11.04pm
Star of previous election nights, Professor Sir Lord Captain John Curtice, has been booted into the bowels of the studio with a host of screens and a guy with a headset who looks a bit like a guy I used to work for. The BBC also have cameras in Boston, but no one was eating Dunkin Donuts so far as I could see.
C4 have started talking to random people in a room somewhere. A young Reform voter is there and seems to have started growing a moustache at around the time the exit poll came out. The roving microphone lady - in a fetching green suit and very red hair - exclaims "are you Welsh?" at a guy who is, indeed, Welsh. She's also found two best friends: men who are far too old to have best friends, if I'm honest, and are excited to say they disagree with each other but are weirdly reluctant to say which party they've each voted for. Both, in fact, have flipped parties. Simon & I would have been a much better pairing for that interview.
"You look like a Dickensian actuary" says Emily. Good to get a mention for my old profession. My current profession, I guess, since I'm still fully paid up.
Rob gets in touch from Switzerland to bemoan the landslide, and advocate for a Swiss-style tax system. Personally I think the Tory campaign about how much Keir Charmer will tax us was never likely to win, given how much the Conservatives are taxing us anyway. Well, not me so much, now that I'm not working as an actuary any more.
11.15pm
Has there been a fire alarm in the ITV studio? It's just Tom Bradby and a man who is apparently being played by Sir Anthony Hopkins.
Sunderland vs. Blyth is still being desperately fought - as expected, Newcastle is nowhere - and the candidates are up on the dais in Houghton & Sunderland South. They're declaring!! Oh, Blyth. Fumbled it again. Unsurprisingly a Labour win in Sunderland - the Lib Dem came in third, despite the candidate playing to the crowd by wearing a Sunderland shirt - but maybe the bigger story is that Reform have gone up 13.4% while Labour have gone up by about half that. Maybe those Reform predictions are accurate.
Rob has been back in touch to say that he doesn't in fact recommend a Swiss-style tax system in the UK, because people would die. Lefty liberal.
11.27pm
"This landslide is on shifting sands and it could evaporate" says the actor who played Nadhim Zahawi in Mr Bates vs the Post Office, showing a grasp of metaphors equal to Rishi's grasp of the Tory majority. Hannah is back with 'advanced maths', throwing around numbers like 70,000 and 650, and such difficult sums as 40 minus 8. She's also showing Tim Farron and his constituency of Westmorland & Lonsdale. How big is that Lonsdale?
John McDonnell is on ITV, and is informed by Margaret Hodge that he totally failed in 2017. In fairness, he only regularly failed in 2017; he totally failed in 2019. He's still trotting out the nonsense that Labour almost won in 2017 - they didn't - and makes the risible claim that Keir Charmer's victory could have been achieved by Red Jez. Yes, it's nothing but nicknames tonight, guys.
Blyth still haven't declared. Pathetic.
11.37pm
"I've not been on the stump as much as usual" says Nicola Sturgeon, who is possibly under house arrest for much of the day.
Blyth have finally made it. Apparently it's in Northumberland. There's a lady in a big hat who is introduced by BBC as 'acting returning officer' but calls herself 'returning officer'. Is this one of those weird political things whereby every returning officer is supposedly acting? I'm sure I ask this every time. Anyway, It's the same story as the previous seat: Labour have won again, and Reform have piled on the votes again. It's a LAB HOLD, or a beaker clamp as we called it when I did Chemistry A Level.
Word comes in from my old colleague John, who hopes that the UK's backward views will catch up with Europe in four years' time. He's probably talking about Johnny Hallyday.
Andrea "don't call me a stupid woman" Leadsom says that the Tories didn't win because they were too woke. I think. I was busy googling how to spell Hallyday.
11.47pm
Jeremy Vine! He's standing by what's essentially a cross between an electoral map and Giants Causeway - which is very red, and confirms that the Green insurgence is indeed in Bristol.
The actor who played Nadhim Zahawi is taking a leaf out of the Corbynites book by pointing out that Labour have won only 36% of the vote. If you're on Twitter you might have seen the descent into madness of Carol Vorderman - she could definitely cope with the level of maths that Prof Hannah is throwing around tonight, by the way - and she was claiming today that the Tories winning elections with less than 50% of the vote was evidence that we don't live in a democracy. I wonder if she'll say the same today.
Speaking of mad Twitter people, Owen Jones (who was invited to ITV in previous years, but I've not seen tonight) has greeted the historic Labour victory by suggesting that they might be anti-migrant and anti-trans. He is possibly a little upset that they've become electable.
11.57am
Over on ITV we're finally getting Nicked Sturgeon's response to the SNP collapse - after a reporter, Peter, finally pushes them to address it (from a safe distance in Edinburgh). Is there a mea culpa from her? Um, no. Apparently all those Scots moving their vote away from the SNP are still keen advocates for independence, she insists - fortunately Ed Balls has picked her up on this, since she's previously claimed that wider elections were de facto referenda on independence.
Osborne and Balls are asked if they'd hold another Scottish independence referendum if they were in government. They might as well ask me, though, because they're not politicians now, they're podcasters. And/or directors of the British Museum or something.
My friend Ed reports that Harriet Harman says immigration has gone up exponentially - I can't immediately rule this out, since I've not seen the data, but I suspect that she's misusing her mathematical terminology. Classic Labour.
C4 are showing footage of Portillo. Cutting edge stuff. But it's to introduce the current Tory cabinet ministers who might lose their seats, including Alex Chalk. One can only assume Alex Cheese is sitting pretty. Jeremy Hunt, sadly, might lose his seat to the Lib Dems and become the first chancellor ever to lose at a general election.
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