Down for the count: election night highs and lows

As the UK goes to the polls today, here Dr Emma Peplow shares memories from our oral history archive, exploring how former MPs felt on polling day and how they approached the night of the count…

Today most of the UK’s election candidates will be racing around their constituencies trying to make sure their supporters go to vote. But this is just the start of a very long day which will only end with a returning officer’s declaration in the early hours of the morning. This crucial moment for any MP is often discussed in great detail in our oral history interviews: the moment when, one way or another, their lives changed completely.

Most candidates told us they had a good feel for how the wind was blowing on their patch long before polling day. Conservative David Sumberg explained how in 1997 he had already given up any hope of winning and moved all his belongings out of his constituency house the day before polling! For others, the day might be spent as the figurehead whilst supporters knocked on doors. Labour’s Phyllis Starkey spent election day in 1997 driving around Milton Keynes on the back of a lorry with D:Ream’s Things will only get better played on a loop in a loudspeaker. She was joined at times by party dignitaries: ‘which really scared people rigid when they suddenly heard John Prescott’s voice coming out the loudspeaker.’

Most candidates only arrived at the count when their agent – the person with the legal responsibility for the election campaign – told them to do so. This is often another stage-managed affair, a chance to come in to cheering supporters if all looks promising, or to rally worried troops if not. Labour’s Gordon Banks had played the role of agent too many times to be told what to do himself, however:

Despite the crucial moment coming at the end of the night, campaigns and candidates can often get a really good idea how things have gone as the counting is taking place. Observers for each candidate are allowed to oversee the process and make sure everything is fair – but they are also making swift early judgements about their chances, as Phyllis Starkey explained:

After officials check that the number of votes tally with the numbers of ballot papers issued, all the votes from around the constituency are mixed together before being counted. The next time parties are able to get an indication of how they are doing is by looking at the piles of bundles, of 25 or 50 votes for each candidate, and how each side lines up. When it is going well, as it was for Starkey in 1997, you can ‘actually see how far ahead you are, and you can see that lead growing or shrinking as different boxes come in.’

With this feel for how things are going, candidates and agents are able to give clues to their supporters on their performance. As the former Chair of the Conservative 1922 Committee, Sir Edward du Cann, told us, when he was first elected his agent promised to give him an idea of his progress by either saying ‘I hope you’ve had a cup of tea’ or instead offering to make him one. However, when he called and completely forgot to mention tea at all du Cann was left ‘assuming it was a disaster’! Similarly, Conservative Robert Hayward was able to wink at his supporters to let them know things were going well in 1983, and Gordon Banks described scratching either his left or right ears to pass on news to his activists.

As the night goes on a close race will lead to a very tense atmosphere. At Gordon Banks’ 2005 count he kept a close eye on his rivals in the SNP, with his spirits buoyed as theirs started to lower. David Sumberg watched the national picture in 1992 to see if he would hold on in his seat:

Matthew Morris, now Lord Naseby’s, first elections in 1974 were extremely close and both went to tense recounts. He remembers being told in the February election by a town clerk to make sure his observers insisted bundles of votes were opened during the process. After the first recount he was ahead by just four votes, before the final tally gave him a majority of 179. At times national parties might add to the tension, as Liberal Democrat Jackie Ballard told us when she lost her seat in 2001:

Ballard’s quotation gets to the heart of perhaps the biggest factor for all the candidates – sheer exhaustion! Former Conservative/Lib Dem MP Emma Nicholson described her team all ‘stumbling around like zombies’ and she could ‘barely keep [her] eyes open’ as the count went on.

The emotions intensify as the crucial moment draws nearer. Conservative John Sykes, who expected to lose in 1997, remembered trying extremely hard to keep a brave face:

So there followed four hours of trying to smile through it, trying to make sure there were no bad photographs and trying to make sure that you bore it with grace, bore it as best you could for the sake of your own self-respect and so on.

We do have stories, sadly, of times when not all candidates manage that. For the winners, the overwhelming emotion was joy. Banks told us in 2005 after his acceptance speech his campaign ‘went and partied, quite frankly. Because you’re on an emotional high of – it’s an immense emotional high.’ Winning against the odds in 1992 gave Conservative David Sumberg a real sense of confidence returning to parliament. He even formed a dining club with other Conservatives who held on unexpectedly, complete with a tie. Few extracts from our archive however match this sense of elation from Labour’s Eileen Gordon in 1997:

More memories are sure to be made tonight.

EP