Never before has there been such comprehensive coverage of an election. It will be the most complex combined operation in the history of the BBC. For the first time all three radio services are involved, and broadcasting will continue throughout the night. Says Stephen Bonarjee, editor of Current Affairs, Sound: ‘By grouping our resources we can offer a wide choice. For example — an election-night party on the Light, a fast service of key results on the Home, a methodical reporting of full results in the Third Network. But all will be complementary so that listeners can switch from one to another.’

The radio master plan embraces all the BBC regional studios as well as five studios in Broadcasting House, London, each with a specialised purpose in feeding the main operation with such ingredients as news of key results, outside broadcasts from constituencies — there will be over thirty outside-broadcast points all over the country — and expert comment.

BBC-tv will have over fifty cameras in strategic positions such as the vital constituencies and those which traditionally declare early; in Trafalgar Square, in clubs and pubs, and university meeting places. Explains Paul Fox, Head of Public Affairs, Television: ‘We plan to bring in the results swiftly, underline their significance as they happen, and provide the best possible comment not only from our own team of commentators but from people who have actually taken part in the day’s events. The engineering problem alone is a staggering one. Even with studios as modern as those at TV Centre the control room has had to be extended to handle all the incoming traffic from outside broadcast units, regional studios, and a host of special telephones.’

A recent complete dummy-run of the election programme as it will happen during the night was based on the 1959 election for timing purposes, but the results that came through were those predicted, as far as possible, for 1964. What were they? That is strictly off the record. See and view for yourself this week — as it happens.

A PLAIN MAN’S GUIDE compiled by David Butler

A PLAIN MAN’S GUIDE compiled by David Butler

1: Terms those commentators use

There are 630 constituencies in the United Kingdom and more than 1,700 candidates.

DEPOSIT Any candidate who fails to secure one eighth (12.5%) of the valid votes in his constituency forfeits to the Exchequer a deposit of £150.

STRAIGHT FIGHT This term is used when only two candidates are standing in a constituency.

MARGINAL SEATS There is no precise definition of a marginal seat. It is a seat where there was a small majority at the last election or a seat that is likely to change hands. Sometimes people call seats with majorities of under 5,000, or under 10%, ‘marginals.’ But one can only decide when all the results are in what seats really were marginal. However, it is easy to list the thirty, or the fifty, or the 100 most marginal Conservative and Labour seats on the basis of the 1959 results and to discuss them.

SWING This word is used to describe in a single figure the change in the position of the Conservative and Labour parties since the last election. Swing is normally defined as the average of the change in the Conservative and Labour share of the vote. Here is an example of what might happen in one constituency:

The Conservatives won in 1959 by a majority of 6%. In 1964, if five out of every 100 of the Conservatives’ supporters vote Labour, the result could be a win for Labour by 4%, equal to a swing of 5%. Thus a national swing of 5% to one party puts in danger all seats held by majorities of under 10%.

Where there is a third party the picture is more complicated. Swing, it must be remembered, is only a crude measure of the net change between the two biggest parties—in calculating it the other parties have to be ignored. Here is an example:

This shows a swing to the Conservatives of 2%. Both Conservatives and Labour lost votes but Labour lost more. To get the swing to the Conservatives, halve the difference (4%) and you get 2% (see Section 2).

PERCENTAGE SHARE OF THE VOTE Constituencies vary greatly in number of electors and in the proportion of electors actually voting. Therefore a direct comparison between changes in majority (‘X’s fell by 5,000 while Y’s only fell by 2,000′) can be very misleading. Much more intelligible contrasts can be made if all votes are thought of as percentages of the total vote cast so that we can say ‘the Labour share of the vote rose by 3% in Barsetshire but fell by 1% in neighbouring Blanktown.’

ELECTORATE This is, almost, the same as the adult population: nearly 37-million. Electoral registers were compiled in every constituency on October 10, 1963, and every British citizen over twenty-one by June 1964 is technically entitled to vote. Errors in the register may affect 3% or 4% of the population: a further 12% have moved house in the last year and can only vote by post or by returning to their old polling district.

THE BIAS IN THE ELECTORAL SYSTEM The electoral system is slightly biased in favour of the Conservative party — not deliberately but because the population happens to be distributed in a way that produces extreme concentrations of Labour strength in some areas so that Labour ‘wastes’ more votes than the Conservatives in piling up huge majorities. To win a majority in Parliament the Conservatives have hitherto needed about 1½% less of the national vote than the Labour party.

