How are you going to spend election night?
I always face a dilemma on election nights. I am by inclination a lark. I go to bed early, and rise early, as must be apparent to any reader this blog. Most nights I will be in bed by 10, put on election night that is clearly not going to happen.
There is no way on earth that I am going to miss discussion of the exit poll, or have the opportunity to comment on it. But the question is, what to do after that?
I know Sunderland's result will be in at around midnight, but so what, since most of the time (and I recall the exceptions) it provides no real indication of what is actually going to happen.
So, is it exit poll, and off to bed before 11, before getting up again by five, or do I just go for the all nighter, and wreck Friday and much of the weekend, because it takes me that long to recover from such a thing now?
Any suggestions?
And how do you plan to do this?
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I will probably try and stay up….. only to fall asleep on the sofa by 2am and be woken by my wife at 6am wondering what happened.
🙂
I’m planning on bed at eight o’clock then up at three o’clock for the main results to start rolling in. I was initially planning on following Channel 4’s coverage, but I’ve just read they now have bloody Nadine Dorries on as a guest! I want to watch the Tories disappear, not watch one of the worst of their kind make a comeback.
I may well watch Sky
Definitely not the bbc or itv
I’l be watching Auntie Beeb. I want to be able to see and hear the establishment view. Love it, or hate it (as I do) this is the channel that shapes my world and the opinions of those around me. I don’t think I’ll ever forget the glee in Kirsty Wark when she was able to report an SNP loss. I once upon a time had respect for her ……no longer. She has every right to be a fervent unionist, but not when she’s at work.
I’m not even sure they (the BBC) even fulfil Reith’s requirement to entertain very well any longer. ( That noise you think is tinnitus is actually the sound of John Reith spinning in his grave. And he was not what anyone these days would describe as woke, in fact he was barking reading between the lines of his biography)
I f*c*ing loathe Strictly. The dancing is fine but the celebrity BS that goes with it is excruciating – and that’s the jewel in the BBC’s crown these days. Detectorists was good, but what else? Shetland? Now I’m struggling………
My better half reads the BBC web page and what she’s telling me are lurid ‘tabloid’ ‘human interest stories. No real news content. I despair.
What am I doing on election night?…….. I’ll watch for a while. Probably have another drink, and then go to bed knowing that the time I’ve wasted will be gone for ever. The results overall will be as predicted – a Labour landslide, but what interests me is what happens in Scotland and that will not be obvious until tomorrow.
What I have realised watching without sound is that, as I have suspected since the Moon ceased to be circular, I need to make an appointment with the optician !!
GBNews might be worth a giggle – see if any of their heads explode as their worldview is summarily rejected!
My wife and our oldest will be staying up to watch.
I have to work and haven’t been that well recently so I am thinking of an early night and rise at about 5
I think the 5am start is right
“I think the 5am start is right….”
For you maybe, but If I’m up I’ll be in the allotment, because I cannot change our fate and despite your best efforts, SADLY I’m not sure how much you can either. But bless you for keeping on keeping on.
Many backbench MPs have told me I have more influence than they do.
And,thank you.
Most backbench MPs are too timid to exercise the influence they could have.
I usually watch until around 1-2am after some results are in, then go to bed with the radio on and fall asleep for a couple of hours. I intend to have a nap this afternoon and perhaps another in the evening before 10.
It is a bit silly though – whether we stay up and watch/listen, or go to bed as normal will make zero difference to the actual result, and apart from the immediacy of seeing the results announced live, most of the night is just inane chat between ex and soon to be ex politicians and ragged looking newscasters.
Well in the past a couple of friends and myself have tended to meet, have a few drinks and snacks and watch until 3-4 in the morning. But this time we are breaking with tradition. Apart from the exit poll (which spoils things a bit), nothing much happens until say three in the morning and listening to chatter from whoever is on the TV or radio is pretty boring and pointless. So I will probably listen to the exit poll – snooze and then turn on the internet to see what is happening at say three in the morning! Look at the results and it cuts out the mindless chatter from elected MPs and commentators!
Decent plan
But I think I will return at 5
There’s not going to be many results before 3am, so that’s time wasted.
Exit polls just lead to speculative results.
So up early 5:30am – 6am to get a flavour of the results.
Hoping that Starmer loses his seat (unlikely)
That Corbyn and Faiza Shaheen win theirs (good chance)
And that Sunak and most of the Cabinet lose theirs.
Bed & up early to survey the unfolding disaster.
Suggestion: we compile a list of what we think is going to happen (policy wise) & do a compare & contrast a few months down the track.
PE is one thing , keep going with starving children another, significant NHS privatisation (see we reduced waiting times) a third etc etc.
Agreed
I will start that with a post….
I am an owl by nature so up until 2 or 3 to see which way the wind is blowing (usually the indications are there already) and then sleep in a bit until 8 or 9 on Friday. Check the position on the radio or phone if I wake early.
I was up for the Portillo moment in 1997 and turned in after that.
