4.02am
Suella has retained her seat. More bad news. But Bristol North West has been retained by Darren Jones - the Labour candidate, who had my vote - with ITV greeting this as 'Laura Saunders unsuccessful'. Since she was suspended after gambling on the date of the election, this wasn't a surprise. Over to Basildon & Billericay, where the Conservative chairman won his seat by a mere 20 votes, with his victory being met by almost total silence: he is not popular locally.
Over in Boston & Skegness, David Dickason has 'deport all illegal immigrants' in the name of his party. Despite such an offer, Richard Tice has won the seat for Reform, standing in front of a sign saying "Boston ...a great past, an exciting future." Fact checkers are flocking. Also flocking is Rishi Sunak himself, heading to a provincial sports hall just like he's one of us. "We don't want to cut away" says Laura K, since we don't want to miss the money shot of sunk Sunak walking into a room. Surely resignation is coming shortly (in more ways than one. I think I did this gag already).
4.14am
Rishi's decision to call an election "badly backlashed" apparently. I don't think 'backlash' is a verb. Also apparently Sunak was "the first British Asian", which seems like it should have made more headlines. Will he fall on his sword tonight? He doesn't have too far to fall. Meanwhile, Richard Tice is thanking "my wonderful partner", a phrase that always makes me think someone is having to distinguish between his wonderful and non-wonderful partners. I guess Farage is the latter.
Over to Portsmouth North, where they have seen a Penny and decided not to pick her up: she's lost her seat to Labour by 780 votes. Another leadership contender bites the dust, and will go home to spend more time with her sword (unless Rishi is busy falling on it). "Democracy is never wrong" she says, in the best concession speech we've seen so far. "I and my team will do everything we can to assist you in setting up your office" & "Amanda, you will know you are working for the best employer ever". This is beautiful stuff. Either that or I'm utterly exhausted.
Mandy & Dehenna are still together on BBC and looking very much like a US news duo - or that period when Mel Sykes & Des O'Connor were a much-loved presenting team. Is theirs the next podcast? Oh no. I've just realised how many new podcasts we're going to get off the back of tonight.
4.27am
Celebrity Hunted contestant Johnny Mercer has gone. Cabinet minister Lucy Frazer has gone. Therese Coffey has lost to Labour (not, as some are reporting, Greens). Surely no one is reading this blog for updates like this, though. I don't know any more. I'm tired. What I do know is that the SNP is in utter turmoil: they've lost 21 seats so far and have only taken 4. Alex Salmond is in the BBC studio and possibly not taking any culpability for their dramatic failure.
A less dramatic failure for Clive & Laura who think that JRM is standing in Bath. No, so they cut away from the footage, because who cares what happens in Bath? Listen, people. Bath is just a rubbish version of Bristol. Am I biased? Yes. Do I actually like Bath? Yes. But tonight is not about being gracious to our neighbours - I ain't no Penny Mourdant - it's about wildly trashing places, and Bath is trash.
Simon tells me that Emily Maitlis has got out her purse and gone under the table. All right.
4.39am
"What will this country look like in two, three years' time?" asks Clive, which no one is even going to attempt to answer - because Jeremy Vine is in a Swingometer. Again, the days of it being inside a virtual Big Ben clock tower are sadly over: he's just standing in a big circle. Boo. It turns out that the Swingometer only goes up to 20%, so it can't even cope with all the Con/Lab swings. Vine also says that Reform are "shooting up" - it's no laughing matter - and that the Conservatives are getting "minced". Meaty.
Over to Bristol Central and the successful Green candidate. The floor of the room is very green - exactly the same shade as Carla's rosette - which is a clear sign of corruption and should surely result in a no-holds-barred enquiry. Still, all the houses I've walked past this week that have 'vote green' in their windows will have happy owners.
Robert Peston tantalises us with the suggestion that record-breaking & monarch-killing Prime Minister Liz Truss may have lost her seat. That'll be moment of the night if so. If Jeremy Hunt is going to lose his, it'll be delayed a little, because the returning officer's microphone isn't working... and now we probably won't see it at all because they've gone to Rishi's count instead...
4.50am
Rishi has, of course, held his seat. Fortunately, Hunt has kept his as well. Some guy behind Sunak is holding up a piece of paper with the letter L on it - is that just a 'take the L' thing? If so, it's accurate - Sunak has conceded the election, but hasn't yet given up the leadership of the party. Surely he'll do it within the next few hours. We're a long way past the predicted time at which Keir Charmer gets his majority (I'm sad that my main nickname of the night was stolen from someone else) but they're only 20 seats away. It's coming soon...
Hunt, of course, makes another gracious speech about the decency of Starmer & Reeves. A thoroughly decent man and a credit to parliament. He says his wife was "not born in this country" - wisely avoiding the possibility of another Japan/China error by being entirely non-specific about where she's from.
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