7th May, heading up towards 1pm
from
SpAD Confidential - Imogen Edwards Jones and Anonymous
Being fairly lowly on the SpAD pecking order, a combination of a useless minister and some unpopularity with the Powers That Be. I ended up with a choice of the Prescott Battle-Bus or the "Internet Intervention Unit". I didn't fancy four weeks with Two Jags looking for people to punch and finding excuses to end up somewhere near Doncaster every night. So I took the latter option.
There was a small group of us and our job was to "astroturf" various web sites, we had great fun, one of our best stunts was to give the Clegg a really hot time on Mumsnet - where basically at least six of the people questioning him were in our little office. My best creation was a slightly dim Scouse wine merchant on a politics site who annoyed the shite out of all the regulars, he got so popular that there were three of us running shifts on him.
We also had to make sure that Labour blogs had lots of positive comments, to try and calm down some of the Progress-Compass wars that occasionally broke out and to monitor Twitter, mainly to make sure that our so called Twitter Tsarina wasn't being a total mong - a difficult job. Some people think we invented Twitter accounts that were perhaps a bit too loyal to Labour, but I assure you BevaniteEllie is real and a greater devotion to her political heroes you'll not find outside North Korea. We also did tweeting for the large number of MP's who find turning on their Crackberry's difficult. It's bloody hard pretending to be Khalid Mahmood. We didn't pay much attention to Facebook, a big mistake and we allowed far, far too much information to be on #labourdoorstep.
Anyway, we were all herded out of our office on Election Day about lunchtime, the lucky ones got bussed to Holborn and St Pancras, the moderately unlucky ones got bussed to Westminster North and some went to Bethnal Green and Bow and we never saw them again. It seems Karen Buck was panicking like a spastic in a magnet factory and the Victoria Street Bunker wanted her back in at all costs. I ended up with a knock-up team being run by some prissy councillor who looked like he'd cornered the market in pocket-protectors, but he knew his stuff, he knew his ward and we got them out.
I was about to piss off home and enjoy the fun, when I got dragooned back to the office in order monitor Twitter for count information to be relayed directly for The Lying Scotsman. Mind you, he did give us Geoff Hoon's credit card so we could get delivery food and booze in. He said Geoff won't be needing it for a while, when we asked where Geoff was - he pointed to the boot of the car.
Anyway, it was all very quiet for a while, Ellie nearly had a breakdown over the exit poll, Kerry was very quiet and even Mrs Bercow wasn't telling us of her previous sexual adventures. So we went back to astroturfing for a while, I did politicalhedging and my mate did ConservativeHomeland (which is like shooting fish in a barrel, just pretend to be a uKipper). However, as it went past midnight, the tweets from the counts started to turn all rather tits-up. There weren't that many, a lot of Returning Officers went all very Stalinist about tweeting from the count, but the ones that were coming through really weren't good. It seemed we had lost a pile of seats in the Midlands and the North
My favourite of the night was from the Czarina of Twitter herself
Half the boxes open, Liberals ahead #briseast #kerrytowin - we roared at that one, the only thing to have beaten it would have been a full on MadNad special. After that, we just started to get drunk.
The NIA, Birmingham
The Councillor was already feeling tired, he'd been up since 5am. The count was going slowly and some of the counters were playing "hide the ballot paper". He was particularly fed up of saying "Face up, please" every few minutes to two particular dork-brains who seemed to think that it was their bounden duty to hide ballots from scrutiny. Luckily, his Labour shadow was equally annoyed and diligent, there was no sign of the Tories and the one remaining BNP had gone to sleep in a corner.
He wasn't unpleased by what he saw. Hemming was looking at around 1,500 majority out of his ward, the Tories looked like they might be third instead of the BNP and the turnout was about 60%. He had spent months fearing a General Election turnout, but he knew from the doorstep he was a bit more popular than John.
As there was a break between ballot boxes, he collected numbers from the others, added them into the sheet and then went to check with the Fat Man whose considered opinion was that we should all piss off to the pub for a couple of hours until the declaration.
