Election Night 2005

The other tactic ITV are using is to ask their correspondents to phone in when they reckon they know who has won, rather than give the full results. BBC and Sky may be holding back to get the results in detail, so that may make the difference.

Alternatively they could just be declaring Labour safe seats which they won't win.

Meanwhile on BBC1 (network).

David Blunkett (referring to Ken Clarke, who was on a second ago): "Ken's always great value for money, isn't he? He's always great. You should have him on all the time."

Jeremy Paxman: "Well maybe get him back on instead of you."

Great fun .

I like the way they have superimposed Alastair onto the main set when they throw to the VR bits.
http://www.dolben.demon.co.uk/newschannel/itve29.jpg

ITV have flashed up the Grimsby, Cleethorpes & Bootle results on screen as Labour Holds, although I'm not sure they have officially declared.

They're not predictions, they're giving results when the counting has finished but they don't wait for some supersilious returning officers in west anywhere and lower something.

ITV up to 11 seats.

I see Sky's correspondents have got printed cards saying things like "Hull declaring in 10 minutes" which they hold up to the camera so someone in the gallery will spot it. Quite neat.

13 Now, all of them being in Northern Towns.

At this rate they'll have the election declared by 1am.

Regarding earlier mention of ticker issues on N24, it seems the problem has now been rectified; the Tower graphics (and graphics aligned to it) appear to have been moved up by a few lines, as the whole ticker is now visible with a gap between it and the bottom of my screen.

Splendid.

ITV's Fake Results and Fake Election

They were saying that this wasn't going to be a landslide, it's just that more of the Labour held seats are usually announcened earlier. They said last night that whoever would be PM would be confirmed by 3.00am.

Have you ever been to an election count ? When the votes stack up, some candidates are so far ahead that it is possible to call it prior to the returning officer getting up and declaring the result.

What would be fake if ITV actually lied or got it wrong, and that remains to be proven.