UK General Election

Sky loose the Labour feed just as Corbyn was about to speak. Bad timing!

The Guardian have changed their mind and say Dimbleby will present this year after all:

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/apr/20/david-dimbleby-to-present-10th-general-election-for-bbc-huw-edwards

I hope Channel 4 actually make a decent effort this year.

The 2010 attempt was interesting but ruined by finishing far too early and relying on 'special editions' of Come Dine With Me and that Brooker-fronted panel show.

The 2015 attempt was awful.

If they left it to Channel 4 News they could put together a brilliant programme I reckon.

To be honest, it feels like it's going to be quite a dull election with little in the way of "alternative" election coverage. We've got realistically 2 candidates for PM, neither of which are big personalities or the subject of much in the way of satire. Corbyn may not have the best public image but the typical audience for alternative coverage are more likely to be sympathetic towards him. If it was BoJo in charge, it would be completely different.

Will the last leg be coming back ?

That's incredibly optimistic, there's not a hope in fresh hell of Theresa being even somewhat challenged for PM.

Good news.

Now confirmed by the Beeb.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-39657843

The 2015 election coverage was a bit of a mess and Dimbleby just looked plain confused at some points so hopefully things have improved this time.

Any chance of another David Butler cameo? Still alive at 92 and appeared briefly during 2015's coverage.

Whilst I appreciate that Dimbleby is a broadcasting legend and is well respected within the BBC, I think they should have let Huw Edwards take over this time. Dimbleby kicking off at 4am over coffee, and just generally making mistakes affected the BBC's output last time around. I also find Tom Bradby to be much more watchable then Dimbleby, who can be patronising at times.

It'll be ITV again for me this year, flicking occasionally between the BBC and Sky.

Given that they already did the "formal handover" as such with 2015, I'd have preferred Edwards for 2017. But said handover was naturally based on the assumption that there wouldn't be an election until 2020, and Dimbleby has already handled one results show (that came about precisely because of the result of 2015) since then. Now, at least indirectly because of the result of that vote, there's another one.

Maybe his plan was to retire when he turns 80 next October. That would certainly be consistent with him planning on 2015 to be his last one, only to step in for the snap election. Worth noting that a snap election resets the term length under the provisions of the Fixed-Term Parliament Act, so 5 May 2022 is now the scheduled date for the next election after this one. I think we can safely assume that Huw would take charge of that one.