Anyone who covered the 1997 election in Birmingham will recall that Gisela Stuart’s victory in the Tory seat of Edgbaston was an early signal that Tony Blair’s New Labour would enjoy a landslide victory. Like Basildon had been in 1992, it was a key result early in the night.
Her successful defence in 2001 election also came early on the night and showed that Labour was set for a second term. From memory these results were in by midnight, or half-past midnight at the latest.
But in 2015 we had to wait until after 4am before a single Birmingham result was announced and it was getting on for 6.30am when Khalid Mahmood was announced as winner in Perry Barr.
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Even Lib Dem John Hemming called his defeat more than three hours before the result was announced.
The only upside to this is that it gave pjournalists, candidates, activists and observers time to deal with the extremely temperamental wi-fi available in the state-of-the-art International Conference Centre.
There’s one less seat now, but the turnout is similar. And Sunderland still manages to call a result by about 11pm. So why does it now take so long to count votes in Birmingham?
Council chief executive races through the results
By contrast the local election results seemed to be done and dusted within minutes. Chief executive Mark Rogers read out 40 results at a rate which would have tested horse racing commentary legend Peter O’Sullivan.
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Bewildered candidates and party activists were running around asking if they had won.
The council’s big screen result service (usually very good), could not keep up. One wonders if Mr Rogers had a pint going flat on the bar of the Dog and Duck.
Lenny Lights up the election for one weary council staffer
Council number cruncher Tony Smith thought the election all-nighter might have been giving him hallucinations when, as he walked to his Moseley home early the next morning, he bumped into none other than TV funny man Lenny Henry coming out of a house.
It turns out the street had been cleared of cars and was now a film set for Danny and the Human Zoo – a fictional account of Lenny’s early life in Dudley in which the star is appearing as his own Dad.
“With my mind full of the election I had forgotten that they were filming. I walked past this house and Lenny Henry came out.”
Mr Smith took a snap just to prove that he was not dreaming.