UK Election, The Longest Night.

It is always one of the longest days and night for anyone who works in the TV News industry. Election night in the United Kingdom is always met with a press frenzy around the country, usually resulting in much speculation, rumour and verbal fisticuffs throughout the night until it becomes clear around 4 or 5 in the morning, who has won the election, to be installed that very day, into 10 Downing St.

Only, this time around, we have been handed a Hung Parliament, with no clear overall winner with a working majority to form a government. So yet more rumour, speculation and verbal fisticuffs are yet to come over the next few days and possibly weeks, until an agreement can be made.

My election night started and finished at the Riverside Leisure complex in Reading, Berkshire, filming ballot boxes being delivered to the venue from various locations and polling booths around the region. As the night and the counting of votes wore on, it became increasingly clear to all of the candidates, agents and supporters, as well as the press, that no clear mandate had been set for any political party to set up in Government with a clear majority.

And so by 9 o'clock in the morning of the 7 May 2010, following another live into the BBC News, we became resigned to the fact that as members of the press, we had more work to do following the fall out, political recriminations and the downfall or rise of whatever political agreement will follow. And, of course, the distinct chance that in around six months or so, should a coalition and compromise not work, we could be doing this all over again.