The problem was the break between ballot boxes, they were all here, he'd checked that, but they seemed to spend 10 minutes or so before bringing the next pair out. He checked his illicitly turned on mobile for texts from a friend who was giving him results from the BBC, still fuck all on there.
Various bits of gossip filtered around the hall. Northfield was close, Hodge Hill wasn't close and the Lib Dem candidate had already fucked off home. Perry Barr was closer than had been thought, but Khalid would still be able to annoy his constituents for four years. Hall Green and Ladywood had got off to a very slow start, the ADRO hadn't allowed a single vote to be verified until the last box was in and there had been a massive row about postals. He'd heard nothing about Selly Oak and Edgbaston and frankly didn't care much even if his fellow ward councillor was the LibDem candidate for Edgbaston.
The next box then turned up, Yarnfield School, this could knock the majority down a bit, but the turnout would be dire. He need a fag, he might be able to slip out for one after verification finished.
BBC Election Night special
David Dimbleby (for it is he): Well, as we wait for more results to go in, I'll give our panel a quick break and we'll go around our presenters in the nations and the regions to get their impressions. First to Edinburgh with Jackie Bird.
Jackie:
Thank you, David, and welcome to Edinburgh for your first visit on what looks like a fairly quiet election night in Scotland. Initial impressions are that there is no swing away from Labour on the English scale here. Obviously the LibDems will be watching Edinburgh South and Aberdeen South very closely, Labour will be looking to regain their by-election losses in Fife and Glasgow and the SNP will be looking to see if they can match their Holyrood breakthrough. Conservative prospects are dim, they will just want to improve their position and hold on to David Mundell.
It does look like a big turnout night tonight, with several Central belt seats reporting turnouts in the low 70's. Very few reports have come in of anything but the usual massive majorities for Labour in the Central Belt, although we have been told that Eric Joyce in Falkirk has suffered a big swing against him but is expected to hold on. The first big result in Scotland will be Gordon Brown's and it is expected in about an hour or so.
DD: Well, thanks for that summary and we hope to be back in Auld Reekie just before 2pm. We now move to Huw Edwards in Cardiff. Huw.
Huw Edwards:
Nos da, David and it already looks like a long night here in Cardiff. The standard list of Welsh battlegrounds looks like it's been torn up tonight by the Liberal Democrats, who appear to be the main beneficiaries of a poor night for Labour. We are already hearing that the LibDems are in a very good position in both Wrexham and Newport East and Labour sources have confirmed the former but not the latter, but we were told by Rodney Berman that the real shocks will come later. The Plaid also have their dander up, they are claiming Ynys Mon as a gain from Labour with a "substantial" majority, they also say that Llanelli looks close but it's a bit early to tell. The Tories are also saying that it's early, but feel that they have a good chance of coming away with more seats tonight. On the bright side for Labour, we are told they will regain Blaenau Gwent tonight from People's Voice.
DD: So substantial change in Wales then?
Huw:
Well, that's what we are being told, but we will have to wait and see. We are expecting half a dozen seats to declare within the next hour or so. Arfon within the next half hour, but that will be a Plaid.
DD: Thank you, Huw, over to Caroline Quinn in London
Caroline:
It looks like a very long night here in London, several seats got off to a very late start with polls not closing until nearly 10:40 in a couple of locations. The counts are generally preceding slowly and several seats have already put back their estimates by an hour. We are expecting to hear from the three Wandsworth seats fairly quickly, probably within the next hour or so, but then we have a long, long fallow spell before anything else is due. Of course, the local elections are being counted as well, in some places tomorrow, but in some cases parallel when the verification is complete. As for the Wandsworth seats, Labour have pretty much conceded Battersea to the Tories and both Tooting and Putney are expected to remain with their various parties. Other than that, there is very little news.
DD: Thank you Caroline, the exit poll suggested that there would be a lower swing away from Labour than in much of the rest of the country. Any sign of that.
Caroline:
Well, David, as I said, there is very little coming out of the counts at the moment, we may well know more at your next visit. We have been told that the Battersea result will have a large Tory majority when it comes up, but it was one of the most marginal seats.
