Old election night TV programmes are history in the raw

Viewing a re-run of election night coverage is like watching a classic football game. Even if you know the result, the match itself can be surprisingly tense, says John Rentoul

Clegg, Cameron and Brown fighting it out in 2010 (Reuters)

Harriet Harman and Peter Mandelson seem almost timeless, but Michael Gove seemed very much younger when he appeared near the start of the BBC’s coverage of the 2010 general election.

The BBC Parliament channel has just started re-running a series of election night programmes, possibly because there is less parliamentary business to broadcast, or possibly because it regards the provision of lockdown binge-watching for political geeks as part of its public service remit.

Whatever the reason, I watched as David Dimbleby (also timeless) unveiled the exit poll and a succession of talking heads refused to believe that the Liberal Democrats, still abuzz with Cleggmania, had actually lost seats.

It is odd that, like a football game, even if you know the result, the match itself can be surprisingly tense. One thing that struck me was how well prepared Harman and Mandelson were. Apparently independently of each other, they suggested that the time had come to change the voting system. Presumably that was the party line, designed to win over the Lib Dems in a hung parliament – although another minor distraction was to observe the discipline of the likes of Ed Davey as they insisted on calling it a “balanced parliament”.

If elections are the only time we are free, then election night programmes are a window into the chaos of history – a few (well, actually several) hours when the people have spoken but the politicians can’t quite hear them yet.

Into those hours are concentrated many months of normal politics, as governments, reputations and careers are made or broken. Jacqui Smith and Charles Clarke, two former home secretaries, lost their seats, while Louise Mensch and Dominic Raab won theirs.

Marvellous stuff: raw, unprocessed history. Don’t miss forthcoming election night programmes, all day on the next three Saturdays: the 1964 election on 16 May, starting at 10am; the 1979 election on 23 May from 9am; and the 1997 election on 30 May from 9am.

Yours,

John Rentoul

Chief political commentator