2: The swing and what it means in votes

The number of seats won by a major party is fairly exactly related to the proportion of the vote which it wins. If the number of seats won by Liberals and minor parties does not change substantially the following table should give a fair guide of how the 1964 Parliament will differ from the 1959 Parliament. (In 1959 Conservative’s won 49.4% of the vote and 365 seats; Labour 43.6% of the vote and 258 seats — a Conservative majority over Labour of 107).

If the swing in 1964 is:

3: Seats to watch in the early results

Among the results expected by midnight on Thursday, Labour must win at least six of the following seats if they are to form the next Government. The Conservatives must hold some of them if they are to stay in power.

If the Conservatives were to win any seats from Labour in the first results these are the likeliest possibilities:

* (1963 By-Election)

The Liberals will face two tests in the early results:

* (The Conservatives did not stand here in 1959 but are standing now)

4: Forecasting the winner

Around 10 o’clock next Thursday evening the first constituency will give its verdict in the 1964 General Election. Instantly the figures will be computed and analysed and everyone will start guessing what the final majority will be.

The TV and radio commentators will say: ‘The —- party will win with a majority of —- if the whole country behaves like Billericay (or Cheltenham, or Salford, or whoever wins the counting race).’ They will hastily add ‘but we can’t be certain that the country is behaving like this until we’ve had a few more results.’ The commentator who is too precise too early may look a bit silly before the night is over. After the experience of 1955, partisans may think it wise to wait a while before starting their celebrations — or drowning their sorrows.

How soon will it, in fact, be clear who has won? This naturally depends on how close the outcome is going to be.

If, in the early results, the swing from 1959 is between 2½% and 4½% to Labour, the tension will last quite a long time.

But, if the swing is outside those margins, the commentators will be committing themselves before very many results are in. Just how many will also depend on how much the swing varies between constituencies.

In the 1950s, in the great majority of constituencies, the swing was surprisingly close to the national average. If you took a dozen seats at random, their result would mirror the national result. Britain is a united, not to say a uniform, nation politically.

While the swing in the constituencies that report early will probably mirror the swing in the rest of the country, the actual party strength may be a bit misleading. Borough constituencies tend to count the votes quicker than county constituencies and Labour is stronger in the towns. Therefore Labour is likely to get more seats in the early results than in the later ones. In the very close elections of 1950 and 1951, Labour was 50 to 60 seats ahead on the results declared overnight. But by the early afternoon of Friday the Conservatives had pulled level as the county returns came in.

If the Labour party is going to win the 1964 election, it will have to lie clearly in the lead by the time 100 results are in. And those 100 results should be in by midnight on Thursday.

The main interest in the election naturally lies in knowing who has won and by how much. But there will also be the fascinating question: Why? Why is it turning out like this? Is it the Liberal vote? Or the new towns? Is there any sign of people abstaining from voting? Is Scotland behaving like London? A host of such questions are stirred up by the results.

Sometimes final answers may have to wait for weeks — or for ever. But many can be answered within minutes. Computers and experienced statisticians will be working for BBC-tv and Radio through the night. By the time each result is broadcast, the computers (National Elliott 803 for TV and IBM 7094 for radio) will have worked out swing and the turnout. They will keep a running tally of all the votes cast and calculate up-to-date percentages for each party.

They will analyse the results in each big city and each region and they will check whether rural or suburban or other types of constituency are out of line with the rest of the country. A British election, however, presents, in computer terms, a very simple problem; the election results programme must not, therefore, be seen as a great test of the studio computers. They will merely provide accurate information rather more quickly and more exhaustively than slide rules and adding machines. However, with subtle analysis, the fuller data from the computer will make it possible to give more exact forecasts rather earlier than ever before and at the same time to tell you what lies behind the figures.

5: Three golden rules

1. The crucial swing to Labour is 3½%. If the swing in the early results is much over 4%, the Labour party is heading for victory. If the swing is much under 3%, the Conservatives are home again.
2. Labour need at least to gain 5 Conservative seats in the first 100 results to have a good chance of winning.
3. The more the swing varies in different parts of the country, the longer it will be before anyone can go nap on the final majority.

Covering the Election: tonight and tomorrow

The BBC’s team for the most complex combined operation in its history includes television and radio’s most experienced commentators and reporters. They will provide you with an up-to-the-minute and comprehensive service of election results together with expert comment and analysis, vivid reports, and telling interviews from all over the country

The post The General Election appeared first on THIS IS ZENITH 1964 from Transdiffusion.

