1997 United Kingdom general election

BBC election night coverage with David Dimbleby, May 1–2, 1997: the Portillo moment The night that gave British politics a phrase. In the early hours Labour's Stephen Twigg took Enfield Southgate from Michael Portillo, a cabinet minister tipped as a future Conservative leader, and the cameras caught his face as the count was read. Dimbleby's summing up is the line everyone remembers: "It was his one chance to take over the Conservative Party and he's blown it by losing his own seat." The full night is worth the hours: BBC Parliament once replayed the whole broadcast in real time, and viewers happily relived it all over again.