About a decade ago, I was chatting to some Big Cheese in BBC Politics. I tried to persuade them to change the way they presented election results. I failed.

I tried to persuade them that a) those who were watching at 2am really didn't need the basics explained to them, and b) that the focus of the coverage should be much more on data than it was.

Was reminded of this conversation this week, as a result of all the praise lavished on CNN and especially John King, who is probably still going right now, without having taken a breath.

But while I still think it's true that in the UK we could learn from CNN and do more with the data, elections aren't just data, data, data.

They are also about people - human interest stories - and that bit shouldn't get lost either.

One further point: having done the studio thing for Radio 4 for about 15 years, I am well aware of one very easy mistake to make (and which I know I have made), which is to allow the narrative triggered by early results to stick longer than it should.

To avoid this, it is actually helpful to have breaks from the numbers, to allow people to pause, take a breath, and try to see the bigger picture.

The other point I made, now I think of it, was that you could do the data neat and without gimmicks. This was also considered heresy, altho I think the ground has shifted on that one since.

As an example. CNN have a simple finish line, marked 270. Watching tallies get close to that really is no less exciting than having to go "inside" a virtual House of Commons...

Am getting a lot of people pointing out the US data is different, etc, but my point is that even *with the data we do have*, there's loads more that could be done with it.