Yes, we loved the little ‘Ecko’ radio set that my father forked out around 25 guineas for and even the HMV record player that he played all his ‘classicals’ on, but life in the 3rd form in my personal 1964 was becoming unbearable for me as probably the only boy in class that went home to Mrs Dale’s Diary (already now changed to The Dales), rather than The Five O’clock Club and Stubby Kay, Muriel Young, Ollie Beak and Fred Barker or Eamonn Andrews and Crackerjack.

Most of my television viewing up until 1964 then was courtesy of my pals and I owe them (or at least their long suffering parents) a debt of gratitude for introducing me to Muffin the Mule (don’t, please…), The Lone Ranger, Popeye, I Love Lucy, Wagon Train, Take Your Pick and Blue Peter (there was much more of course). The gratitude extends even more to suddenly becoming aware of separate TV companies forming part of the great ITV network – or ‘the ITA’ as we called it – with their memorable jingles and animated ‘idents’ (even early Granada had an ident that silently fluttered the letters from left to right to make the word ‘Granada’ above that northward-rising pointing arrow). Those that might have read my pieces elsewhere will know that I still get embarrassingly excited over three triangles forming into one and the ching-ching-chinging letters A, B and C. Such was (and is) the world of the boomer generation.

So it was with some trepidation at the age of 12-going-on-13 that I wrote a letter to our nearest branch of Rentaset (later, part of Radio Rentals) asking for a ‘brochure’ on the latest sets they were offering. I think I signed it in my father’s name and soon, Dad was persuaded that TV was probably at last past the J L Baird 30-line stage and had more or less been ‘perfected’ and he felt able to wrench himself out of the Victorian age and embrace the new media, if only for the ‘serious’ stuff like classical drama, Shakespeare and Dickens. In truth, and with some guilty reflection in my dotage, I suspect the cost of the enterprise also had a part in the delay of television coming to the Singleton household.

So the grand day of change arrived we strained our necks as we watched the man strap the aerial – probably mistakenly – to the furthest chimney stack from the lounge window, so the co-axial cable stretched right across the roof before eventually being threaded through the drilled hole in the window frame.

When our television set arrived, there were at first, some restrictions. Sunday was supposed to be a day of rest, so it wasn’t until around tea time when the traditional ‘Dickens-or-similar’ slot aired did the TV set really get warm, although later, the parental restrictions began to be lifted as they themselves became more enthusiastic. Censorship was still enforced however at other times – Wednesday Plays particularly suffered and Till Death Us Do Part did too, (Mum: “That awful man!”).

Limited to two TV channels, it was just thirteen days after my thirteenth birthday when BBC-2 began transmissions (it was a shaky start though) in this Great Year of Change but us “oop north” had to wait until 1965 before the Winter Hill transmitter started radiating those six hundred and twenty five lines. “It’ll be just like a photograph” the Radio Rentals man announced (over-egging the reality somewhat) when he came to add the UHF tuner to the dual standard ready set we had already swapped to in the excitement of the build up to the second BBC channel as it spread rather slowly across the UK. And that unusual aerial heralded to all neighbours that we “had” BBC-2.

There was something rather avant-garde about the channel, and it made much of the “625” tag… (Jazz 625, Theatre 625) and its prime remit was to promote knowledge building and accentuate new comedy, drama and the arts. One early parentally-approved drama was The Forsyte Saga with such names as Kenneth More, Nyree Dawn Porter and Eric Porter in the main roles of Galsworthy’s Forsyte novels. It was the last major drama made by the BBC in black and white and the family became firm viewers.

So 1964 was becoming a year that changed everything in more ways than one. The reason I always get the ‘what year were the Tokyo Olympics?’ question right is because of television. The TV coverage for me was the start of something exciting because Telstar had been launched (Telstar 1 in 1963 and Telstar 2 in 1964) and this meant pictures could be beamed across the world (although it wasn’t until the Synchro 3 satellite that geo-synchronous coverage became the norm). Names such as Mary Rand, Lynn Davies, Robbie Brightwell and Ann Packer stick in my mind even today.

But there other television milestones in the year – and what a start it was when Top of The Pops first burst on to the screens. It was to continue for 42 years, along with Christmas Day specials. The show became part of British pop culture and there are still “decade” repeats, although any later ‘disgraced’ personalities are wiped from existence. For me though, Associated-Rediffusion’s more anarchic Ready, Steady, Go! already on air for four months as 1964 dawned, was much more of a turning point in pop culture as it became more established on our TV screens and reflected more the mood of the day.

The Beatles went to America and appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show (three times in fact) and took the States by storm. Ed Sullivan was a big name and his CBS show had already a 16 year history so this was something of a British coup and America became fascinated by the English music scene and what later became to be known as the British Invasion.

