Here are all the maddest moments from election night

A week is a long time in politics. Six weeks, then, is absolute aeon. But after a campaign that somehow lasted 42 days yet felt like it’s trudged on for 42,000 years, we are now into the final hours of the general election.

Sir Keir Starmer has no need to tell anybody his father’s trade until at least 2028. Sir Ed Davey has no more rubber rings to conquer. And Rishi Sunak has little need to ever appear in public again, though he probably will. Briefly.

Helpfully, almost every one of those 42 days contained a poll, usually one that showed Labour on a bazillion seats (technical term), the Conservatives on an ever-shrinking few, the Liberal Democrats a jolly couple of dozen and the smaller parties plucking crumbs. An expectation was set. A consensus gathered. Bets placed. A lot of bets placed.

It all rather took the drama out of election night. So at 10pm on the nose, when all the television channels unleashed the exit poll at once, as if announcing the death of a prominent establishment figure – and in a way, they were – nobody was aghast. “Well, there we are then,” was the general mood. Apart from on Sky News, where Kay Burley briefly had an orgasm with Andy Burnham (more of which later).

A damp squib, then? All a formality? Buckle up for 10 hours of nothing remotely surprising? If you thought that, you clearly don’t know UK politics, and don’t know how election nights usually play out in this country, which is with kaleidoscopic insanity, largely played out in provincial leisure centres, only really comparable to a toddlers’ birthday party at which the orange squash has been accidentally laced with acid.

Even by the halfway point of the night, so much had gone on. Too much, you might argue. And given this start, a strong and stable finish is unlikely. With no more ado, then, it’s time to help you catch up by handing out a few awards.

Unlike in the general election, the winners are likely to change by the end of the day. Then again by tomorrow, after the postmortems. In a way, then, this is where the real drama lies. Consider me the Prof John Curtice of completely ignoring the numbers and instead watching everything else.

The Best Supporting Actor Award for Scene-Stealing

This is surely the only country in the world where the (ex) Prime Minister can formally announce the loss of a general election while standing three feet from a ventriloquist puppet and four from a man with a bin on his head. Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg conceded as a man in a baked bean balaclava lurked beside him. The new prime minister, Sir Keir Starmer, had to contend with Elmo. On reflection – and we are far from finished – victory goes to baked bean man, whose name turns out to be Mr Barmy Brunch. For anybody wondering, it is from Etsy. The bacon eyebrows are a nice touch.

The “Aw Bless” Award for Dignity in Defeat

There are a lot of contenders here. All night, Tory big beast after Tory big beast shuffled up to a microphone to give a thoroughly gracious concession speech. In fairness, they’ve had a long time to decide what to say. But Grant Shapps managed to joke about how many jobs he’s had in the Cabinet (although not how many identities he’s had); Penny Mordaunt exuded the kind of sense and dignity that showed why she could be trusted with a sword near the King; and Sir Robert Buckland set the tone early, praising Labour’s Heidi Alexander, who in turn praised his service. Well done all. On the other hand…

The Dignitas Award for Not Looking *That* Happy to Survive

Iain Duncan-Smith, the quiet man, quietly won again in Chingford and Woodford Green after the Labour vote was split between its candidate, Shama Tatler, and independent candidate Faiza Shaheen. When he was announced as the victor, Duncan-Smith barely cracked a smile at all. If anything he looked a little crestfallen.

Did a small part of IDS dream of retiring to drive classic sports cars around the Essex countryside for five years, perhaps with Jacob Rees-Mogg in the passenger seat holding onto his hat? Did he smell a podcast with Dominic Raab, in which they interview other people with one more vowel in their name than is necessary? Alas, he’s back in parliament. Oh well.

The John McEnroe Award for Sorest Loser

The lack of hissyfits reflects well on our politicians, but can be lamented by anybody trying to write an article picking on the most amusing moments from the night. Still, you can always rely on George Galloway to spoil the party. Literally, any party. The now former MP for Rochdale didn’t even bother to turn up to see himself lose to Labour’s Paul Waugh, a former journalist.

