The winners on the night? Sky well resourced and very competent. ITV with Bradby, charm and some ace guests (especially George Osborne, who may have made the biggest career mistake of his life – and grimacing as though he realised it). And Dimbleby’s last hurrah on the BBC, with only a few bumbles through a long, practised evening and early morning before Huw Edwards, looking almost as weary, took over the baton.
Special plaudits to Emily Maitlis, in total charge of the results board. Slightly less applause for Jeremy Vine, doing his Peter Snow memorial turn on the swings and future-extrapolation roundabouts.
Actually, it’s not eager Jeremy who grits any teeth here: more the surrounding oppressive edifices of virtual reality the corporation surrounds him with. It’s all too much like Alien as you wait for a monstrous Farage to burst from Vine’s chest and start eating the studio.
