I have to say – I love London. And it would be great to be in London on the night of a general election, in the thick of things. But the BBC is doing a great job of bringing us there and helping us share in the excitement.
The infographics are great! They have a great “dominos” graphic to visualise the seats that have been lost. The seat projection on Big Ben is cool, too. The long wall graphic for swing vote analysis is good, but the metaphor is not obvious and a little hard to follow. What’s with the data-table? And the floor-maps? I love the “infographic room” concept. Interacting with data in 3D. So cool.
Also super-cool: the House of Commons seat simulater with the human avatars sitting in their chairs and fidgeting convincingly. A little unsettlingly real-looking, but cool.
The virtual pavingstones, each representing a seat in House of Commons, with a majority leading up to the door of 10 Downing Street (the British Prime Minister’s residence) were a great idea. Seeing the path of Conservative pavingstones end just a couple of steps before the door of 10 Downing St. really brought home how David Cameron must feel about getting “so close but so far” to the seat of power.
Now that I’ve had a chance to watch this a bit, I am getting the infographics better – so well done, but it requires concentrated viewing! It’s not “glanceable” like Canadian or American graphics tend to be. Much to be learned here about effective election coverage.
A funny thing is that the election is how aggressive the interviewers and commentators are with interview subjects. Also, the way commentators are stage hogging to maximise airtime! Despite the expressed desire of the host to cutaway to an announcement. Hilarious. That would never happen in Canada.
Another thing to note: BBC host Jeremy Paxman is being outrageously partisan in his conversation with Labour and LibDem pundits – he shuts them down all the time. Saying “Oh, it’s over!” to the Labour pundit. Crazy.
Some quotes I picked up on (sorry, I don’t know the personalities well enough to attach a name to each):
- “Oh, it’s over!” (Paxman)
- “It all looks quite well… hung.” (Paxman)
- “Those are words that have multiple meanings and not always to one’s taste” “Well, I don’t know about your taste, but here’s some more coverage in Wales.” (Dimbleby)
- “You may see your McDonald’s in Britain priced in Euro, yet!” (Dimbleby)
- “You have lost one of the safest LibDem seats in Britain! What do you have to say about it?” (Paxman)
- “The exception is more common than the rule at the moment!” (Dimbleby)
- “No one has the sense of a victor. Everyone is just biting their lips and looking worried.” (Dimbleby)
- “Oh, so the House of Lords is some kind of democratic model, now, is it?” (Paxman)
- “Yeah, yeah, yeah… cut the sloganizing for a second or two. Let me ask you a question: will you do a deal with the Liberal Democrats?” (Paxman)
- “It’s about 3:20 in the morning. Can’t we just have a straight answer?” (Paxman)
- “What? You can’t hear me? See if you can do some lip-reading, if you’ve got a monitor there…” (Paxman)
- “People are fighting like ferrets in a sack.” (Dimbleby)
- “I feel like Noddy in Toyland on my first day–what on earth is going on?” (Paxman)
- “It’ll be a coalition of the defeated, that’s the problem!” (Paxman)
- “What are you doing, taking our hospitality, but you won’t pay the BBC television licence?! That’s not on!”
- “This is meant to be a first-world country! What is happening would bring shame to a developing country.” (Dimbleby)
- “David Davis, your party probably could have done just as well, even with you leading it.”
- “Don’t you love pictures of cars? Cars going down motorways.” (Paxman)
- “The party’s thinning out, but the bar’s still open which means that there are a lot of journalists about.”
- “Any party going into election with Gordon Brown, would be happy to win even one seat.” (Paxman)
- “A national government of all the talents – they’re not a lot, but put them all together.”
- “Lord Ashcroft, so you’re joining Britain again.” “You could put it that way, but I am going to stay in the Lords.”
- “Looks as if our country will be carpeted in wind farms to appeal to all the greenies.”
What’s funny is that sometimes the tech isn’t working -the smart board is unresponsive at times!
From an analysis perspective, it looks like the swing vote is very localised in that depending on the local context, the swing is going pro-Tory and against the LibDems, or pro-Tory and against Labour. Not very predictable.
A major scandal and results-challenge coming because of the people across the UK who were denied the vote. High voter turnout is great, but they should have been prepared.
Oh, and I love the sexy lapel ribbons and line-ups of crazy fringe candidates behind the winning candidate!
The real takeaway from this election so far is that the Brits have voted overwhelming for electoral reform.
OK, it’s late. Time for bed.