it. The flash quickly turned into a little blip in the middle of the screen before expanding horizontally outwards to form a rather bloated, yet thin, white line across the screen. The line began to vibrate up and down slightly as the sound of static accompanied every contraction and retraction of the white shape. After a second or two, which felt nearer to half a minute, the white line rapidly expanded vertically, until the whole of the small screen was coated in that white static. Another minor blip sounded over the static as a dark blue and yellow picture began to increase along with the white lines moving up and down the screen. As the picture focussed, the unmistakable image of a rotating globe appeared; the continents and landmasses shaded in, in the pale yellow colour, the areas converged by water were strangely yellow. In the background the globe was stretched out was slowly moving in a similar anti-clockwise motion. Below this in the comparatively large mass of dark blue below the globe in bold white font read the words 'BBC 1.'
Then above the underlying sound of static a feminine sigh was audible.
"Now on BBC One, Wednesday's edition of 'Tonight.'"
The screen then shifted once again to black; this time the black was more artificial than before.
Then the sound of trumpets and what may be a jazz band started to play the show's theme, which sounded rather like a variation of the BBC's cricket Test Match Special theme tune, Soul Limbo, though this time not by Booker T. & the M.G.'s.. The letters of 'Tonight' began to appear one by one out of a rather tacky yellow flash in the centre of the screen - the letters then separated into two parts as they hit the middle of the screen; each side flying off towards it's respective side of the rounded rectangular screen. The letter 'I' appeared once again as the letters 'T,' 'O' and 'N' emerged from it's left side; and the letters 'G,' 'H' and 'T' emerged from it's right - spelling out 'TONIGHT' on the television screen. The title card remained in place for a few more seconds as the rather forgettable theme music ended.
The screen then transitioned to a zoomed in image of the face of the clock on the George Tower - or Big Ben as it's informally known as, and called by most people. The tower itself was lit up, no surprising considering the time was around ten past ten at night. The shot began to zoom out, back towards the area in front of the camera itself.
"Good evening, and welcome to Westminster - I'm Donald MacCormack," the Scotsman intoned as the camera began to move down from the George Tower, towards MacCormack. As he prepared to begin his next sentence, his balding head appeared at the bottom right hand corner of the screen, soon to be followed by the rest of his head and upper body. Behind him the faces of the George Tower sat, teaming in a rather drab yellow shade of light as the area around it was coated in the thick, dark cloak of night; the area in front of it - but behind the BBC presenter, was illuminated to an extent by various streetlights around the College Green in Westminster. MacCormack was hugged by his tanned trench coat as the white vapour of his breath penetrated the cold air which surrounded him.
"It's just after ten past ten, where MPs are just now voting in the Division Lobbies on tonight's crucial and perhaps historic motion of No Confidence in Gordon Sweeney's Co-Operative Government." MacCormack paused before beginning his next sentence; hoping to draw out sometime before the actual results were given by the tellers.
"If the Prime Minister goes down to defeat within the next quarter to half hour; and the current indications tell us that it is still very much on the knife edge - this will be the first time in nearly two decades that a holder of the office of Prime Minister has been forced to call a General Election, based on a Common's vote; since when fellow Co-Operative Alliance Prime Minister David Marquand lost a Social Democratic motion of No Confidence; called ironically by the same person who signed for tonight's vote of no confidence - the SDP leader, Dick Gilmore."
"The ensuing General Election campaign, would in the eyes of many be the most significant campaign since the 1965 General Election, the first General Election feature the two now major political parties. It could also be significant due to the fact that a General Election held soon, could yield one of the best results for the smaller parties in decades - with the SDP potentially yielding third place, not to the Alliance, but in fact to the So-Creds." That last shortened party name came out sounding more like Sue-Kreads - as opposed to the Sow-Creds.
The clipboard, presumably with all of the Scotsman's notes and perhaps even lines, bobbed up along the fuzzy bottom of the screen; MacCormack's eyes continuously darted down to look at the page clipped to the board.
