What will you be doing at 10pm on May 7 2015?

At exactly ten o’clock in the evening three and a half years on from tonight the polls will be closing in the 2015 general election.

For the previous half or so so a select group of people will already have a good idea of the outcome. These are of course the team carrying out the exit poll and the senior members of the election teams at the major broadcasters.

The exit pollsters have an extraordinary record to keep up after having got the outcome almost precisely right in both 2005 and 2010.

Will they be predicting that Dave has got his much hoped for Tory majority or could we be contemplating the arrival at Number 10 of Labour’s first women leader?

In May last year I was part of the 5Live results programme and got the poll news just after 9.30pm. It was a strange moment being given a good steer that British politics was heading for uncharted waters.

So much about the next election is all in the air. We can’t say for certain yet how many MPs will be elected and we haven’t any experience of what happens at the end of a coalition.

Today also marked the first year and a half of this parliament. So 30% has already passed.

Have good evening.

@MikeSmithsonPB