RM, I live just south of you, and a friend lives just North of you between Kings Lynn and Downham (Liz Truss-land). Yesterday, I made up Election Bingo cards, and finished some work/reports. Today, I’ll pick up some sparkly and nibbles, and fireworks from McKays. This evening I plan on celebrating as many Portillo Moments as we possibly can at my friends. Hopefully, some nibbles, conversation, music, chat, election bingo will get us through the ‘wee small hours’ lull. We are fortunate, in that we have several degrees of choice….. many others have so much less after this lot. I will celebrate a labour victory – not because I think they have any answers – but to celebrate the removal of this parasitic government – it’ll be a start………
If anyone wants my home-made bingo cards – I can share via RM (guessing you have the technology? – I can email to you?)
If anyone wants a boost to remember why we’d stay up and celebrate what may be quite a pyrrhic victory …. I suggest this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKAeO-5saqQ.
Enjoy!
Are they a pdf?
My mail is in the about section
PDF sent.
Hard to use, I am afraid…..
Bed as usual, up as usual and the catch the results that have come in. If there are any surprises they will still be there waiting for you and you’ll be fresher for your comments.
Me? I will be in bed at ten and up at eight (what can I say? I’m too old for this lark now and need my beauty sleep).
🙂
Labour will get a whopping majority, just wake up in the morning and enjoy..
“Labour will get a whopping majority, just wake up in the morning and enjoy.” ??
If it was going to be a Labour government I’d be enjoying it, but it won’t. It’ll be Thatcherite, Blairite, Mandelsonian. What’s in that to enjoy? ………unless you’re wealthy and well-connected.
‘Buggerall I’d say’.
Well we know the country will continue heading in the wrong direction and this election will not stop it even aggravate it so why waste energy or sleep on it!
We intend to stay up after a morning spent (a) voting, (b) having ‘a wet’ and lunch in a local pub and (c) an afternoon nap….. Yes, we’re retired. I have 2 bottles of English sparkling in the fridge – one to pop if Tories have fewer than 100 MPs and t’other if they fail to be official opposition. Probably we will survive until about 0430 as we hope to hear our own Tory MP lose his seat – but unless I’m opening that first bottle, it’s unlikely. Have a good night everyone, however you spend it.
Enjoy!
Boy do I hope you get to open both those bottles!
I will be practicing my calligraphy (using a brush) and doing a bit of painting with the election news going on in the background. That way I can tune into announcements of notable results and can tune out of all the twaddle in between.
I will be taking part in a zoom call with some people in Taiwan and Japan at 3.00am. It’s not about the UK election but I dare say the subject will come up. But the real problem for me is how I am going to spend Friday. I would like to join in a demonstration outside the Chinese embassy in support of Uyghurs in Xinjiang but I might be too exhausted to go.
I usually go to bed at 11, and this election does not fill me with much enthusiasm. That said, I am in Faiza Shaheen’s constituency and I am very interested in our local result. The end of IDS will be very welcome; I have been a local campaigner and he was absolutely rubbish as a local MP, only interested in his own hobby-horses which were certainly never constituency ones. The local Conservative Councillors were helpful and every time we got a win (against a library closure, or bad planning decision) he would always arrive, without fail, for a photo-op with the local newspaper.
I have no doubt, that if Faiza loses she will run again, her local team were definitely collecting information on voting intentions and building up their own local list.
I will watch Novara’s election coverage until I can no longer stay awake, then I shall continue watching when I wake up again.
As I’m getting married on Saturday to my long term partner and am taking Friday off to prepare/avoid last minute disasters/settle my nerves, I won’t be staying up all night, and I want to save the boozing for the weekend.
So I’ll watch the exit polls and John Curtice on BBC1 till about 10.30, then turn in to listen to the excellent R4 book at bedtime currently being serialised. As it’s light in the mornings at around 4am and I find I wake up earlier as I get older I’ll probably get up then to watch the ‘fun and games’ of plenty of loathsome tories losing office. I hope.
The exit polls and John Curtice should give a good indication of the likely result tbh. I’m hoping for the lowest possible percentage of votes for the tories and reform, and the highest possible for the greens. Also hoping for the lowest ever percentage voting for the two main parties. And for the LD’s to become the official opposition.
Good luck for Saturday and congratulations!
The urge to stay up and celebrate will not overshadow my feeling of impending doom, so I shall probably go to bed at the usual time, after the exit poll predictions are announced.
I’ll calculate my response on the basis of the final tally of votes cast later on Friday, not onindivudual seats won and lost, though there are a dozen results of particular interest. Bristol Central and Islington North being two such..
I was at the count all night in 1997, and nursed a champagne induced hangover the entire following day, which I remember being hot and sunny. We thought things could only get better, and in some ways they did. Hemel Hempstead returned a Labour MP, Tony McWalter, who served us well. There was relief that the Tories had gone, that grey boring John Major had been replaced by interesting young Tony Blair.
