Election night is an incredibly stressful time. But it’s also exhilarating – and this is why

The high drama of the night before the results emerge never disappoints – even if we get what we expected

Jo Swinson provided the ‘Portillo moment’ in the early hours of Friday morning (Reuters)

The thrill of election night for someone like me is that you get five years’ worth of politics in 10 hours. It starts with the shock of the exit poll – the gasp in the office as all the pre-written “too-close-to-call” articles hit the spike – and carries on until the winner has delivered an early-morning victory speech to cheering supporters.

(The spike, incidentally, is one of those phrases in journalism that survives from the analogue age: it used to be a literal spike on a desk, on which rejected copy would be “spiked”.)

The sensible plan is always to get a few hours’ sleep after the exit poll and before the main flow of results starts coming in around 2am, but sensible plans are for wimps. I wrote my instant comment on the exit poll and then got the Tube home. Some people were talking about Jo Swinson’s terrible mistake, but most seemed drunkenly oblivious to the sudden change in the political landscape.

On the journey, Twitter told me about Alan Johnson’s controlled fury at Jon Lansman on the ITV results programme. Even if I wasn’t supposed to be writing more commentary for The Independent when I got home, I couldn’t have gone to sleep.

By then, Newcastle Central had won the race to declare first, and the results were coming in. The Conservative gain in Blyth, Northumberland, confirmed that the “red wall” of Labour Leave seats had been breached.

The high drama eventually reached its peak. The “Portillo moment” – the unexpected defeat of a well-known candidate – turned out not to be Boris Johnson or Dominic Raab or even John Redwood losing their seat.

With a twist to rival the best box sets, the big loser turned out to be Swinson herself, the candidate for prime minister who had allowed the election to happen in the first place.

Dawn was a bit late in this winter election, but as the night turned a lighter shade of grey, there was Johnson, inwardly celebrating in the way Nicola Sturgeon rejoiced at Swinson’s defeat, but outwardly striking exactly the right tone of restraint and determination to deliver for the Labour Leavers who had voted Tory for the first time.

“Let’s get Brexit done; but first, let’s get breakfast done,” he said. So I did.

Yours,

John Rentoul

Chief political commentator