If the exit polls can be trusted, the strategy of going to an early election failed for the Conservatives. Although the results starting to come through suggest that the swings towards Labour are not as big as exit polls suggest.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/general-election-2017-exit-poll-v9bgd9r68
Alistair Campbell (former Labour media advisor) on ITV saying there’s an outside chance Labour could be the largest party.
Some more of the lovely sets and graphics.
BBC - forget Seven’s Tower of Power, BBC projects onto the outside of Broadcast House
It appears that the BBC have their main election coverage on BBC1 in England and on BBC2 in Scotland and Wales, with BBC1 in Scotland and Wales both having local election coverage.
STV the Scottish ITV channel in mid and northern Scotland have their own coverage rather than fully taking ITV.
News at Ten presenter and Matlock’s daddy Huw Edwards has taken over the BBC coverage. Much better than Dimbleby, who was quite anaethatising throughout the night.
Anyone got a fly swatter? David Dimbleby needs one in the studio!
A cameraman and a photographer saw red while waiting to film Lib Dem leader Tim Farron leave a polling station in Cumbria.
BBC coverage last night was crap compared with what it usually is. Dimbleby seemed irritable. This is definitely his last night of election coverage now, he was poor during the EU referendum too. ITV quicker to the results that mattered, excellent commentary from Osborne especially and Balls, and actually had insightful guest interviews before the BBC grabbed them.
As for the result itself - so much to draw from it. Firstly, a personal humiliation for May - she called the election with a personal objective of greatly increasing her majority - she failed in that key objective. This is so even considering, secondly, that the Conservatives had their highest share of the vote for decades. Third, while Corbyn wildly exceeded low expectations (even obtaining a higher vote share than one of Blair’s elections) there are serious questions to be asked as to where Labour goes from here. Essentially, you had Labour promising everyone everything for free at this election, and still ended up with ~50 less seats than the Conservatives that actually actively targeted their core base. Cons recognised policies used to attract the elderly (their core base) were no longer sustainable economically - winter fuel payments and pension triple lock - and hoped, with a big majority, to do away with them. But this was silly politics in light of Labour enticing their core base (the young) with a juicy policy.
UK ratings
Updated
The blame game begins
Not unlikely that they’ll be back to the polls in less than a year. The arrangement with the DUP looks very controversial.
That was 2015! They got 4.4 Million ths year - http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/itv-and-osborne-praised-for-election-night-coverage-but-bbc-wins-the-ratings-battle/
Sky News set.
