Were you still up for Balls?

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Very good, Iain - politicalhedging meets politichat - like it...;)

The scenes in Committee Rooms are a bit more animated than my experiences fighting in Tory constituencies which were a lot "nicer".

Hall Green seems to be made up of Sparkbrook, Molesey & Small Heath and Springfield. Sparkbrook would be the Respect heartland while the other two are Labour/Lib Dem marginals so if Labour can hold the LDs or not be too far behind they should have enough votes in Sparkbrook to get home.

I presume from the POD Labour are going to have a real fight but will it be the LDs, Respect or both who come through - could Labour finish third ?
 
Indeed, but if the equally riven left can unite temporarily around elections, so can the right at least temporarily. The lure of a place in the debate, less lost deposits and a chance in the political sunlight, after all the BNP just kept it together until the election.

On the other hand, looking a little bit more, the English Democrats had been doing a lot of work to distance themselves from the BNP in the last few years - this kind of alliance would permanently destroy all their efforts to present themselves as an English equivalent of the SNP - which seems their strategy, such as it is.
 
Aha, this looks like it's going to be a lot more fun than OTL. Especially given I was still up for Balls but had to watch him hanging in there. I love the Steve Hilton spoof, by the way. :p
 
6th May, 6pm onwards

Telephone Call, 6:05pm

Voice 1: So how did the Big Man take the poll split?
Voice 2: We haven't told him, Sarah decided it was a bad idea. He's got other things on his mind.
Voice 1: Oh aye, what's that then?
Voice 2: You've seen that Kraut war movie, the one that all the wankers on You Tube make shitty parodies of.
Voice 1: You've never forgiven them for your starring role in the Glasgie East one. What were you again, third SS officer?
Voice 2: Fucking fat pimply nerds stuck in basements. Anyway, he's got a big fuckoff flip chart and he's doing his reshuffle and whilst he's at it, taking his revenge. It's like that bit when Hitler is moving imaginary armies around.
Voice 1: So he's back on the majority track again, what have you been putting in his dinner - Ketamine?
Voice 2: No just the usual, he's given Little Nicky a PUSS job at the Home Office and "maybe one or two others"
Voice 1: So who's for the fucking chop then?
Voice 2: Well Alistair is persona non grata - not even a spell with the special needs at Stormont, Miliband major is Ambassdor to North Korea, Miliband minor is now PUSS for International Development, Postman Alan is Home Sec, Balls is Chancellor, Mrs Balls is Industry, Mandy is Foreign Sec and he's promoted dreadful Geraldine and that walking turd Dougie.
Voice 1: Fucking hell, how's he going to deal with tonight.
Voice 2: He's not, he's not been dealing with anything since Paxo gave him that fucking beating on Monday night.
Voice 1: It wasn't that bad, I've seen worse, remember when Howard got the rogering?
Voice 2: So what the fuck are we going to do after this election.
Voice 1: Me, I'm going to be minted, I'll write a book or rather pretend to write one. You'd better start being nice to Little Nicky to see if he needs a violent thug and halfway competent spin doctor.
Voice 2: Shite.
Voice 1: Anyway I have to prep Neil for the BBC, speak to you later.

Sky News

Now a quick round up of election news with Adam Boulton, Adam

Thanks Jeremy. This election is shaping up to be a humdinger, the turnout is reported to high in most areas and is shaping up we are told to be over 70%. However, as people come home from work, we are now seeing queues forming at many polling stations, especially those in city centres. There have also been sporadic reports of ballot boxes having to be opened to have ballots pushed down to get more in.

What of Nigel Farage

Nigel was taken to hospital in Oxford and is reported to be poorly, but he is not in any danger. What was to be a simple stunt has turned out badly for him and he's likely to be in hospital until the weekend. He has some broken ribs, chest damage and facial injuries and will be unfortunately watching election night from bed. His pilot is in a more serious condition and has been transferred to a specialist unit in Coventry. The AAIB will be investigating the accident

What's been happening with the other party leaders?

Gordon Brown voted early and has since spent time at his home in North Queensferry, he has been in communication with leading Labour politicians and is generally relaxing before a long night.

David Cameron voted early in Chipping Norton alongside a group of new voters and then spent the rest of the morning campaigning first in his own Witney seat, then popping over the border to support candidates in the rest of Oxfordshire. He's been back at home for a while now and is understood to be discussing issues with senior Conservatives.

Nick Clegg on the other hand has been out and about all day, he started off voting early in his Hallam constituency, spent a couple of hours campaigning in Chesterfield, moved up in series of surprise visits to Huddersfield, Colne Valley and Sheffield Central and is now back knocking on doorsteps in his own Hallam seat.


Any signs of anything interesting happening, Adam?

Well, Jeremy, this is the age of modern communication and computers, but most elections are still fought very traditionally. However, by monitoring Twitter you can gather some intelligence. It seems Labour have pulled activists over the last couple of hours from some marginals back into heartland seats. It also appears that the Conservatives have been piling people into Hammersmith, Hampstead and Kilburn and Ealing Central and Acton. The LibDems are somewhat better at "radio silence", but I'm told that they are throwing nearly everything they've got in the Bristol area, I'm told a coachload of activists arrived in Bristol earlier from Cardiff.