"We'll be giving you first news of the result in around fifteen to twenty minutes time, bringing you reactions from the politicians, including Mr. Francis Wright, the Leader of the House of Commons for the Co-Ops, Mr. Sebastian Knight, the Shadow Health Secretary for the Unionists and Mrs. Bernadette Mahon, leader of the So-Creds." The Scotsman looked directly into the camera and darted his eyebrows up and down quickly as if to insinuate sarcastically that 'that sounds fun, doesn't it?'
"Leading up to this crucial vote, and indeed, often overshadowing the debate itself within the House of Commons, is the question of the voting intentions of those smaller parties, and indeed some individuals MPs, such as the two Communists and the five Independent MPs; who hold the balance of power tonight. Current intelligence says the Government has been in negotiations and may have won over the vast majority of the Independent MPs; though it still remains to be seen how the Communist MPs will vote. We can go over live to the studio where Peter Snow can illustrate how the vote may go for us, Peter?"
The screen then cut to the warm, yet rather austere studio where Peter Snow stood awaiting his cue to begin. He nodded as if his cue had been given and he was off.
"Yes, thank you Donald! If you can all look here at this miniature House of Commons below me here now..." Beside him on a table was model of the inside of the House of Commons. "If you can look here on your left, you can see the Government benches, populated by two-hundred-and-eighty-eight purple figurines, representing the Co-Operative MPs; beside them are the twenty-eight Alliance MPs, seen in yellow here. Now of course they don't sit on the Government benches, rather they have a confidence and supply arrangement with the Government; but for the purpose of this demonstration, they'll sit beside the Co-Operative MPs, as will the three Nationalist Party of Northern Ireland MPs who are represented by this shade of green..."
"On the other side of the House," began Snow as he dramatically darted to the other side of the miniature House of Commons chamber; "you can see the wide array of opposition MPs - ranging rom the two-hundred-and-seventy-three Unionist MPs - seen in teal here; the twenty-nine Social Democrats - in dark red; the eighteen Crediters in light green; the four Front Members of Parliament in dark blue..."
"Now here," Snow once again darted away, this time towards the centre of the model Chamber; "are the undecideds, the five Independent MPs here in grey and the two Communists in an even darker shade of red..."
"Now, we'll have to exclude three Unionists and two Co-Operative MPs, due to one of the official Unionist MPs, Sir James Galbraith - who is the Speaker of the House of Commons... who will sit... here!" Snow moved one of the teal figurines into the Speaker's chair. "We also have to discard..." Snow stretched over to the Government benches and grabbed two purple figurines, which he proceeded to throw somewhere off set and off camera, "two MPs from the Co-Ops and the Unionists;" he did the same for two teal figurines; "who act as the tellers and don't vote themselves..."
"Now if intelligence we are receiving is correct, perhaps all five of the Independents could vote with the Government...;" Snow moved all five grey figurines over to the Government benches, "that would yield a result of around three-twenty-one : three-twenty-one - which would save the Sweeney Government with a majority of nil... But... if one, or both of the Communists voted with the Opposition...;" Snow moved the two darker red figurines over to the Opposition benches - then the Government would be defeated by two votes - back to you Donald!" And like that; in a flash of excitement and strange models & boards, Robert MacKenzie Mark II., was gone.
MacCormack reappeared, having been caught midway through a rubbing motion to attempt to warm his frozen hands up.
"Indeed Peter, if rumours were votes - then we'd still be counting and speculating over them well past midnight; fortunately the guessing will stop much sooner than that. I now hand you over;" the camera began to swing back again towards the illuminated clock face of the George Tower; "to the BBC commentary box inside the Chamber, where George Edwards has been keeping a watchful eye over the debate today and has been gauging the mood of MPs inside the Commons. George...?"
---
' programme (2009); which uses archive footage from the 1979 Callaghan Government's VONC.
, I only realised that the formatting at the top looks... eerily similar to your (excellent) 'A Better Tomorrow' TL.