DD: Well, I hope you'll have more information when we return at 2am. Now over to Belfast.
from
Eton Rifles - Steve Hilton
One of the most tedious bits about the election is the actual count, why we can't get the voting over and done with and then just wake up in the morning to the results, I don't know.
My job on election night was to feed out people at the BBC and Sky with messages via their Blackberries. To help the team out with providing inspirational and positive messages to project the modern brand Cameron, I'd got four advisors - one of which was relaying the messages, two of which was studying the shows and one of which was checking out the messages with a focus group.
Unfortunately, the only sort of focus group you can get late on a Thursday night consists of wannabe SpAD's, Dot Cotton's less glamourous sister, a couple of White Van Men (who want Stella) and Edna the Inebriate Woman. So I stuck with the SpAD's wannabes and I'll be frank - they weren't helpful. Even I can spot mickey-taking going on when they came up with the idea that there should be a grand coalition to shut the Liberals out.
Now Michael Howard was being lovely at Sky and was getting them to eat out of his hand, he didn't need much guidance, nor did he constantly demand election results or tidbits of news. The other Michael was much less helpful, whilst putting out a very modernising message, it wasn't fully chiming in with the new direction of the party and there were a couple of disturbing references to She Who We Do Not Name except in the company of Daily Mail journalists. However, I fed him a few gobbets about promising counts in Leicestershire and he chilled out a bit. I didn't mention about Letwin, I didn't know if they were friends or not.
BBC Election Night, 00:50am
Recount in Darlington
DD: I was beginning to wonder if the computers had crashed and we were going to sit here tonight without any results, but it seems we have something even if it isn't a result. Jeremy?
JV (looking a bit flustered): Well, Alan Milburn has stood down,but with a repeat of even of the swings we've seen so far, I can't see this one changing hands. It may be a recount for a deposit for one of the smaller parties. We will see what we can find out.
DD: Well, I was hoping something exciting would have happened. Emily, is there any more news coming out of the counts?
EM: Well to back up a report from Huw earlier, we are also hearing that it is very tight in Llanelli, also that Tooting is not looking as safe for Labour as earlier. Ken Clarke we are told is coasting to victory in Rushcliffe and we are told that Guildford looks like it may just stay Tory, but could be recount territory. The Tories are claiming victory in Stafford and the LibDems in Eastbourne.
DD: I understand that on another channel which is "calling" the results, they have just declare Willie Rennie's by-election seat as a LibDem hold.
EM: David, we don't call seats like that other channel, although we do report news from the parties, especially when confirmed by other sources. We haven't got much information from that seat yet.
DD: Well, Lord Ashdown, Eastbourne, how does that feel?
Paddy: Well, we've held Eastbourne before after a by-election and we've always been competitive there. The sitting MP has made a number of mistakes and our candidate was well tipped to win.
DD: I must interrupt you there as we have a result from Arfon, quite a small constituency, so no surprises for an early declaration.
Code:
Arfon
Electorate: 41,197
Turnout: 71.31%
[COLOR="SeaGreen"][SIZE="5"][B]PLAID CYMRU GAIN FROM LABOUR[/B][/SIZE][/COLOR]
Hywel Williams* PC 10,997 37.4% + 4.4
Alun Pugh Lab 7,267 24.7% - 9.2
Sarah Green LDm 6,882 23.4% + 7.9
Robin Millar Con 3,440 11.7% - 4.7
Elwyn Williams UKIP 808 2.7% + 0.8
Majority: 3,710 (12.7%)
Swing: Labour to Plaid Cymru 6.8%
JV: Well, this will be regarded by some as a Plaid Cymru gain from Labour and by others as a Plaid Cymru hold, the notionals were that close and the two sets differed in their interpretation. However, the set of notional results we are using have it has a Labour seat. A widely predicted gain for Plaid Cymru here where they have the advantage of partial incumbency for Hywel Williams. The swings much lower than in the previous seats, but this is a very different seat to most of the ones in the UK.
1AM - State of the Parties: Lab 3 PC 1