Birmingham Hall Green Lib Dem HQ

PW: I'm sending the backup now, what do I do when people come back. I need knockers.
IB: I can probably spare a few from here in about an hour, where's to knock.
PW: The two south boxes and Central.
IB: Hmm, I'll see what I can do about getting you a few people from Sparkbrook for Central. Ring you in five.

CF: Solihull want to know if we need some help?
IB: They can spare people?
CF: Claire thinks they are heading for a 4,000 majority
IB: Fuck yes, tell them to send half to Springfield and half to Hall Green
CF: OK

*phone rings*

IB: Phil, I'm sending you some people from Solihull and I've emailed Nahim to get some people from Sparkbrook.
PW: How many?
IB: Hang on. Charlotte, How many?
CF: Fifteen for each ward.
IB: Did you hear that Phil, will that do?
PW: Yeah, I'll manage, lets hope they can get over Gospel Lane
IB: laughs

*phone rings*

NK: Iain, it's Nahim, it's all cracking off at Conway School
IB: What's happening
NK: There's a lot of shoving and pushing and the police have just arrived
IB: Well, get the troops and send them to Springfield
NK: OK, it will be safer there
IB: Well, maybe not at St Christophers

*phone rings*

JE: I need a third teller at Tyseley, Phil hasn't got any one, can you spare someone
IB: No, but Solihull are sending a pile of help, they should be there in about 20 mins. What's it like there.
JE: Very friendly, but big queues, maybe 50 people at the moment and a rumour that they are running out of ballot papers.
IB: If you can get that confirmed, I'll ring the elections office, Opposition
JE: Gone, disappeared.

IB: Now, Charlotte, lets look at the back up in EARS.
// silence for a couple of minutes
CF: Is that good?
IB: Well, it's not good for Godsiff, none of the last few backup have been. But I'm not sure we have won. Let's have a fag.

Sky News, 6:40pm

And over to Shefali in Birmingham

Jeremy, there's once again been trouble in Birmingham Hall Green, this time in the Sparkbrook ward. Traditionally, large numbers of activists have gathered outside crucial polling stations to show support and to canvas people as they go in. This has caused problems in the past and the city council, I have been told, split this station this year because it has been a focal point.

However, since about 4pm, it's has gone, I'm told from about 20 people here to over 200. The police turned up about 6:15 in order to ask people to leave but a hard core of younger supporters refused to leave. There was some pushing and shoving and then bricks were thrown at the police. They removed themselves and came back about 15 minutes ago and cleared the street by force, there were three people and one policewoman injured and six people arrested under the public order acts.


So, Shefali, who is this trouble from?

Jeremy, we only got here a few minutes ago and stories are contradictory, but the only parties represented at the school we are told are Labour and Respect.
 
At first I was a bit worried about this TL, but please do continue. Restricting it to election day and a few months thereafter should make it very good.

From Politicalhedging.com

TheRon: latest leaks from the exit - Con 34, Lib 28, Lab 27

Sean Scared: That still feels wrong to me, I'm seeing a high turnout here compared to previous elections and I don't think any of it is going Labour's way, but if it gets much higher, then anecdotally the highest turnouts favour Labour.

Sayydi I think that expenses will mean that each constituency behaves differently this time, so the Tories may win seats with some scandals but may lose others. I don't think UNS works this time

jfsl Farage - broken bones but nothing life-threatening, I wonder if it will get him a sympathy vote in Buckingham?

andyk I've just seen Sheerman, he looks worried, a lot of yellow peril around today and they seem to have a lot of student help.

Cockatiel I think that the exit probably overstates Labour. I think it will be CON 37, LD 32, LAB 23. This is going to be a crazy night and CON and LD could be even closer than that.

The Diving Falcons Anyone just seen Sky, that dozy bint Salma Yacoob has just made a right cock-up over some voting fraud, seems the "shamed women" were Labour blokes. I really hope she doesn't get elected, but with Labour down the toilet who knows. Still don't like the exit, but it's going to be the workers voting next on their way home, that should shift it.

Witan That's still a lot of others on the exit poll. Knocking of 2% for the various Nits, that leaves 9%, perhaps UKIP are heading back up after their dip after the third debate.

Socrates I can't see the Labour vote going down that low, too many people on benefits. Has anyone debunked the "the tories will stop your benefits texts"

Dodger This swingback will be very, very late.

I did wonder, from your other posts if you read Mike's site. Clearly you do! As a long time lurker over there, it's most funny to see alternative posts from the regulars... and Tim's infamous 'Swingback'!.
 
Very good, Iain - politicalhedging meets politichat - like it...;)

The scenes in Committee Rooms are a bit more animated than my experiences fighting in Tory constituencies which were a lot "nicer".

