A spin room stuck for opinions – the biggest shock of election night so far
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Version 0 of 1. As the exit poll was announced, the room fell silent. All the top political commentators and broadcasters who had been brought into ITV’s opinion room – think of a spin room decked out to look like an Apple showroom – were suddenly short of their one stock in trade: opinions. Even Lord Finkelstein, aka Danny the Fink, one of David Cameron’s right-hand men, was lost for words. Only 15 minutes earlier he had been predicting that the Conservatives would end up with close to 275 seats and the party would struggle to form a government. Now the polls were predicting that the Tories would win 316 seats, Labour would fall to 239, the SNP would have a clean sweep and the Lib Dems would be all but wiped out. If Cameron could persuade Nick Clegg and his nine other MPs that the coalition had been a total success for the Lib Dems and the DUP could be persuaded on board – an HS4 extension to Belfast should clinch it – then he could be back in Downing Street. The silence in the opinion room didn’t last too long. “We can’t be sure the exit poll is correct,” said Danny the Fink. Somewhere in Uxbridge, Boris Johnson groaned in disappointment: his ambition to be the leader of the Conservative party by the autumn may have to be put on hold. He might just have to make do with a cabinet position instead. Heads started nodding. They often do around Danny. Nothing should be taken for granted. Within minutes a YouGov and Electoral Calculus poll had reconfirmed its original predictions that Labour and the Conservatives were neck and neck. This was more like it. The kind of information that spin rooms are made for. Facts are a major inconvenience in that time lull between the polls closing and a result being declared. Spin rooms are where winning can be losing, losing can be winning, down can be up and up can be down. Someone said: “Share prices are going up after the exit poll.” Not in electoral polling companies, I’d guess. Over on the BBC, the top pollster John Curtice was looking more and more harassed at his failure to explain the discrepancies in his own predictions. Down in the main ITV studio, it was the politicians’ turn to explain to Tom Bradby why everything was still running according to plan. First up was Theresa May trying and failing to look neither surprised nor smug. Paddy Ashdown tried and failed to look as if he was still alive. “I promise to eat my hat if the Lib Dems only win 10 seats,” he said with the help of a ventriloquist. Alastair Campbell upped the ante. He declared: “I will eat my kilt if the SNP get that many seats in Scotland.” Come Dine With Me immediately planned a post-election special. Normality returned with the arrival of Lord Mandelson, a man more used to half-truths than full ones, yet always first in line with the executioner’s axe. “If the polls are right then Ed Miliband can’t remain as leader,” he smirked. Et tu, Mandy? Liz Truss was also reliable in her own special way. She is a woman who can put an audience to sleep in seconds and was swiftly taken off air. Back in the opinion room, ITV’s link woman Nina Hossain was struggling to fill the time before anything definite could be said. “We don’t have enough to go on yet,” said constitutional expert Vernon Bogdanor. “I know,” Nina agreed. “But can we speculate anyway?” Vernon shook his head; he doesn’t do speculation. Nina moved on to chat to the Facebook stand where a power-dressed American woman in charge of its politics department revealed that a lot of people were talking about the election on Facebook. Expect pop-up adverts to appear on your Facebook page throughout the night. Just guessing, but if your party is doing badly, then the ads will be for Kleenex; if you’re winning then balloons may well be on offer. Not to be outdone on the social media front, Twitter also had its own resident expert. “It’s amazing,” he said. “There’s been more Twitter traffic about the election than there was for the royal baby.” He also had a special Twitter mirror that looked suspiciously like an iPad wrapped up in a prop from Sleeping Beauty. In walked Brian May, Queen’s lead guitarist. Was it possible that badgers could determine the result of the election? No. It was Scotland that was becoming the biggest story. Douglas Alexander and Jim Murphy both out and Gordon Brown’s old seat also gone. That was more like it. Something different to speculate about as no one quite knew what it all meant for a future Conservative-led government. Other than that the House of Lords would fill up with a great many former Lib Dem and Labour MPs. Then came a rumour that sent a smile through everyone in the opinion room. Nigel Farage may have lost Thanet South. There again, it was still only speculation. Lord Farage of Thanet does have a certain ring to it though. |