It felt as if the world was coming to a standstill. Time was slowing down the closer we got to 10pm. The waiting became almost unbearable. In the ITV studios, presenters, pundits and reporters nervously rehearsed their lines. Filling in time before the moment when the polling stations closed and the exit poll was announced. Democracy can be surprisingly tense. That one point in the cycle when the power resides with the people, not the politicians.
The exit poll is rarely wrong. It’s never yet failed to predict the largest party. Only in 2015 was there a small glitch when it failed to predict a Tory overall majority. These days it is treated with the reverence of a holy relic. It shapes the narrative of the whole night. The defining verdict on the accuracy of all the other polls conducted over the previous weeks and months. The last word on the ambitions of the party leaders. From zero to hero. And vice versa.
Slowly the clock ticked round. The minutes feeling like hours. After the last chime of Big Ben, Tom Bradby ended the suspense. A Labour landslide with a majority of 170. Labour predicted to win 410 seats. The Tories just 131. A good night for the Lib Dems on 61. Reform on 13. The SNP almost wiped out with just 10.
It may not have been quite the wipeout the Tories had feared, but it was a disaster nonetheless: the worst result in their history. Ed Balls tried not to look too smug. As did George Osborne. He still has scores to settle in the Tory ranks.
Then the postmortems began. A pallid-looking Osborne – he’s been on an anti-sunbed – laid into Rishi Sunak, Boris Johnson and Liz Truss. He can’t help protecting his own legacy. Starmer had taken on the extremists in his party, Sunak hadn’t.
Bradby turned his attention to Nicola Sturgeon. There was an ongoing police investigation into the SNP, he said. That can’t have helped. Ouch. Nicola gulped and wondered why she had accepted the invitation to come on the programme.
Meanwhile, Tom was having the time of his life. He hadn’t seen so much excitement in years. On to the seat predictor. Jeremy Hunt, Grant Shapps and Penny Mordaunt all lined up as toast. The country could breathe a little bit easier. But Rish! couldn’t. We cut live to his seat where it was reported he was planning to stay up all night. The man’s a masochist. Just reach for the fentanyl.
Angela Rayner was first up for Labour. Hardly a ray of sunshine. Clearly under orders not to look too thrilled. She was here to serve etc. But the odd smile wouldn’t have gone amiss after 14 years in opposition. She did at least have an umbrella to keep the rain off. Labour had promised change and Angela had just delivered. No drowned rat for her.
It took a while for the first Tory to make an appearance. Step forward a sad-looking Robert Buckland. Also not long for this parliament. He launched a furious attack on the Tory right for its brand of kneejerk populism. He hoped his party wouldn’t disappear down the Reform rabbit hole. Hold my beer, said an email from the neocons of Popular Conservatism that landed in my inbox. They plan to do just that. The Tory party seems hellbent on tearing what’s left of itself apart. Happy days.
Deeper into the night, we had an interview with Neil Kinnock. Quite the moment. He wears his heart on his sleeve and, like many of us, had wondered if he would ever see a Labour government again. Dreams do come true from time to time.
Meanwhile, Nicola had gone almost silent. Once bitten, twice shy. Maybe her lawyer had texted to remind her to say: “No comment.” This won’t be a night she cares to remember.
Nor was it plain sailing on the other channels. Moments after pollster-in-chief John Curtice had put a health warning on Reform’s predicted 13 seats, the BBC panel decided Reform was the big story of the night.
Mmm. Not so sure about that. The real story is that we have a new government with a landslide majority. Reform might have helped, but the people who voted for them knew what they were doing. They weren’t that bothered if they put Keir Starmer in Downing Street. More than that, they were delighted.
If you wanted aggro, then Channel 4 was the place to be. Alastair Campbell and Nadine Dorries were at each other’s throats from the start. Mainly arguing about Boris Johnson. Still, it made a change from talking about Thursday’s election.
As the night wore on, the pace quickened, though the BBC seemed to miss many of the counts as its presenters preferred the sound of their own voice. Viewers may have thought otherwise. Things just kept getting better and better for Labour and the Lib Dems. Paul Waugh did parliament a favour by defeating George Galloway in Rochdale. George threw a strop and didn’t even bother to turn up for the declaration. Rochdale won’t miss him.
Defence secretary Grant Shapps went down in Welwyn. One of the dangers of getting one of his alter egos to stand against him. Justice secretary Alex Chalk lost in Cheltenham. Gillian Keegan and Jeremy Hunt also looked in danger. Iain Duncan Smith managed to hang on in Chingford as the left did battle with the left. Never change, never change.
Finally, we got the first sighting of our new prime minister as Keir Starmer turned up for his count. Whisper it, but he raised his eyebrows and forced a smile. You might even say that he looked happy. Almost. Welcome to the Pleasuredome. The future starts now.