Hall Green seems to be made up of Sparkbrook, Molesey & Small Heath and Springfield. Sparkbrook would be the Respect heartland while the other two are Labour/Lib Dem marginals so if Labour can hold the LDs or not be too far behind they should have enough votes in Sparkbrook to get home.

I presume from the POD Labour are going to have a real fight but will it be the LDs, Respect or both who come through - could Labour finish third ?

I commented a bit on politicalbetting when it first started, but by the time of the election it was a site I just lurked on. I was going to do posts from a politicalsite I do comment on, which is mainly inhabited by activists from various parties - however, there were virtually no posts on election day. :D

Hall Green is a nightmare, four wards, each quite different, four different sets of politics, but lets wait and see what happens.

An update is likely tonight.
 
Election Day evening 7 to 9pm

IPSOS/MORI offices, London, 7pm

Bob: OK Chris, how is it going?
Chris: Well, samples have been pretty much completed from the socio-economic series, we are just taking the last hour of the time-series. But I'm concerned about the balance
Bob: You want to activate Option B?
Chris: Well, I thought about that, but it's just taking another hour of timeseries according to the cross-group sample slice and I don't think that's the problem
Bob: What's the problem, high turnout, we should scale for that
Chris: The problem is that we are polling the last election, yes, turnout is up, but the age slice isn't the same
Bob: OK, you'll have to explain that one
Chris: Well, we can't tell yet, because it's all still happening, but I'm thinking that turnout is looking at low 70's, that's over 10% up on last time. Now some of that is general, but from the BES data we are also collecting, it looks like significant increases in turnout for older DE voters and significant increases with AB young voters, C1C2 young voters and students, whilst 35-55 C1C2 is barely moving from last time.
Bob: Hmm, the older we can cope with, but we will be seriously undersample the young voter - are they out of kilter?
Chris: Yes, the older voters show a small skew from the adjusted median away from Labour and towards the others. The younger voters are massively skewed from "Not Voting" to LibDem and they are voting now, the oldies have gone quiet
Bob: So using Plan B won't help
Chris: No, it will just skew things further, we'll probably find it difficult to find pensioner voters and oversample the middle aged groups again
Bob: Hmm, I'll ring NOP and then tell the BBC they will have results at 8:50 not 8:20. Get thinking about how to credibly adjust the figures, if we can.

Sky News

Announcer: Well, we have some more extraordinary scenes from this election. It's just gone 7:30, up and down the country, polling stations are busy with voters on the after work rush. However, tonight, all over the country there are significant queues at polling stations.

Here's a scene from Birmingham Edgbaston, where over 400 people are queued up waiting to vote, many of them students from the University.

Here's what's happening in Holborn and St Pancras, where there are 300 people in a queue.

Similar scenes can be seen in many other urban and student seats up and down the country. So over to Annette to tell us what's been happening

Well, Andrew, some people have called this the debate election, others have called it the Twitter election, especially since last week. However, today is Facebook day. Many people have organised themselves via Facebook to go and vote with there friends to start an evening off. This idea started a couple of days ago and has been spreading. As we can see from these scenes in Derby, some of the young people have brought the party with them

Thanks, Annette, with such large queues as this, will all these people get to vote before 10pm.

I was talking to the Electoral Commission about this earlier and combined with earlier reported problems at some polling stations they are considering taking court action to ensure everyone in the queue at 10pm gets to vote as in the United States

Wow, that certainly would be something, are people set up for this?

Well, in most of the country, despite the higher turnout, it wouldn't be an issue, but it some areas, it could well be. We shall have to see what happens on that front.

Thanks, Annette, and now over to the brewery which has run an opinion poll using different beers.

Phone Call, just after 8pm

GB: Ah, Nick, finally got hold of you. I need to run some ideas past you about the plan for tomorrow.
NB: Well, it's not a good time, Gordon, we are in the middle of polling day.
GB: Oh, nonsense what could go wrong in Newcastle.
NB: Well, Gordon, it's more a question of what could go right. It's not been a good day.
GB: Well, polling day is exhausting. Anyway, I understand there's a chance we may not have a majority, so I've been having a thought about what we could offer Clegg to get on board. Not too much of course, maybe a royal commission on PR and a few minor posts, something at Secretary of State left for him of course.
NB: But, Gordon ...
GB: Well, yes, I know it's a bit high-level for him, but it will be worth making a few small concessions to be able to deliver a full programme of social justice and growth for another four years.
NB: Gordon, I must
GB: No, Nick, Nick, I understand, you are bored of being Chief Whip, but I need your talents there for a few months yet. It will be a difficult reshuffle.
NB: Gordon, I need to get back to it, we are in danger of losing here.
GB: Nick, your dedication to the party is always of the best, but I really think that discussing the group to handle the discussions with the Liberals is more important than trying to save some tyro in Newcastle North.
NB: Prime Minster, I'm not trying to save Catherine, she's a goner, I'm not even trying to save myself, I've gathered together everyone in Newcastle to try and save Central. David sending 30 people over, I'm even having to ask the Sunderland seats to help.
GB: Save Central, that's impossible, you'll be telling me next you are in trouble.
NB: No, Gordon, I'm not in trouble, I've lost, I'm trying to save one seat for us in this city. Now if you don't mind, I'm going to see what I can do to salvage this one against a small horde of Liberals, then I'll go to the count and then I'm going to get horribly drunk.
*Click*

The NEC Arena, Birmingham

The Deputy Returning Officer was a very worried man. Big elections in Birmingham had a nasty habit of going wrong and his application for a better post was up next month. There had already been a number of issues over the issue of poll cards, the updating of the live register and a number of troublesome complaints about the behaviour of polling workers - some of which were undoubtedly correct.

