The BBC is set to employ an unprecedented four swingometers for this year’s General Election coverage to cope with all the political permutations.
It’s a far cry from the very first election broadcast 60 years ago when the swingometer consisted of an arrow drawn on a piece of card.
The BBC is marking the diamond anniversary of its election coverage with a special programme to be screened tonight presented by Peter Snow. Snow, dubbed the King of Swing during his time in charge of electoral graphics, handed control to Jeremy Vine ahead of the 2010 Election.
He said: “It was the best job ever. It was great fun. But I won’t miss it on election night. I’m well past the time I could rush up and down ladders and jump off stages.”
Snow was famous for his animated style and sometimes erratic graphics.
He laughed: “The wonderfully innovative computer graphics would occasionally take it into their head to go completely bonkers. On one occasion, during a by-election show in the ’90s, the swing was 29% to Labour. The swingometer just about coped with that but when I said, ‘Let’s open the doors to the House of Commons and see what would happen to parliament with a swing of that size’ the whole thing blew up! It just shattered and there was no House of Commons.
“Turned out the computer couldn’t cope because, with that swing, there would be no Conservatives in the House of Commons!”
The exit poll is another key part of election night.
Snow explained presenters will be nervous before that is announced. In 1992 there was a last minute change.
He said: “The prediction was a hung parliament, with Neil Kinnock leading the largest party, until a few minutes before 10 o’clock. Then I got the message that it was a different prediction John Major would lead the largest party and that was frightening.
“Things are already pretty taut. All your graphics that you’ve persuaded the editor to let you run have to be changed.”
Snow says there will be four swingometers on Thursday night to cope with swings between different parties.
With the old two-party system apparently splintered for good, surely the swingometer has outlived its usefulness?
“What matters in the job that I did and Jeremy Vine now does is clarity and clear information,” he added. “If you’ve got a graphic that leaves people completely bewildered then it may look lovely but it’s not helpful
“Swing is a single measure of the way the election is going. The joy of a pendulum that swings to and fro, it’s a very attractive illustration of a very attractive measure.”
Some swingometers are better than others, though. The machine’s creator, Canadian Bob McKenzie, had to add an extra few percentage points with a felt-tip pen live on air back in the days when it was made of cardboard rather than computer graphics.
And Snow’s reborn swingometer unveiled for the 1992 election campaign looked hi-tech but actually relied on two backstage boys, dubbed Bill and Ben, to move the colossal arrow back and forth.
While Snow’s still excited about election night, he’s not enthused by today’s politics.
He said: “It’s been a very dismal election campaign and the result will be dismal for the country too because I think the last thing we need now is a lot of shenanigans in back rooms going on for several weeks and that might well happen.”
Sixty Years of Swing is on BBC Parliament, 9pm, tonight.
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