Granada’s socio-economic study Seven Up! was first broadcast in May in the World in Action strand and has been revisited every seven years since. I remember the first one – and I’ll be watching again with fascination in 2019 when 63 Up! airs, if only to see who’s left…

The short-lived Not So Much a Programme… More a Way of Life launched in November and Ned Sherrin continued the satirical path laid down by That Was The Week That Was, which was removed from the schedules the previous year due to the impending general election. Not as sharp as TW3, it didn’t last long and was followed in 1965 with BBC 3, hosted by Robert Robinson.

And although Granadalanders weren’t aware until later on, ATV’s Crossroads opened for business (“Crossroads Motel. Can I help you?”). Whether or not this was a highlight of 1964 is a debate but it deserves a mention – as does the dubious birth of a new newspaper, The Sun.

But 1964 wasn’t all about television. A cultural shift was in the air and at Easter, we became aware that we could twiddle our medium wave radio sets to one-nine-nine and listen to something called Radio Caroline. However, it wasn’t until Caroline North anchored itself off the Isle of Man that I really became aware of the power of change that the pirate radio stations were making. No longer were we limited to the BBC Light Programme or even Radio Luxembourg (which was subject to some dreadful reception) we were able to listen to pop music presented in a way that captured the ‘1964 shift’.

News today is fed to us round the clock – but for us early teens in 1964, we were limited to fairly short news bulletins on television. But nevertheless, some big stories of ’64 (some irrelevant, some more significant) have been retained in the hard drive of my memory – so much so, that there seems little capacity left for more recent stuff that seems to dematerialise as soon as it’s taken in.

My younger associates are sometimes amazed at the trivia I can come out with from my youth, for example that first telephone number, the Ford Classic my headmaster ran, the registration number of my friend’s dad’s Ford Popular, the cost (6d) of my weekly TV21 comic and the name of nearly every boy in my 3rd form class on those long whole-school photographs taken every year where the photographer’s camera panned from left to right and we were all told to “keep still, boy!” We had nicknames for all our ‘masters’ – Chalky, The Baz, Johnno, Nev, The Twitch and Mr Woodhouse’s moniker ‘Timbershack’. It’s all there, stored away, and occasionally gets all mixed up in my dreams into a weird video-maelstrom of past and present.

Digressing (as I do) the some news events of ’64 come to mind:

Harold Wilson’s Labour government took office following the October general election, beating the Conservatives and Sir Alex Douglas-Home’s premiership. Poor AD-H was never very good televisually – appearing like a white skull in front of the camera, and he never really warmed to television, unlike his successor at No. 10. Here was a man of no Oxbridge strain – a grammar school boy – who captured the mood of the nation with his “white heat of technology” speech at the previous year’s Labour Party Conference. I read somewhere that Harold preferred a good cigar to his pipe, but a pipe was a little more working class. Urban myth maybe, but it’s a good story.

In December, the news was that the death penalty was finally to be abolished and, as a consequence, ‘Moors Murderers’ Ian Brady and Myra Hindley escaped with life sentences where previously they would surely have been hanged. Even though capital punishment was handed out less and less over the previous few years, the last executions did take place in 1964 at Walton Gaol in Liverpool and Strangeways in Manchester.

And on the subject of criminality, the Great Train Robbers whose £2.6m haul in August of 1963 had been almost romanticised by the press, were handed out a total of 307 years in sentences at Buckinghamshire Assizes on 16 April.

Then there were the railways – Oh! Doctor Beeching – what can be said? In this year, Richard Beeching resigned as chairman of the British Railways Board and my memories of my parents bewailing the closure of many of the smaller railway lines are as clear today as they were in this year of change. After all, we weren’t a car-owning family then, so buses and trains were very important and the demise of the branch lines was something of an inconvenience.

Donald Campbell set the world water speed record on New Year’s Eve in Australia and yet the later news story of his death three years later probably meant more to me as that happened much nearer home. The Campbell story was indeed one of derring-do and ultimately, tragedy.

The Year Everything Changed… certainly for me and many of my peers, it did seem that there was change in the air, although we probably weren’t as aware of it until much later in life. We just accepted it as ‘the way things were’ at that time. In personal moments of reflection, I think of the music, the fashion, the changes that took place in broadcasting in television and radio, the changes afoot in education and science and those also within my own home and family that probably moulded me into the person I became. Every generation could probably say the same about its own ‘year of the decade’ but ‘sixty four’ is certainly up there as a milestone.

The post Milestones appeared first on THIS IS ZENITH 1964 from Transdiffusion.