Now, his problem was the postal votes. Not in the hideous 2004 way, which had cost the last-but-one returning officer his job, nor in the 2006 way with bundles of votes being left in the elections office uncounted which had cost the previous incumbent his job, but in yet another wrinkle.

Over there were about 46,000 postal votes, all of which had been run through the verification machines. Sadly, the machines had rejected a rather high percentage of them, much higher than was expected even after the Sparkbrook problem of the previous year. A forlorn looking stack of over 12,000 votes needed manual verification and it was already 8:20pm.

He'd promised the Leader of the Council and the Chief Exec an orderly count, with everything proceeding to plan and the Second City getting a prime place before the cameras, he couldn't beat Sunderland, but he could get to be one of the first marginals to declare and Edgbaston was a classic bell-wether.

The high turnout would lengthen that, but if that was true of all seats, then he could still have his place in the sun. The problem was the postals, they would have to be manually verified before the counting stage could start and the machine rejections could take an age, especially if the party representatives were present quibbling over each vote.

If he were to make the targets, then he would have to start the machine rejections now and the postal count at precisely 10. If there were no representatives here, then so be it. The only real worry would be Hall Green, over 2,000 rejections there in a tight three way race.

An election court would be the end of his career, but so would a late count. Insh'allah, there would be no problems, he decided to start the manual verifications.

Cowley Street, 8:55pm

Mark Pack's email pinged, he'd been on edge waiting for the final exit poll leak for the last fifty minutes. He hadn't enjoyed the roller-coaster ride of the election, but the signs over the last few days had been better, the reports from the constituencies today, had even allowing for candidatitis, been very favourable. However, he needed confirmation.

There it was, straight from a source at NOP.

Con 33.1, LDm 29.4, Lab 26.7

He grinned, good enough for a hung parliament, maybe even for 95 seats.

He then read the accompanying short note about the sampling and he realised that the roller-coaster was still going up and down. He pulled up some spreadsheets and started to write a briefing note for Nick.
 
Comment..

Excellent update again, Iain. The subtext suggests the big LD gains will be off Labour but if the party is polling 29% nationally, there will be gains from the Conservatives as well though it will be more uneven.

I just doubt the conversation between Gordon Brown and Nick Brown. It's not the sort of thing that would happen on Polling Day and especially an hour or two before the close of poll. Nor do I see Labour being as wholly unprepared for the possibility of negotiation with the Lib Dems as you portray them.
 
Excellent update again, Iain. The subtext suggests the big LD gains will be off Labour but if the party is polling 29% nationally, there will be gains from the Conservatives as well though it will be more uneven.

I just doubt the conversation between Gordon Brown and Nick Brown. It's not the sort of thing that would happen on Polling Day and especially an hour or two before the close of poll. Nor do I see Labour being as wholly unprepared for the possibility of negotiation with the Lib Dems as you portray them.

Ah, well, I have a lovely spreadsheet with all the recalculated results, carefully adjusted not just by swing, but also by a number of other factors. It's interesting.

Strange things happen on Polling Day - I know one now Cabinet Member who always went to the cinema on Polling Day and only emerged in the evening to do a bit of gladhanding. OTL's Gordon is a leetle off-balance and I've seen a lot of plotting on polling day.

All three parties are reasonably well prepared for the forthcoming few days, they have teams organised and even venues booked for clandestine meetings, but the results and the delays are going to make life interesting.
 
I really wonder what the result in Bath will be in these very different times. The Labour vote pretty much entirely collapsed to the Lib Dems last year, so it looks like things might be even worse TTL and across the entire South West ...
By the look of things it is quite possible that Labour might lose its deposit in Bath.

The count was hard to look at as it was for my side, but in your story it looks like we may end up with less than half the amount of votes than the Lib Dems had ...

Keep up the good work in any case :)!
 
I really wonder what the result in Bath will be in these very different times. The Labour vote pretty much entirely collapsed to the Lib Dems last year, so it looks like things might be even worse TTL and across the entire South West ...
By the look of things it is quite possible that Labour might lose its deposit in Bath.

The count was hard to look at as it was for my side, but in your story it looks like we may end up with less than half the amount of votes than the Lib Dems had ...

Keep up the good work in any case :)!

I have adjusted for very small voteshares being "harder", although Tim Farron continues to try and see how low you can squeeze a Labour vote.

I'll let loose a teaser, the last seat is declared on the Sunday lunchtime after the election.

