This reminds me a lot of 1992. The experience that drove me into the arms of the SNP, by the way.
It was widely expected to be a hung parliament, so much so that the headline of the Sun the following morning read "it's hung!" They'd taken a flier when they went to press on Thursday evening. I was desperate to get rid of the Tories, for obvious reasons and also because Labour had been promising that Scottish parliament we should have had in 1979. I was stuck in Sussex, having voted by post earlier.
I'd gone to Southampton to buy a second-hand Betamax VCR which wasn't as cheap as it should have been (but is still functioning), and I listened to the commentary as I drove home. Even the exit polls were firmly in hung parliament territory. Then, soon after I got back, Davis Amess was declared in Basildon. That was not supposed to happen.
I telephoned a friend who was a Labour activist in Basildon, a Scottish friend who is pro-independence but anti-SNP. She was home, not at the wake, and we stayed on the line virtually all night, as it just got worse and worse. There was a very regular series of revisions in the projected result, in which the Conservative result got steadily better and better until it hit an overall majority of 20 - the level apparently accepted as signalling a government that can go a full term even if it loses some by-elections. And that's what happened. We got another 5 years of Major.
It was held to be the "shy Tory" phenomenon. People who voted Conservative because they thought that would benefit them personally, but who realised Thatcher (and then Major) were unpopular - or at least, that voting Tory was seen as a selfish thing to do. So they didn't confess to the opinion pollsters, and apparently they didn't confess to the exit pollsters either.
I have no idea whether or not the shy Tory still exists. I suppose we'll find out.
After that night, my most vivid memory is seeing footage of David Steel sitting at breakfast in his home in the Borders countryside. He was there, where it mattered, and he certainly wasn't alone. While I was sitting completely isolated in Sussex, chewing the crockery. I vowed then and there that I wasn't going to remain alone like that any more. I ditched my home-made SNP sticker (made from a yellow post-it note) and joined up.
Now I'm sitting in my home in the Borders countryside, with authorisation as a polling agent and a counting agent in my pocket, and the remaining dregs of the leaflets in a bag, having been round almost every house in a three-mile radius. Trying my damndest, by the way, not to get David Steel's daughter elected. I'll go through tomorrow night at the count in Dumfries.
Did I mention happy bunny? A lot happier if the SNP was likely to get its 20 seats, but you can't have everything.
I still have no clue who is going to form the next Westminster government though.
Rolfe.
