What to watch out for on election night

Good morning. Not long now. Here’s a brief guide to what I think some of the most interesting and noteworthy overnight results will be, and what to look out for in them.

Symptoms of the universe

10pm

Polling stations close. Time to fire up the Financial Times live blog, where we’ll be covering the results throughout the night. The first big thing will be the exit poll, a jointly funded effort between the UK’s main broadcasters, a team of psephologists and the pollster Ipsos. (Ipsos’s Michael Clemence explains how the exit poll works here.)

The headline result will probably be about right, but the emergence of Reform UK, the revival of the Liberal Democrats as a serious force capable of winning seats, and the handful of winnable constituencies for the Greens all may complicate some individual results.

Still, it will be the only thing we really have to discuss for a while, though you can expect the bloodletting/spinning/sudden howls of anguish by the pollsters to start right away. We won’t get our first results until about 10.40pm at the earliest.

11.30pm

One subplot of election night is the race to be the first to declare, with returning officers resorting to all sorts of expediencies and drafting in volunteers to deliver a faster count.

In recent years, this has been an exclusively north-eastern affair. In 2017 and 2019, Newcastle Central (held by Labour’s Chi Onwurah) narrowly beat Houghton & Sunderland South (held by Labour’s Bridget Phillipson), which had declared first in every election since 1992, when it narrowly beat Torbay. Sunderland will hope to get back to winning ways this year, but both constituencies face competition from Blyth & Ashington (a new seat, nominally Labour held).

They won’t tell us very much in and of themselves, unless the polls are catastrophically off. (I’ll be discussing what we do know on Radio 4 at around this time also.)

12.15am

Perennial marginal Swindon South will declare, as will Basildon and Billericay. Basildon and Billericay is one of the Conservative party’s safest seats; if it loses here or even if it is close, that will tell us something. That said, I would urge some caution, because the circumstances in which Ric Holden, the Conservative party chair, came to be selected here were controversial to say the least. History teaches us that there will be a bigger swing against the Tories than elsewhere as a result.

Remember also that on election night, what doesn’t happen can sometimes tell us as much as what does. The 2019 memory that is etched in my mind is not about any of the actual results, but is the moment ITV used the words “there is a recount in Blyth Valley”, because that could only have meant that the significant swing from Labour to Conservative was happening and that Boris Johnson’s big win was very much on. (Recounts only happen when the result is close.) If there is a recount in Basildon and Billericay, and it gets to half past midnight without a declaration, that is in many ways as telling as getting a declaration.

1am

Our first three Scottish constituencies should declare: Rutherglen, which Labour won in a by-election, is right on the foothills of Labour’s target seat list in Scotland, and a modest revival in Scottish Labour fortunes should see it win here. Hamilton & Clyde Valley is a little trickier, and East Kilbride & Strathaven more difficult. So we will have a bit of a sense of what the overall picture in Scotland might look like — treat these essentially as “handful of seats, 10 seats, 15 seats” indicators as far as the Labour battle in Scotland goes and that’ll give you a good gauge for what the rest of the night might look like.

1.45am

Our first seat in the Conservative-Liberal Democrat battlefield, Harrogate & Knaresborough, will declare. Conservative since 2010.

2am

The hour of truth. This is when election night starts to heat up and if you are the kind of person who enjoys naps this would be a good time to set your alarm for. Marginals across the UK will declare and by 3am we’ll have a good idea if the exit poll is right and what the likely outcome is.

Results for the North West Essex constituency where Kemi Badenoch is standing should come in, though troubles with postal voting delays could lead to complications.

2.30am

Declaration in Rochdale, where George Galloway’s bid for re-election is being challenged by Labour’s Paul Waugh. Keir Starmer’s Holborn and St Pancras seat will declare, he will make a short speech at his count. Also expected to declare is the Vale of Glamorgan, a perennial Welsh marginal (it has backed the winner at every election, in Westminster and the devolved legislature, since its creation in 1983).

3am

Cheltenham, where the justice secretary Alex Chalk is defending a slim 981 majority from the Liberal Democrats, and Chingford & Woodford Green, where Iain Duncan Smith is fighting to be re-elected against Labour’s Shama Tatler and independent former Labour candidate Faiza Shaheen, are your big headline-grabbers here.

3.15am

Bristol Central, the Green party’s number one target in this election, where co-leader Carla Denyer could unseat shadow culture secretary Thangam Debbonaire.

3.30am

Jeremy Hunt and Grant Shapps will discover if they have held on in Godalming & Ash and Welwyn Hatfield respectively. Hunt faces a challenge from the Liberal Democrats, Shapps from Labour.

4am

Rishi Sunak’s seat of Richmond & Northallerton will declare, he will likewise make a speech. Another shadow cabinet minister with a tricky local battle is Shabana Mahmood in Birmingham Ladywood, where Akhmed Yakoob, who did very well running as an independent candidate for the West Midlands mayoralty, is running against her.

4.30am

Ashfield, where Lee Anderson — Labour councillor turned Conservative MP turned Reform defector — is hoping to be re-elected. Hoping to stop him are not only the Conservatives and Labour, but also Jason Zadrozny, a former Liberal Democrat who almost won the seat in 2010 and whose independent party runs the local council.

Montgomeryshire & Glyndwr. Craig Williams, Sunak’s parliamentary private secretary, will discover the precise cost of his “flutter” on the date of the general election.

North East Somerset and Hanham. I know there is a lot of reader interest in this constituency, where Jacob Rees-Mogg faces a tough challenge from Labour’s Dan Norris, who represented the predecessor seat of Wansdyke from 1997 to 2010.

In Brighton Pavilion, Siân Berry will learn whether she has succeeded in keeping the seat Green, while there is a fight between the Alliance and the DUP in Lagan Valley, a seat usually considered a unionist stronghold.

5am

Earley & Woodley, where former FT journalist Yuan Yang is the Labour candidate, will declare.

At this point it should be pretty obvious who has won the general election. Nearly all the results will be known by mid-morning. For a recap of the key policies, parties and polls, the FT has a neat little guide here.

Now try this

(Georgina) At this historic juncture, it felt a bit poetic seeing the National Theatre revival of Simon McBurney’s Mnemonic play last night, 25 years after its first staging. Its meditation on memory, humanity and how we relate to one another is at times charmingly funny, with mesmerising video and set design. Runs to August 10.

Top stories today

• No Stride in his step | Labour is heading for the biggest “landslide majority” Britain has ever seen, according to one of Rishi Sunak’s closest ministerial allies, as he in effect conceded defeat for tomorrow’s vote.

• Boris warns against a Labour ‘sledgehammer majority’ | Boris Johnson has made a last-minute intervention in the Conservative election campaign, urging wavering Tory voters to stick with the party.

• Action needed on prisons within days | Jails in England and Wales will be at “operational breaking point” within days of the general election, requiring a likely Labour government to take tough decisions immediately, the head of the prison governors’ union has warned.

• Knife-edge seats could tip Tories from defeat to wipeout | The nationwide collapse of the once-solid Conservative vote means there are now about 120 seats where the margin of victory is expected to be fewer than 5 percentage points, according to the FT’s projection model.

Below is the Financial Times’ live-updating UK poll-of-polls, which combines voting intention surveys published by major British pollsters. Visit the FT poll-tracker page to discover our methodology and explore polling data by demographic including age, gender, region and more.