Now, I shall just get on with a little update.
 
The Last Gasp - Election day 9pm until the polls close

from Eton Rifles - by Steve Hilton

The early part of election night is the one that most people watch, those first two hours with a handful of results are watched by a surprisingly large part of the British public. The numbers go down through the night, news junkies and couch potatoes are usually up until 2am and by 4am - well, it's political junkies and people with Aspergers and they aren't mutually exclusive groups by a long way. The next important bit is in the morning, when everything is decided and you are talking to WorcesterWoman and MondeoMan on BrekDrek TV, then you need some nice lowbrow quality spin.

So the 10-midnight slot is absolutely crucial and you need two good people for it, one for the BBC and one for Sky. Who you put on Channel 4 or ITV really doesn't matter - one isn't watched much and the other is watched mainly by non-voters. The problem is finding two good people, one of which must be a Holby City sort of character for Sky and a more highbrow figure for the BBC. The BBC is the hard one, there's a lurking Jezza on hand to do some serious savaging and Dimbleby becomes more difficult as he gets older and more cranky.

As ever, the ideal figure would be Stephen Fry, but sadly, as well as being a national treasure, he's certainly no Tory. I did suggest him to Dave, but it seems that's a no-no. Most of the MP's will be very busy at their counts and the ones counting the next day this time either more suited to the Archers or headed back to their seats. About the best offer was Teresa Villiers.

On the other hand, there are those who are standing down at this election, but then there's always that terrible problem that they are somewhat unrestrained and a bit demob-happy. Anne Widdecombe is usually a good entertainment bet, but Dave vetoed that one very quickly. Michael Howard wouldn't have been bad, but he has a nervous tick when left in a room with Jezza these days. We asked him to do Sky, where the combination of Jabba Boulton and Kay Burley isn't exactly taxing or threatening.

Which leaves you with the old stagers, several of which are frankly a bit Alzheimers these days and given that we had found out it was Paddy and Kinnock for the others, did rule a few of them out as it would straight down Memory Lane again and we don't want anything like that.

So we ended up with Michael, he's entertaining, laid back and a teensy bit vulpine and much more acceptable since he turned from being one of Thatchers Liebstandarte into an early moderniser. He agreed quite easily and Dave thought that he was a good idea, although he had thought Lord Hurd would be quite good.

I did suggest he came in for some media refresher and some roleplays, but he was quite rude and didn't turn up.

Sky News

Announcer: Well, it's just gone 9:20pm on Polling Day, so if you haven't voted yet, then you still have 40 minutes to vote. The Electoral Commission has gone to Court to ensure that people who are still in the queue at 10:00pm will get to vote in what is proving to be the most heavily contested election since 1997. Turnout is up across the country, rural seats, suburban seats, city seats are all reporting the numbers of voters considerably up on 2005. Earlier this evening we saw substantial queues across the country, but in the main they have died down now. Anna, what's the situation here in London?

Well, Jeremy, obviously London is huge, but I understand that the only places with still with queues are near the centre. There are queues in Bethnal Green and Bow, Hampstead and Kilburn, Westminster North and Islington South. There were quite long queues in Holborn and St Pancras and oddly in Wimbledon earlier, but they appear to have died down now.

Wimbledon certainly appears a little different to the others. Shefali, what's happening in Birmingham queue wise.

Well, Jeremy, there are still students queuing in Edgbaston, some of them have been queuing for a couple of hours to vote, but it's all very good humoured with a party atmosphere. Edgbaston is, of course, a key marginal seat between Labour and the Conservatives. I understand there is also a large queue in the Jewellry Quarter in Birmingham Ladywood and that one appears not be dying down. In other news, there have been some more arrests for personation, this time in Birmingham Ladywood and another unpleasant confrontation in Birmingham Hall Green, this time in the Springfield ward - six people have been arrested there.

Birmingham certainly seems to be having a lot of incidents today, Tessa in Sheffield, how is it there?

Jeremy, I'm currently in Sheffield Central watching the LibDems still knocking doors, even at this late hour. Even the Leadership have been working the doorsteps, working the crowd at the polling stations, both Nick Clegg and Paul Scriven have been out for most of the evening. There are still some queues in Hallam and Central and the people in them seem determined to vote. A LibDem insider has hinted that the turnout in Hallam is over 80% tonight

Well, less than 35 minutes to get into the queue to vote remain, the parties are now winding down their campaigns and heading either for the counts or to celebrate or commiserate. Join us at 10pm for the start of the election night special.

The last gasp

It was nearly over, just the count was left to go. The tellers had come off the polling stations at 8:30 and a last gasp knock up was going on, with cars available to whisk any last voters to the booths. The same was happening in Springfield, where two polling stations were under the watchful eye of multiple policemen. Hall Green had shut down a little earlier at 8:00pm as the ward organiser had to go over to Ladywood to "win his council election", most of their team were at home or heading back to their seats. Turnout was lethally high, allowing for a 70% postal vote return, then there were some polling districts that might break 80% tonight. Only a couple of polling stations had queues, but only of 5 or 6 people.

