Election insomnia
11th May 2010
"Like most others in public affairs, I am a bit of a 'politics geek'. A general election to us is like the World Cup or the Olympics to sports fans. We can't miss a minute of it. So on Friday morning I joined the remainder of the politically-avid community on the ashen-faced commute to work, stumbling onto the District line grasping the largest coffee Starbucks could muster. Days and nights had merged into each other. I couldn't remember when I last got out of bed.
My head hurt. I was confused. Was it due to the fact I had stayed up all night to watch the election results trickle, and then pour, in? Or was my confusion caused by the fact there was a hung parliament and to be frank, we didn't know what on earth was going on?
By midday the picture was still murky. So were the restless minds of my colleagues - none of whom obtained more than a couple of hours of sleep. What were we going to tell our clients? How could we best reassure them we were prepared for any outcome the hung parliament would bring? By mid-afternoon we had gathered around the TV, watching David Cameron making an offer to the Liberal Democrats to form a minority government - even a full coalition - in response to Nick Clegg's admission that his party would talk first to the Conservatives.
At last we had some sense of what the weekend would bring: negotiations, policy horse-trading and incessant rolling news on BBC and Sky. We the advised our clients accordingly, but not before making up another round of coffee. There is simply too much happening at the moment. Real sleep for us 'geeks' will have to wait until a government is formed, and even that might bring some sleepless nights of its own...