Former Conservative minister Nadine Dorries stole the show on election night as she accused Alastair Campbell of sexism and revealed former Prime Minister Boris Johnson had been texting her.
Appearing on Channel 4 as part of the broadcaster’s election programme, hosted by Emily Maitlis and Krishnan Guru-Murthy, Ms Dorries clashed with the former Labour spokesperson just minutes after polls closed at 10pm.
She also caused hilarity for viewers after Ms Maitlis appeared to struggle not to roll her eyes at one of her answers.
The ex-culture secretary and staunch Boris Johnson loyalist said the projected results are a ‘disaster’ for the party, after an exit poll predicted the party would return just 131 seats.
Pressed on the meteoric rise of Reform, which is projected to get 13 seats, Ms Dorriess pointed out that the far-right party was polling in the low single digits while Mr Johnson was Prime Minister.
Mr Campbell then interrupted her and said: ‘You really need to get over Boris.’
Former Conservative Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries accused Alastair Campbell of sexism
Former Labour spokesperson Mr Campbell appeared on Channel 4’s election night coverage alongside Ms Dorries
Ms Dorries hit back: ‘I think that’s quite a sexist comment.’
Mr Campbell retorted: ‘It’s really not’.
The couple continued to trade blows throughout the programme with the presenters having to intervene at times.
Just a few minutes later there was another clash, this time between Labour’s Harriet Harman and the Conservatives’ Kwasi Kwarteng.
Ms Harman accused Mr Kwarteng of being ‘patronising’ in his response to her.
Ms Dorries cut in and said: ‘It’s up to me and Harriet to hold the men on this stage to account it seems.’
Later in the programme she was asked if her former boss Boris Johnson had been in touch with her since the exit poll.
Looking at her phone, she confirmed he had, but asked to share what he had told her, Ms Dorries said: ‘No.’
Pressed on whether Mr Johnson had suggested he might make a return to frontline politics, Ms Dorries stuttered, before saying the country needs a strong leader to counter the ‘rise of the far-right’ – but stopped short of naming him.
It came after the exit poll predicted Labour will have a total of 410 seats after the election, a majority of 170.
The Conservatives are forecast to have 131, Lib Dems 61, Reform 13 and the SNP 10.
The SNP’s vote would be decimated, after winning 48 seats in the 2019 election, while Plaid Cymru in Wales is projected to get four seats.
The Greens are also expected to gain a second seat in Bristol after a knife-edge campaign.
The Tories, who have been in power since 2010, are set to be banished to the opposition benches of the House of Commons, with exit polling suggesting their numbers will be reduced to 131 seats, a loss of some 241 MPs.
This would be its lowest number of MPs on record.
The clash on the programme hosted by Emily Maitlis and Krishnan Guru-Murthy (both pictured) occurred just minutes after polls closed
Harriet Harman (left) also later accused Kwasi Kwarteng (centre) of being patronising
Social media users were quick to react to the clash between the political rivals online
In 2019, under then-premier Boris Johnson premiership the party won 365 seats, with majority of 80.
That total is now set to be dwarfed by the result expected for Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour by the end of the night, which is predicted to win power with a total of 410 seats according to the poll.
Rishi Sunak has sought to outwardly portray himself as upbeat, only arguing on Wednesday – the final day of campaigning – he was an ‘underdog’ who was fighting until the ‘final whistle’.
But the exit poll, the final test of public opinion on the night of the election count, has now laid bare the scale of devastation the Tories face.
At risk of losing their seats this evening are several prominent Cabinet ministers, including Chancellor Jeremy Hunt, Commons Leader Penny Mordaunt, Defence Secretary Grant Shapps, Justice Secretary Alex Chalk, and Education Secretary Gillian Keegan.
Deputy Labour leader Angela Rayner said the forecast was ‘encouraging’ but a number of seats were on a ‘knife edge’.
‘If you look at where we were in 2019, just to get a majority of one we’d have had to have a swing greater than Tony Blair in 1997,’ she told the BBC.
‘So we know a number of seats were on a knife edge from our own data, but I also know that all of our activists and our candidates have been going out there not taking anything for granted and speaking to the electorate about what matters to them.’
A Tory source said: ‘It’s clear based on this results we will have lost some very good and hardworking candidates.’
Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey said his party was ‘on course for our best results in a century, thanks to our positive campaign with health and care at its heart’.
Elsewhere, the race to be the first seat of the night to declare was won by Houghton and Sunderland South, which was won again by Labour’s shadow Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson.
Ms Phillipson took 18,847 votes – 47 percent – ahead of Reform UK on 11,668, more than double the Conservatives on 5,514, the Liberal Democrats on 2,290 and The Green Party on 1,723. The turnout was 51.2 percent.