The committee room was a complete mess. The smoking ban had been breached about 7pm, there was the remnants of a huge Indian take-away scattered on a trestle table, leaflets, knock-up cards and assorted papers were everywhere. The coke cans were only outnumbered by the empty coffee cups and the kitchen looked like a war zone. In the distance, a speaker cardcould be heard "Half an hour to go, vote Evans, vote Liberal Democrat, جیری ایونز کے لئے ووٹ دیں، لبرل ڈیموکریٹ پارٹی ووٹ دیں. آدھے گھنٹے اب بھی ووٹ دینے کے..."

The Ward Organiser turned to the Constituency Organiser and sighed.

Well, that went better than I expected at least organisationally. God knows what the result is, but I expect it's between us and Madam and I have a nasty feeling it's going to be a long, long count. I'm going to go home, have a very quick wash, change my shirt and head for the Arena.
 
Nice holding update, Iain. Any plans for a few Winchesters ?

I don't need to plan for one, the magic spreadsheet gives a number of very tight races a couple of which are in sufficiently controversial seats to be certain of some form of skullduggery, incompetence or malpractice, there will be seats joining the dreary steeples in the Courts. Remember one seat is still counting on the Sunday :D

Election night itself will start with an update tonight or tomorrow night, but I may do a short update i thought of yesterday, but didn't flesh out until this morning. There probably won't be any actual results until the weekend. I'm also toying with the idea of a "Guido" update, but I don't think I can stomach it.

Btw, I have made no changes at all to the election in the piece of Ireland that passeth all understanding, despite the temptation to add a "Teenage Taigs for Prod MILFS" candidate in Strangford.
 
Lord Reith's Monster - Dominic Sandbrook

The election period had been particularly difficult for the BBC, the claims of bias came left right and centre throughout the period, possibly because of the highly erratic performance of BBC News until the last week of the election. Gavin Esler has explained how the BBC has a liberal, cultural bias which led to conflict between those who felt this was represented by the Labour Party and those who felt that David Cameron's Tories represented a new liberalism. Oddly enough, the only major party that was genuinely liberal - the Liberal Democrats always got fairly short thrift from the BBC from its foundation until Election Night in 2010.

This internal BBC Kulturkampf led to BBC News execs getting regular monsterings from both the Tories and Labour spin teams and led to the critical Select Committee report in late 2010. Helen Boaden clamped down in the final week to make sure that output was strictly neutral and as bland as possible - which actually led to further criticism as the actual election day news broadcasts were far too quiet and restrained compared to Sky's engaging and breathless output as the day unfolded.

However, the night itself was a triumph for the BBC, despite worries that it wouldn't be the same without Peter Snow. David Dimbleby was a consummate professional (at least in front of the camera) and Emily Maitlis and Jeremy Vine handled the results very well. Nick Robinson was a bit weak on analysis, but that has never been the strong point on Election Night.

The BBC operation only called a couple of seats wrong, unlike Sky who jumped the gun on a large number of occasions, and was widely praised over the weekend in the qualities. Unfortunately, the combination of the coverage before and the disasters in the rolling coverage over the uncertain period after the election lead to the Select Committee investigation.

BBC 1, 10pm, 6th of June 2010

David Dimbleby:
Welcome to BBC's Election Night. As the polls close throughout the United Kingdom, we are ready to bring you results comments and analysis on what has proved to be one of the most exciting elections for some time.

Here in the studio, we will have interviews by myself and Jeremy Paxman, comment as the results come in from Nick Robinson and a team of politicians - gracing us for the first part of the evening are Michael Portillo, Lord Kinnock and Lord Ashdown. The analysis and statistics will be presented by Jeremy Vine and Emily Maitlis, with Emily also talking to our outside broadcast teams in the regions. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have their own broadcasts - but Emily will be talking frequently to Jackie Bird in Edinburgh, Huw Edwards in Cardiff and Noel Thompson in Belfast.

Out in the field, we have over 100 OB teams and reporters with the party leaders - Martha Kearney is with Gordon Brown in his seat in Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath. Martha, what's the mood there?

Well, David, it's going to be a make or break night for Gordon Brown, I'm actually outside his home in East Queensferry and its very quiet here apart from the journalists. The Prime Minister hasn't been seen since going to vote this morning, but we have been assured that he's been resting for the long night ahead, conferring with the Cabinet and monitoring the world markets. His seat is expect to declare about 2am and after that, he'll have a short celebration before heading to Edinburgh airport and back to Number 10

Thanks Martha and now over to Justin Webb with David Cameron.

Thank you, David, David Cameron spent most of the morning and lunchtime campaigning in his seat and other Oxfordshire seats before returning to his home in Chipping Norton. He spent the afternoon with his family, before a tour of the polling stations in his Witney seat. He's now having dinner at home with Samantha and a few close advisors including Lord Hurd. His seat is expected to declare about 3am and then he'll be heading to Conservative Party HQ in London.