Instead he was on the social media network X. “I thank the people of Rochdale who gave me 54 sitting days in the last parliament as their MP,” he wrote. That’s four months, give or take. He now gets four months’ severance pay, recently doubled to more than £19,000, for all that work. Reality television probably beckons again.

But why did he stay away from the count? We have not heard, so must reach our own conclusion. Foremost: he was intimidated by the Blyth returning officer’s hat being treble the size of his.

As for Truss, she appeared to hear word of her loss in South West Norfolk while in the car park outside the election count, so refused to go in, like a child told to go and apologise for smashing the neighbour’s window, or a spaniel who somehow knows why it’s been taken to the vets and will not stand for it.

In the end the bride did appear, hanging on the end of the line without a Conservative rosette, and wearing the kind of dazed expression that historians will always call “classically Trussian.” It’s good to be remembered for something.

The hardest geezer award for unnecessary running, sponsored by Hoka

Oh Blyth, poor old Blyth. For reasons known only to them, the constituencies of the North East always fight to be the first to declare on election night. Newcastle and Sunderland are the traditional rivals, a rivalry given extra spice this year by there being no football on. But Ashington and Blyth fancied it this year. At a little after 10.30pm, one counter in the Northumberland town was shown in full running kit, including shorts and trainers, to leg it with a ballot box some 35 metres.

There’s civic pride and then there’s whatever that is. There’s active participation in democracy and then there’s treating it like a HIIT class. And did it work? It did not. Blyth was second to announce. Sunderland South won. The lesson? Having the most expensive kit does not necessarily guarantee victory in the overall race. Just ask Mr Sunak.

The Princess Beatrice award for most thunder-stealing hat

Well this one’s definitely Blyth’s, by a country mile. The first major talking point of election night fell to Lucia Bridgeman, the high sheriff of Northumberland and the returning officer for at least two seats so far up there.

Most returning officers wear drab work clothes, hoping not to take the attention from the rosette-bearing, bin-headed candidates behind them. But not for the Sheriff of Blyth, who came dressed in James Bond’s Scottish Highland outfit when he’s disguised as Sir Hilary Bray in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service – only if it was Princess Michael of Kent playing him, rather than George Lazenby.

It was spectacular. Audacious. High camp. Social media melted. Even Laura Kuenssberg complimented it. She was compared to Prince in the When Doves Cry era, Scooby Doo pretending to be an old lady, a croupier, Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady, a puritan investigating the Salem witch trials, and Emmeline Pankhurst. All compliments.

The William Golding award for feral chaos masquerading as order

Trust the channel that brought us Big Brother, Sex Box, Naked Attraction, Wife Swap and Shipwrecked to know exactly how to cast their election night coverage for maximum havoc. Hosts Emily Maitlis and Krishnan Guru-Murthy, plus data doyenne Hannah Fry, have so far had to shepherd Nadine Dorries, Alastair Campbell, Rory Stewart, Kwasi Kwarteng, Harriet Harman, Ann Widdecombe, Vince Cable and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, among others. Yes, that’s not even the whole list.

Compared to the BBC – a stately affair with Clive Myrie and Kuenssberg doing little to keep people awake, while Jeremy Vine, disappointingly sans GoPro, literally dances over the grave of Tory Britain with a vast map he looms over every once in a while, sometimes turning it into a Giant’s Causeway for no reason other than he feels like it – Channel 4’s coverage is certainly lively.

They have effectively become a TV news equivalent of a hip young supply teacher swinging a chair around, performatively taking his tie off and hurling it across the room, then saying: “Nuff with the ‘Sir’ crap. Just call me Gavin, let’s shoot straight.” Then, when a fight breaks out and a fire extinguisher’s let off in his face, can blame nobody but himself.

It is, and these words are used with restraint, absolutely unhinged. Campbell and Stewart, the Statler and Waldorf of the company, are mentioning their podcast wherever possible. (In fact, almost everybody on TV tonight also has a podcast). Maitlis, long unleashed from the po-faced straitjacket of the BBC, is free to eye-roll guests into the sea whenever she pleases. Mr Kwarteng just about fits in the studio along with the elephant in the room, that being his record.

