Exit (Fashion) Pollice

(Look, if you want to try and come up with a better title for this article, then be my guest.)

One of the biggest moments of a UK election night is when the exit poll drops, and all the parties who don't like the result argue about how it's obviously wrong for hours until the actual results show it was right all along. The burning question: is there an article that comments on the graphics and accuracy of some of the BBC's exit polls over the years? There is now!

OCTOBER 1974

GRAPHICS: Very straightforward, text-on-screen affair. All rather BBC Micro.
ACCURACY: Complete nonsense. Labour was returned with a tiny majority, and the Conservatives had 77 more seats than forecast. The only part of this poll that's even close to reality is what it says about the Liberals.

1979

GRAPHICS: There's a nice picture of Big Ben, and a rather good new font.
ACCURACY: Labour were somewhat flattered by this poll (they ended up with slightly fewer seats than the most pessimistic prediction pictured), but otherwise this is rather good.

1983

GRAPHICS: A bar graph, with a rather nice effect where they suddenly shot up from 0 when the exit poll was released.
ACCURACY: Basically exactly right. Well done.

1987

GRAPHICS: For some reason, this rather puts me in mind of Teletext.
ACCURACY: Utterly hopeless. The predicted slash in the Conservative majority simply did not materialise; Neil Kinnock only managed the most modest of gains, adding 20 seats as opposed to the 52 predicted.

1992

GRAPHICS: Well, that's pretty much as close to "we haven't got a clue" in graphic form as you're going to get, isn't it?
ACCURACY: The BBC's forecast hung parliament translated into an actual slim Conservative majority, although I think this exit poll has taken a few hard knocks over the years - the BBC's 2005 coverage had an expert say that in 1992 the exit poll predicted a Labour government, which this clearly didn't.

1997 AND 2001

GRAPHICS: A stark contrast to 1992. The result is so clear there's no reason for anything other than the headline.
ACCURACY: Both elections were very similar (only 29 seats changed hands in 2001) and so were both exit polls, correctly forecasting a Labour landslide. The shares are a bit out, but nobody really cares about those, and indeed 2001 was the last time the projected vote shares were given such prominence.

2005

GRAPHICS: Although this is visually very similar to the previous two, it somewhat hides the fact that Labour's majority was going to be so unexpectedly much smaller than last time. The way it's done over a shot of Big Ben is quite nice, and it's surprising that wasn't done again.
ACCURACY: The exit poll said Labour would have a majority of 66, and Labour got a majority of 66. However, the poll slightly overestimated the Conservatives and underestimated the Lib Dems (209 predicted Con seats vs. 198 actual Con seats, and 53 predicted LD seats to 62 actual LD seats).

2010

GRAPHICS: With the final result up in the air, the BBC's initial reaction is to include all three party leaders in shot, before a bar chart of all three parties by seats (something last seen in 1987).
ACCURACY: Absolutely bang on the money, more or less.

2015

GRAPHICS: In retrospect, the fact that the BBC's headline was a big picture of Cameron and 'Conservatives Largest Party' should have been a clue (Labour HQ apparently only started panicking when the numbers came up). The big holograms of the party leaders feel distracting, and as they can only fit two or three of them on screen at a time it seems to take rather too long to get through everything. There's a point - for the first time, this election doesn't lump in everyone not LAB/CON/LD under 'Others' (the SNP and UKIP are featured here, and individual numbers were later given for Plaid and the Greens). Nick Robinson apparently found the holograms a bit unsettling according to his (excellent) memoir Election Notebook, which may be why this was their only time out.
ACCURACY: This poll was far, far closer to the real result than opinion polls leading up to the election, and yet the final result would be even better for the Conservatives, managing a slim majority (they were the only party the exit poll was significantly wrong on).

2017

GRAPHICS: With only two years between elections, the graphics are virtually identical. Note that the first picture was on screen for less time, and given less prominence, than the similar picture was in 2015: because this time round things were closer. The actual graphic of the seats is nice and straightforward, and virtually identical to one that showed up later in the night in 2015.
ACCURACY: Maybe in 2022, or whenever, we'll actually agree at 10pm that the exit poll is probably right?