Highlights so far. The main one has to be that absolutely excruciating moment when Bruce Forsyth tried to rally a 1985-style BBC boat party into a “To see you NICE” chant. The horror, the horror.
Otherwise let’s take a long, hard, analytical look, not at the exit polls but at the . . . BBC coverage! Yes, indeed. First there was a surge of soundtracked strings, à la Hollywood. Then good old David Dimbleby, holding the proverbial ship together as the sound failed all around him, and then, at last, Paxo with his trio of party spokespeople and an odd time-lagged interview with Alan Johnson that made it sound like an awkward conversation between two teenagers hoping for a first date.
But in conclusion. Go, Bridget Phillipson! Sunderland, in the bonkers race to be first, seemed almost to trip over itself with all its bouncing students carrying ballot boxes. But they made it in the end. And if no one else who you like wins for the rest of the night, just think of the election officials of Houghton and Sunderland South, counting those votes quicker than anyone else. Yessss!