As for Ms Dorries, well. Even at 10pm, she had the air of a woman you spot outside the church at a wedding and quietly note to avoid for the rest of the night, because she’s definitely going to headbutt the father of the bride before the cake’s cut. She could clearly pick a fight with a tree, but it’s made for fine television.

Mr Campbell has corrected her grammar. In turn, she called him sexist for suggesting she needs to “get over” Boris Johnson. Asked if the former prime minister has texted her this evening, she said he has, but like a teenager who insists her boyfriend is real but goes to another school, loudly refused to say what it was about. (This earned her a Maitlis eye-roll).

ITV has George Osborne, Ed Balls, a green screen that James Cameron must have loaned them, and not much else. GB News optimistically listed the Conservatives as being predicted to win 410 seats until somebody realised the error. Channel 5 showed Fast & Furious: Hobbs and Shaw.

Given they’re all picking over the same bones, that’s a broad range of delirium to choose from. As for Sky…

The When Harry Met Sally award for most, er, excited reaction to the exit poll

As foreplayed above, there can only be one winner for this award, thank God, and it is Sky News’s Kay Burley, who greeted the arrival of the exit poll at 10pm with a groan and huff and sigh and a climax, while Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, chipped in with a baritone grunt.

A good pairing, clearly. And if this wasn’t quite a super-majority, let us be thankful. Burley might not have got up off the floor. We’ll have what she’s having.

The Carol Vorderman Award for Out-Carol Vordermaning Carol Vorderman

Despite tough competition, this must go to Carol Vorderman, who was arguably the star of Channel 4’s carnival of mayhem. It has been some time since Vorderman rebranded herself from sweet on-screen calculator to no-f---s-given political firebrand who can seem at once like Kristen Wiig’s character in Bridesmaids and what she is: a Cambridge graduate with a reported IQ of 154 and a very firm grasp of the issues. Channel 4 must have given her a blank cheque to appear last night.

Of all the action figures – Superman, Batman, Braverman – it is surely Vorderman that’s most terrifying, as she showed halfway through the night with a now-viral rant about 14 years of Tory failure. She called out Kwarteng and Dorries while they sat 10 metres away (a carpark fight between Dorries and Voderman is one contest you’d definitely be foolish to bet on), railed against every scandal going, and kept saying, “Get the party starrrrted!” You sense this may be a catchphrase she’s soft-launching. “But what do you really think?” Guru-Murthy quipped after her monologue.

The Taylor Swift Tortured Poets’ award for mangled metaphors

A tie. Either Myrie, who after only nine minutes of the BBC’s coverage appeared to have a rare malfunction while clucking repeatedly, endlessly, nonsensically about chickens in an interview with Angela Rayner.

Or Wes Streeting, all at sea and up the creek without a paddle trying to steer this nautical image into calmer waters. He did not manage it.

The room rater award for haunted background props

Perhaps the only victory of the night for Jacob Rees-Mogg, who manifested himself in a dark room in North Somerset to speak to the BBC for maybe the last time as an MP. The background was ornate, as you might expect from a man who lives in 1824. And on a small table to one side of his head were the framed photographs of two of his nearest and dearest. No, none of his small fellowship of progeny, but Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher.

Myrie pointed them out. “Oh!” Rees-Mogg said, turning round as if he had not adjusted them to be just so immediately prior to the cameras rolling.

The tech bar award for most abused tech

Stewart’s Oura ring, which is being wafted around, knuckle-thick on his sinewy ring finger, live on Channel 4 every time he makes a proclamation about the Conservative Party. An Oura ring tracks sleep. Stewart is on an all-nighter. That guy just does not follow conventions. Never has, never will.

The Baby Reindeer award for lurking

Victoria Derbyshire, come on down. All night, she’s sitting outside Mr Sunak’s actual house in Yorkshire, watching for signs of life. “The shutters are down,” she announced, on our first visit to the darkness outside his driveway. It’s difficult to see if she’s wearing duck hunter camouflage and face paint, but we’ve not seen her for some time. She may be tunnelling. More to follow.