Mike Smithson at Political Betting is a sensible sort of chap with dubious political leanings, and who writes just about the most widely read political blog in the UK.

OK, that's the nice stuff out of the way... because Mike Smithson has gone completely stark raving bonkers! He is right that the BBC's election night coverage, particularly the buttock-clenchingly piss-poor Jeremy Vine, was truly shocking. But...

To suggest that the man they need to anchor their election programmes is the man-with-a-weetabix-on-his-head, Andrew bloody Neil, on the grounds that the election programme was too frivolous is absolutely unbelievable. This Week on Thursday nights has the potential to be a really good piece of late night political programming. But it is ruined by Neil and his dreadful jokes about Blue Nun, his pathetic 'quizzes', and items such as the embarrassing video with Mark Mardell and Portillo singing 'Amarillo'. Without doubt Neil is intelligent, knowledgeable sharp and informed.

Equally without doubt is the fact that he is 'an entertainer' only in his own mind and succeeds in reducing a decent political format into a substandard version of Tiswas.