Armando Iannucci: BBC was all at sea on election night

Armando Iannucci, like the Daily Telegraph, appears to be not entirely impressed by the BBC's election night boat party. He was promised "proper debate". What he got: Joan Collins. "My main epiphany came earlier when I walked on to the BBC's now-notorious election barge, to be greeted with the sight of a hundred celebrities and swanky public figures," The Thick Of It creator wrote in the Independent. "It's unsettling to realise you're regarded as one of them. I'd been promised proper debate but instead stood next to Joan Collins while the thrice-divorced star of The Stud and The Bitch praised Cameron's family values. We lost electrical power, which meant we didn't know what was going on. Neither were we being broadcast, anathema to any self-respecting celebrity. It was the dawning realisation that none of this actually mattered, that the collective views of the commentariat and entertainocracy were irrelevant to the sophisticated earthquake taking place outside, that suddenly hit home." The Telegraph, for its part, reckons the whole thing cost more than £35,000 to run. Imagine what it would have cost with proper electricity.