The bongs of Big Ben faded away, and Jonathan Dimbleby's familiarly worn face appeared in a computer-generated landscape of lurid pink girders and vague approximations of the faces of significant politicians.
"Are you
sure this is a British tradition?" asked Janusz. The lads in the flat had gone along with Donald's perverse instructions this far, but, well... nobody else they knew was so invested in the whole 'election' thing. They had always known that Donald was a bit weird, even by Central Unionist College standards, but this was going a bit far.
"Shut up, I want to listen to the new orchestration of
Cirkus!" snapped Donald.
Janusz exchanged a glance with Pierre and Willem. They nodded grimly, all of them trying to remember the National Mental Health Services number. Was it 476? 711? Or possibly 256? Something in that general ball-park, anyway.
On the television, Dimbleby was talking. "And now, as the final polling stations close, we can reveal the results of our state-of-the-art exit poll. We are predicting... that... the Unionists will be 105 seats short of a majority. Now, John Major, if you will take us on a tour of the new House of Commons?"
"Well, Jonathan, the first thing to realise is that all of these seats are in fact imaginary, as no constituencies have declared as of yet..."
"Right!" said Willem with more than a hint of falsity. "That was very exciting! Does anyone want to watch
Christophe Lambert's Wines of Slovenia?"
"Er..." said Donald.
"Isn't it Silesia this year?" asked Janusz.
"Guys..." said Donald.
"No, that was the parody:
Adrian Lambert Whines About Silesia. Remember? He said their thrash metal scene was shit and you threw an olive at the TV?"
"There's another fortnight to go..." said Donald.
"Oh yeah, we never got the smear off - wait -
a fucking fortnight?!" Janusz jumped up onto the back of the sofa in shock.
"Why - Why did you think I got you to buy all those Red Bulls, Janusz? And... did you think I was moving all the sleeping bags into this room for fun?"
"I thought it was some weird sex thing" piped up Pierre, taking his attention off his vape pen for a second.
"...and as the picture becomes clearer once we have the entirety of the first preference votes, a lot more of these seats will 'change hands', as it were, in this graphical display, but at the moment it looks like this will be the basic make-up of the House of Commons, but of course it's very difficult to..."
Janusz stared blankly at the screen. "So... these old men are going to be doing this progr - and, I mean, I'm already bored shitless - they're going to be doing this... non-stop... for two weeks? And people watch this?"
Donald now began to feel that he was being unfairly treated. He surreptitiously hid his lever-arch file of takeaway menus and prepared to defend the Great British electoral system, renowned throughout Europe and the world. Westminster was the Mother of Parliaments - the birthplace of modern democracy - the ruler or the waves, unless that was something else. "Well... they show films when there's nothing interesting going on."
"Anything good?" asked Willem.
"Er... they showed
Tim Burton's 'A Passage To India' last time at around 2AM on the third day, which was pretty trippy. But that may have been because I hadn't slept for 88 hours."
Janusz was losing patience. "But how does it take this long to count the votes? How is that even a Thing?"
"Yeah," exhaled Pierre, "can't they just count how many have voted for each party, and then give them that... that, like, amount of seats? That takes about five hours in France."
"Right," said Donald, "do you guys
genuinely want an explanation of our electoral system?"
The other guys paused for a second and looked at one another. Then, achingly slowly, they turned back to Donald as one, and nodded.
"OK. There are 464 constituencies in the UK - "
"Why?" asked Willem. Janusz and Pierre punched him in the arms.
"Because. And these are divided into two types: County Constituencies, which are rural, and Borough Constituencies, which... aren't. Now, all of the County Constituencies and about a quarter of the Borough Constituencies elect one member each, and they do this by Alternative Vote. Now, Alternative Vote is very simple: you simply rank the candidates in order of preference, so if you really like the... the Fellowship Party - "
"What's the Fellowship Par -
ow!" asked Pierre.