Andrew Marr is with Nick Clegg's campaign in Sheffield

Well, I'm exhausted and Nick Clegg must be even more exhausted, he's spent the day in a whirlwind of activity meeting voters, young people and students. He's spent most of the afternoon and evening in his own seat or the adjacent seat of Sheffield Central campaigning on doorsteps, outside polling stations and speaking on loudspeakers. He hosted a short "tea and cake" event for the press about 6pm where he said that great things would happen tonight for the Liberal Democrats. About 8pm, he joined a veritable cavalcade of cars leaving Central Sheffield for Stocksbridge from which they have yet to return. His seat is supposed to declare about 2:30am and I understand he will stay in Sheffield overnight.

Thank you, Andrew, normally at this point we would have the exit poll results and some analysis, but because some people are still in the queue to vote, we will be holding off on that for a while for legal reasons. As that doesn't give us much room for comment, we'll just have a quick look at the highlights and low lights of the campaign so far.

Telephone Call

Voice 1: Have you just seen fucking Sky
Voice 2: Aye, it's shite, really shite. You break the poll first because the wee bedwetters at the BBC are shitting their Adult Depends about 50 pissed students in some Northern shite-hole and Kay Burley gets the numbers the wrong way around.
Voice 1: And did the PM see it
Voice 2: Aye, he did, one moment of complete elation and then bang, actually Third, not First - aboot as popular as a wee broon stain on the pavement.
Voice 1: and his reaction?
Voice 2: He's on the phone to Mandy, has been for 10 minutes, nay too bad.
Voice 1: Thank fuck for that, I'll try and ring him when he's finished
Voice 2: Well use Phone 2, the first one ended up straight in the fireplace about 10 seconds after the exit was corrected
Voice 1: Well, Fucky-bye and don't forget to take the Largactil to the count.

BBC Election Night, 10:15pm

Well, that was a very good summary of the ups and downs for each party, but Jeremy informs me that we can now have the exit poll. Jeremy...

Well, David, we've looked at the opinion poll in some detail and we can say with some confidence that the Conservatives will be the largest party in the new House of Commons, but we think they will be somewhat short of a majority. The poll will is subject to a margin of error, but it may be possible tonight that the Liberal Democrats may overtake Labour in terms of vote share and be on for their highest number of seats since 1922. There are some caveats about the poll, the higher the turnout the higher the possibility of inaccuracy, but that isn't a glimmer of hope for Gordon Brown as it seems the higher the turnout, the worse it will get. The interesting thing is that a higher percentage of the vote has gone to "The Others" with indicates that both UKIP and the BNP will probably be saving a number of deposits tonight.

Good grief, highest number of Liberals since 1922, Labour possibly third, this is a watershed election, Jeremy. Any other observations before I head over to the politicians, could David Cameron run a minority government?

David, to be fair, it only takes 70 seats for the Liberals to beat every election since 1992. They look to be making good progress against Labour on a limited front, but can they defend vulnerable seats from the Tories. As for the question of a minority, that will depend on the state of play in the individual seats, but at the moment, I would say it was unlikely to happen.

So, Jeremy, what's hit Labour or is it just this Clegg wave resurfacing?

Well, it appears to be two major groups. Less well off pensioners have been deserting Labour in droves, especially in the North, however, their votes have been going all over the place - but they are certainly partially responsible for the rise of the others. Young people have broken massively for the Liberal Democrats and the initial evidence is that they are voting in record numbers, especially in student seats. The good news for Labour is that they are certainly holding up in Scotland, that London appears to have a lower swing than anywhere else and that they seem to have increased their vote amongst young families in who are in low-skill work or are unemployed. Emily will just demonstrate some of this on the Big Board.

BBC 1, 10:40pm, 6th of June 2010

Well, that was a very interesting point Lord Kinnock and as you say, the real results will start to tell us the real picture. Emily, are we far away from a result.

Well, David, we had hoped to be cutting over the Sunderland now, but despite their fine honed skills and selected and trained teams, they tell us that it will be just after 11 for the first seat, but they hope to get all three of their seats declared before anyone else gets a look in. We do have the first few turnout figures which are really rather high compared to the last two elections. We understand that the three Sunderland seats are "just below 70%, which is a very substantial increase from last time. Other turnouts that are reaching us is Thornbury and Yate - over 80%.

Thank you, Emily, any rumours yet Jeremy?

David, it's a bit early for that at the moment, but we have heard in the last few moments that Labour are looking very unhappy in Ynys Mon.

Thank you, Jeremy. Lord Kinnock - unhappy in Ynys Mon?
 
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BBC1, Election Night, 11:10pm

In the Studio

The Dimblebore
Well, I think these are very salient points about the legitimacy of coalition, but are you essentially saying, Lord Kinnock, that if this result is inconclusive there should be a second election.

I've just been told it is time to go over the Sunderland for the first result of the night.