That was then. Tonight I shall probably sleep through it all, although as an owl, I might just be awake until 2:00 am. Much less optimistic, much older, much more radical than I was in 1997. And I’ve already voted Green.
Looks like we have a lot in common Helen. We both live in HH, both voted green, both are a lot more pessimistic than in 1997, and both a lot older(!!!).
I don’t know about you, but in some ways it’s been an amusing election here. Mike Penning’s replacement being dropped at the last moment and their scramble to replace him with the defeated tory ex-leader of the council, and then a few election leaflets from Reform (in the bin after 10 seconds), the tories (after 30 seconds, strangely nothing about the national party), a letter from Rish! himself telling us everything was getting better (bin after 90s, for a laugh) and possibly best of all one from the ghastly Elphicko woman on behalf of labour dissing the Rwanda plan and praising labour’s immigration policy.
Quite a few from labour in fact. All CHANGE, and the union jack on one side of the leaflet. Binned. And from the greens, after I’d voted for them anyway.
Go to bed early and get up earlier if you really feel it necessary to usher in the ‘change’ because there is nowt to be surprised about – it’s the postal votes that will do it again and that will be a lie, again.
I’ll head out to deliberately spoil my vote as there are no antiwar, pro Palestine candidates here.
But Stella will stroll in again. She hasn’t bothered to campaign , not even pretended as previous, had nothing to say and only time I saw her she was rat arsed and trying to get down with the yoof!
At the count. As an election agent, someone has to do it.
Enjoy the stress
I have a prostate biopsy at 3.30 this pm so I may not be able to sleep (or sit down anyway) so I will use the Tories growing discomfort to console my own.
ATB
Good luck
I’ll nip in to give my vote for Stephen Flynn on the way home from work then go to bed as usual, this election holds little excitement for me and all the good parts will be on Youtube tomorrow. I just hope the polls are wrong and SNP return more seats than is being predicted, the fewer for Labour up here the better.
Agreed
Agreed.
We’ll see just how gullible the Scottish electorate is…..it will be instructive.
I’m not optimistic.
Richard, go to bed. Stay up and you are just working out which way you are going to lose. There is no winning here; only a narrow choice in losing, losing badly, losing very badly, or waking up to find it is only worse – the Conservatives won; which means you are in a nightmare, and you don’t even know if you are awake or not.
Well Richard –
As a 67 yr old bloke – when I wake at around 3.30am ( as nature calls) I shall put the TV on and trust I shall have pleasant surprise!
🙂
That’s being older for you
We were meant to be in Wales by now (Life Happened, rolls eyes), so we had postal votes. Though I always have that – can’t get to Polling Station as mainly housebound. My vote for the Greens (I’m a party member) went off last week. Bubbles in the fridge, but I’ll prob fall asleep with the TV on before anything much happens!
Here in Liverpool our new seat (boundary changes – Grrrr!) is Wavertree, we were in Riverside before. Both safe Labour seats. But at least we have three Greens on our council. let’s celebrate small victories!
OH tells me we have a nice bottle of proper Champers, and a bottle of Prosecco. I don’t want to waste real Champagne on a Lino win, so we’ll be drinking the Prosecco.
Hope everyone here has a super evening and isn’t too disappointed by the results… Though I suspect many of us will be.
Was a bit surprised to hear from my daughters that they took the grandkids with them when they went to vote, as some may be old enough to vote at next GE! Crikey, I know I’m old, but even the idea that some of my grandkids will likely be old enough to vote at next GE comes as something of a shock! I had to wait until I was 21 to be allowed to vote.
Enjoy the bubbles
And they grow up very fast….
Yes, but they do stop growing before they hit the ceiling!
Only just ….
As a creature of habit and mildly (lol) anti-social I shall do what I’ve generally been doing for the past 40 or so years on elections, Christmas, NewYear which is go to bed just after 10, read then sleep, alarm-radio at 6, maybe 1 or 2 minutes of news headlines on the the wireless (no tv in this house), ablute, then yoga till 7 and swap dog with wife and dog walk for 45 mins, feed dog, then some weight exercises for 15 mins, shower, breakfast to radio 3. Oh, the excitement!
Enjoy!
Observing the count!
It’s an opportunity to get data a more granular level than constituency or even city wards. Which in my case will be interesting, to see the level of turnout, spoiled papers (more this time?) and especially if there’s voting against Labour due to their weaknesses over Palestine in particular (primarily an ethnic/religious vote?).
Hopefully we’ll be able to get a reasonable amount of data to guide future campaigns, despite a small number of volunteers. (This, for the Greens)
Good luck
It’s now 10 30, and though I would usually be in bed by now, I am going to catch up on the latest episode of The Outlaws ( I love the Bristol accents!), maybe even start watching series 3, then watch BBC -sorry, I don’t have Sky. There are quite a few constituencies I am really keen to find out about, so I shall try and keep awake until then….
Try channel 233 on freeview for Sky – it is free
Having a look. Never watched Sky before.