Margaret Thatcher spoke in one of her last conference speeches of her victory in 1979. She said, "Some elections are not just part of history - they make history."

I was over at the University library yesterday doing some research and as I was walking back to my car I remembered being in exactly that spot 16 years ago to the day. It was the 10th April 1992 and the morning after the general election. I had been up all night - first at the count and then later at a party. I was a first year undergraduate and it was the first election I had been fully involved in (although I did canvass in 87 as a boy). It was a morning of mixed emotions. We had failed to hold the Southampton seat of Chris Chope by some 500 votes but we had won the general election. That morning I bumped into one of the Labour students who is a friend to this day. I had expected him to be despondent. Conversely he was very cheerful. He informed me that in his judgement this was a disaster for the Conservatives. Our majority would ebb away and Labour would win next time and be in for a generation. This struck me as odd.

It has been going round in my head of the last 24 hours. There are so many 'what ifs' in life. What if Labour had won and Kinnock had to deal with the ERM disaster? Would the Conservatives have been back quickly? Would Blair have happened?