OB Sunderland

Officer for the constitutency of Houghton and Sunderland South, do hereby declare the number of votes cast for each candidate as follows:

Allen, Karen - British National Party - Three thousand, Five Hundred and and Seventy Four.
Ripple of applause and booing
Boyle, Christopher - Liberal Democrat - Eleven thousand, Two Hundred and Eighty Four
Quite a bit of applause
Elvin, Richard - United Kingdom Independence Party - One Thousand, Five Hundred and Thirty Two.
A couple of claps
Oliver, Robert - The Conservative Party - Seven Thousand One Hundred and Eighty Five
Mild Clapping
Phillipson, Bridget - The Labour Party - Twenty Thousand Two Hundred and Eighty Two
Applause and Cheering, Returning Officer waits for quiet
Wakefield, Colin - Independent - Three Thousand, One Hundred and Twenty Three.

The Total Number of Valid Votes Cast was Forty Six Thousand, Nine Hundred and Sixty Nine and the number of spoilt papers was Nine Hundred and Thirty.

I hereby declare, the aforementioned Bridget Phillipson, duly elected for the borough constituency of Houghton and Sunderland South.

Cheering, Applause and Clapping for about a minute. A red band across the screen states that Houghton and Sunderland South is a Labour Hold. back to the Studio - Emily, will you talk us through this result, a comfortable Labour Hold.

Well, indeed, just under a nine thousand majority in this seat, but looking at this against the projected result for this seat shows a whole different story.

Code:
Houghton and Sunderland South
Electorate: 68,754
Turnout: 68.30%

[COLOR="Red"]Labour Hold[/COLOR]

Bridget Phillipson           Lab        20,282       43.2%      -19.7
Christopher Boyle            LDm        11,284       24.0%      + 9.5
Robert Oliver                Con         7,185       15.3%      - 0.7
Karen Allen                  BNP         3,574        7.6%      + 0.9
Colin Wakefield              Ind         3,123        6.6%      + 6.6
Richard Elvin                UKIP        1,512        3.2%      + 3.2

Majority: 8,897 (19.2%)
Swing Labour to Liberal Democrat: 14.6%

First, I have to stress, that this is a result from a notional calculation performed by the University of Plymouth as this is a new seat. These calculations are usually very accurate, but sometimes there can be mistakes made especially where local councils have lots of independents.

The first thing to notice is the turnout, which is back to the sort of level seen in this seat in 1992. The second thing is a massive drop in the Labour voteshare, although the actual numerical vote has increased for Labour because of the increased turnout. Then we can see that the Conservatives have stood pretty still in this seat and not benefited from being in second place and therefore the main challengers. The big gain is for the Liberal Democrats, but it only represents about half the Labour loss, the rest has been scattered amongst the BNP, UKIP and a local independent. The BNP have kept their deposit here for the first time as has the Independent.

So, Emily, huge loss of votes for Labour, any special local factors

Well, David, not really, although the Independent is a Independent local councillor and has done rather well. Of the three socio-economic groups that are showing unusual swings according to the exit poll, two are well represented in the seat - low income pensioners and low income young families. However, this is a very safe seat for Labour and the swing in those can be somewhat anomalous.

Jeremy, any thoughts on how the national picture may look after this result

David, predicting results off one Labour safe seat is nearly as good as predicting results off a by-election. A good bit of entertainment but not very useful. The interesting things here are the turnout, which is backed up by some of the other turnout figures we are starting to hear which seems to show that turnout tonight will be in the low-70's at least at the level of 1997. Those extra voters are unlikely to be good for the Labour party overall, some may well be Labour voters who have come out to defend a seat in peril, but overall, they won't be.

The other interesting thing is that the LibDems have leapfrogged the Conservatives here, it may be that this is because it is a safe seat and therefore people voted more as they wished than tactically, but if there's a get the bums out factor, it's not going towards the obvious party. We will know more when we've seen a few more seats, especially ones that are more marginal.

Thank you, we'll just go over to our panel for some reaction
 
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Exit Polling..

I'm not sure Sky would have been so coy as the BBC but they weren't really in the game back in 1992.

Two very good updates and clearly there's a lot going to be happening in a very short time.

The figures look to be going in an interesting direction but I await the first Conservative-Lib Dem marginal with interest !
 
Code:
Houghton and Sunderland South
Electorate: 68,754
Turnout: 68.30%

Bridget Phillipson           Lab        20,282       43.2%      -19.7
Christopher Boyle            LDm        11,284       24.0%      + 9.5
Robert Oliver                Con         7,185       15.3%      - 0.7
Karen Allen                  BNP         3,574        7.6%      + 0.9
Colin Wakefield              Ind         3,123        6.6%      + 6.6
Richard Elvin                UKIP        1,512        3.2%      + 3.2

Majority: 8,897 (19.2%)
Swing Labour to Liberal Democrat: 14.6%

Comparing to OTL, Labour and the Lib Dems are up whilst Con down, but the main impact appears to have been a huge increase in turnout (38k to 46k) which has lead to all the above candidates, apart from the Conservatives gaining.

If this is repeated, and the increased turnout results in a larger LD vote, then it's definite hung parliament territory, with CON down compared to OTL, LD up and Labour.... about the same (maybe a bit down).
 
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