Long before Richard Osman created The Thursday Murder Club there was the Thursday Night Club, a club of passionate political enthusiasts that stay up all night to watch General Election results unfold on the TV. In his new book Badgeland: Memoir of a Labour Party Young Socialist in 1980s Britain, Steve Rayson reflects on his induction to the Thursday Night Club as a seventeen-year-old in Swindon in 1979. 

Most people are not enthusiastic about elections, it is not just Brenda from Bristol. However, for those of us in the Thursday Night Club a General Election is more exciting than all our childhood Christmases combined. We become more energised than a Labrador puppy spinning in circles waiting to be fed. We constantly monitor and evaluate every event during the campaign. It may look as if we are walking the dog or putting out the recycling but the reality is our brains are doing political calculations. We are weighing up the impact of the latest interview or opinion poll on voting intentions. 

We bore everyone with constant discussions about margins of error and historical voting patterns. Our partners, those that haven’t left us or stopped listening, become resigned to discussions about political minutiae. For people like us the space between elections is equivalent to the summer break for an obsessive football or Strictly Come Dancing fan. We fill our time researching data, reading policy papers, assessing party conference speeches and debating campaign strategies. Our Christmas wish lists are full of political biographies. In the absence of UK elections we turn to other people’s elections. We become experts on the US elec-toral college or the two stage French presidential elections. We also love referendums but nothing can quite match the buzz of a General Election.

We stock up on coffee, beer, biscuits and chocolate before we settle down to watch the general election results come through. We clear our diaries and frequently book leave for the day after an election. These nights are our equivalent of a Northern Soul all-nighter. We know we will be exhausted the next day.

We never need to be asked if we stayed up for Portillo. In 1997 we watched live as Stephen Twigg’s grin spread across his face. In 2019 we were still awake at 3.45 a.m. when Jo Swinson lost her seat. In 2016 we were still awake at 4.40 a.m. when David Dimbleby announced the result of the EU referendum: “The British people have spoken and the answer is…. we’re out.”

We don’t just remember the big election shocks such as Theresa May failing to get a majority in 2017 or John Major succeeding against the odds in 1992. It is the small things, the details we remember that mark us out as a Club member. For example, we know that the person John Prescott punched in 2001 had a mullet or ‘Bundesliga hair’ as it is known in Denmark. That David Cameron didn’t simply forget which football team he supported but claimed to support West Ham rather than Aston Villa. That the pensioner Gordon Brown called a bigoted woman was Gillian Duffy, and that Neil Kinnock fell into the sea at Brighton, not Blackpool or Bournemouth. 

In 1979 I sat in front of the TV enthralled by the swingometer. According to the presenter the Conservatives needed a 4.5 percent swing to get a majority. The polls predicted a swing of 4.7 percent. That was close and within the margin of error. I prayed that Thatcher would not win. I was jumpy, my knees were bouncing and I started eating digestive biscuits at a rather frantic pace while I waited.

My optimism increased when the BBC reported on a poll conducted in Derby North. According to the reporter the seat was the forty-third on a list of marginal seats that Thatcher needed to win to have a majority and become prime minister. The poll predicted a small swing to Labour, which meant Thatcher was not going to get the seats she needed. We were going to defeat the dark side. I loved the BBC for its poll and I loved Derby North for its good sense. I treated myself to another digestive. Two minutes later the BBC corrected the poll saying it actually showed a two percent swing to the Conservatives. For God’s sake, the BBC was useless. How could they get something so simple so wrong?

I had trusted the experts when they said Derby North was the seat Thatcher needed to win to become prime minister. But they lied to me. Labour held the constituency but the seats above and below Derby North on the BBC’s list were turning blue. Each new result was like a body blow. ‘Con gain Anglesey.’ ‘Con gain Dartford.’ ‘Con gain Fulham.’ ‘Con gain Liverpool Garston.’ Derby North was left looking like a lonely red island amongst a sea of blue seats as the Tory tide swept in. My stomach heaved like a heavy load in a washing machine. 

At 3 a.m. the BBC reported that the Labour Prime Minister, Jim Callaghan, had admitted defeat and thanked his campaign staff for their work. The big swings to the Conservatives were in the south, luckily most voters held out against Thatcher in the north. Peter Jenkins called it a two nation election with a clear divide between north and south. I was slumped on the sofa but still awake at 3.57 a.m. when the former Liberal leader Jeremy Thorpe lost his seat. Robin Day asked him if his forthcoming trial for conspiracy to murder was a factor in him losing. Thorpe replied, “Put it this way Robin, I don’t think it helped.”

Steve Rayson’s book Badgeland: Memoir of a Labour Party Young Socialist in 1980s Britain is published by Bavant Press and available here