"They're a left-wing party which wants to save the planet and get rid of Polaris VI, essentially. They have a seat in Greenwich. But anyway, if you like them, you put them first, but if they don't get in (which is likely), you put... you put the Labour Party second, and you hope that they get in. And it goes along like that until someone gets more than 50% of the vote, which means that it takes quite a while to count because you've got to count about five times and do maths and it's all a bit complicated."
"Fine, but wouldn't it be easier to have Proportional Representation?" asked Willem.
"Ah, but it
is Proportional Representation."
"No it isn't" said Willem.
"Yes it is" said Donald.
"No it isn't."
"Yes it is."
"No it isn't!"
"Yes it bloody is!"
"Now, obviously this conversation is hugely fascinating, bu - " cut in Janusz, before immediately being cut off by Donald.
"Actually, the shouting match about whether we already have PR or not is one of the major fun traditions in our election fortnights. In my family, whoever carries on the longest without forgetting which side they're on wins a BHS voucher."
Again, the three others looked incredulously at one another.
"OK..." said Janusz, "but you said that three quarters of the... Burgh Constituencies didn't use this Alternative Vote thing? What do they use?"
Pierre spoke up again. "Please can we just stop the - "
"Well, most Borough Constituencies elect between three and seven members, and the way they do this is by STV. Now, STV is almost exactly the same as AV, except there are multiple candidates for the major parties, and they are eliminated until you have... until you have the right amount of MPs. Have I made that clear?"
"Not really," said Janusz, "but I don't really care anymore."
"I could lend you a biography of David Lloyd George if you ever want any more information." offered Donald.
"I definitely won't."
On the television, Jonathan Dimbleby was saying "And now we have our first first-preference result, which is for... Mid Staffordshire. Remember, Mid Staffs is elected by Alternative Vote, so - " At this point, he was cut off by the live video from some godawful town hall.
"I thought they'd only just finished voting?" asked Willem.
"Staffordshire's polling stations close at 7:30" replied Donald. For a moment, Willem looked as if he was going to say something, but Janusz' left eye was bulging scarily, so he thought better of it.
"And the votes are as follows:
Sir William Cash (Unionist Party) - 18,930
Sir William Cash (National Party) - 7,281
Sir William Cash (Agriculturalist Party) - 489
Sir William Cash (Social Credit) - 30
Sam Hale (Labour Party) - 8,056
Sam Hale (Popular Front) - 548
Sam Hale (Co-operative Party) - 399
Martin Lewis (Liberal Party) - 1,947
Martin Lewis (Campaign for Democratic Socialism) - 694
Martin Lewis (Lloyd George Party) - 42
Wenslie Naylon (Fellowship Party) - 1,129
Sir William Cash (Social Credit) and Martin Lewis (Lloyd George Party) are judged to be Not Elected, and their votes will be redistributed in the second round."
"What?" said Pierre.
"Yeah, we have electoral fusion as well," said Donald, "but it isn't really important. Basically, Bill Cash just got, er... 68% of the vote. So he's
basically elected."
Janusz suddenly showed an interest. "But hang on, though. He's got - I mean, he's got 68%, so he should be elected on the first count. Why do they waste time on redistributing - the - I mean - yeah?"
"Because he's only got 48% from the Unionists, so he's not got a majority on one ballot line, and they need to redistribute until he gets 50%. This is one of the reasons why it takes a fortnight."
"But
why, though?" asked Pierre.
"Because of Stafford Cripps."
"Who's th-
ow! Stop hitting me!"
Janusz wasn't letting go. "But who actually
watches this shit?"
"I think it averaged out at about 204 people last time. But that's including the fourth night, which is just boring contests for the 7th Glasgow seat and the final counts between the Liberals and the Georgists in Arfon and things like that."
"Er..." said Willem, "we haven't missed much of
Christophe Lambert's Wines of Slovenia, guys."
"Can we at least wait for the first prefs in Stoke-and-Newcastle? It's a four-seater where the Common Land Party are trying to take a third seat from the British Integralist Union and - "
Janusz reached over and patted Donald on the shoulder. "I think
Wines of Slovenia sounds like a good plan, mate. Now climb over that mountain of energy drinks and go to bed. We don't want you dying of insomnia, like that Irish bloke did last term."