Have you ever been to a sporting event or concert only to find that you didn’t really see much of the action and that you would have had a better view watching in on the box? Although I will always try to scrape together enough euros to attend a Formula One race I do miss the comforts of home – TV coverage -ITV plus RTL, Radio Five Live and a live timing screen on the laptop.
The same can be said for elections. As a candidate at the count, you have little idea how the election is unfolding outside. Sat up in bed at home in Pontrieux I was watching “Tory Boy” Robinson et al backpeddling from their pre-election predictions of a Labour catastrophe (a 1% increase in Labour’s vote wasn’t in the script). I was also keeping an eye on South Gloucestershire Council’s website, which for the first time was giving a results service.
Having noted that my good friend Matthew Riddle had successfuly defended his seat with a whopping Alan B’stard majority, a congratulatory phone call was in order. I caught Matthew watching the count for the Thornbury seats. After pleasantries I spent the next ten minutes reading out results from the South Glos website, with Matthew relaying this information to others at the count. “I’ve got Gary Pepworth on the phone calling from France giving me the results”, does have a certain surrealism about it.
Alas, lest we marvel too much at the wonders of technology, the call dropped and soon after, to use a technical explanation, the South Glos elections website went tits up.