Gráinne Maguire loves politics. So much so she once had a photo of Tony Blair on her locker at school.

“Whenever he’s back on the news it’s like a bad ex-boyfriend getting in touch,” she jokes.

The comic, who pens gags for BBC Radio 4’s The News Quiz and The Now Show, is a member of the Labour party.

She writes comic columns for newspapers’ politics coverage. She wrote a diary for The Independent at the last Labour Party Conference in Manchester.

It went down so well the organisers asked her to tell a few jokes at the closing bash.

She thought it was going to be a little room above a pub for young Labour members.

It turned out to be the final night between the big hitters’ speeches.

Her set was sandwiched between keynote addresses by Ed Balls, Harriet Harman and Ed Miliband.

“I was so nervous I could hear my nerves,” she admits. “You know when you get that warped buzzing sound, when your nerves become an actual noise. I had that and it was unstoppable.”

The host for the night remembered that Irish comic Maguire had once mentioned her big crush on Tony Blair at a previous Edinburgh show. As a reward, he presented her with a personally signed picture of Blair at the end of her set.

The love no longer exists, though.

“It’s still raw and I just can’t go there again. I know he is going to break my heart, what with his lies, he’ll convince me and I’ll get hurt all over again.”

Another one of Maguire’s political loves is election night.

“It’s Eurovision for people who don’t get out much.”

For her new show she will create the ultimate election night – complete with swing-o-meters and graphs, exit polls, silly time filling, bizarre celebrity interviews – together with the audience.

“For four years and 364 days of the year politics is very other. It is in Westminster with lots of lobby and special interest groups. Then for one night we get politics back – I love it.” She also loves the volunteers counting returns in fleeces in town halls, the sight of worried middle-aged men.

This is the human side returning to politics which we can relate back to our own lives, she adds. Are you where you thought you would be in life in general?

“Election night is all about hoping and wanting change and that is something we can all identify with.

“They always interview somebody who says things are going to be so different under this government.

“But you look back and think, ‘Oh my God, really, did he or she say that?’ “Of course the whole point of voting is that things are going to be different otherwise we wouldn’t bother – but it feels the same as why people join the gym every January or make New Year’s resolutions.

“No it’s not going to be different and that is a universal feeling.”

Maguire remembers 1997 as a classic election night.

“My favourite bit was when Jon Snow got this new swing-o-meter. He had this new graphic system which was going to show swing, but unfortunately it didn’t work when there was this huge shift in the political landscape.

“Then the next general election he had a massive big swing-o-meter but it was only 0.5% and there was nothing to see.”

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