A reflection on Election Night 2017!

Last night, I headed to Basildon Sporting Village with Alan Newman, Liz Tuckett & Steve King to watch the ballots being counted for Basildon & Billericay and for South Basildon & East Thurrock.

We were expecting the final result at about 2 or 3am, but to out surprise, both declarations had been made by 1am, making Basildon some of the first constituencies in the country to declare. Of course, both seats were held by Conservative candidates, John Baron and Stephen Metcalfe.

In fact, out of the 18 Essex seats, they all were Conservative holds with one gain for the blue team in Clacton, where former UKIP MP, Douglas Carswell stood as an Independent.

Alan and I headed back into the studio with Ros Connors to watch the national results coming through, which resulted in Nick Clegg, Alex Salmond and Angus Robertson all losing their seats. It was interesting, as we had no idea who the Prime Minister would be at about 4am; by then it should be very clear who was going to win.

The exit polls were right, with the end result being a hung parliament. Are we surprised? Yes. Theresa May’s Conservative party now join forces with Northern Ireland’s DUP for the second coalition in 7 years.

A few tweets from the count follow: