The Nazis: A Warning from History (BBC2)
Election 2005 (All channels)
THAT grand old series The Nazis: A Warning From History is being shown again on BBC2. And really, you can never get enough of this stuff.

Still, there will be some who will watch it more for the Nazis than for the warning from history. There are some who will see this as a promise of what is to come, rather than a lesson never to be forgotten.

But whatever you think about the Nazis, TV loves them. Property makeover programmes may come and go, reality television concepts may come and go, sport and soap and soft porn may come and go, but the Third Reich will last for 1,000 years, at least on the small screen.

Last week's episode contained one of the classic lines about how the respectable classes in Germany originally viewed the Nazis. They couldn't quite make out if the Nazis were "something good with a few bad side effects, or something evil with a few good side effects".

The Nazis were never in any doubt. They had nothing but contempt for politicians of the mainstream - "they mistake us for one of them. We have one goal, and we will follow it fanatically, ruthlessly to the grave".

Ah yes, "they mistake us for one of them". The Nazis were no petty politicians, to use Gerry Adams' term for those lesser beings. And as for the warning from history, there was hardly a line of analysis in this episode about the early years which wouldn't have struck a chilling note if you'd simply substituted the name Sinn Fein for National Socialists.

Of course, it was a great stroke of luck for Hitler that Germany succumbed to a catastrophic economic depression, creating conditions in which barking mad nationalism suddenly seemed like quite a good idea. Not just for the initiated, for everyone.

So even if you reject this analogy between militant German nationalism and militant Irish nationalism, you might ponder how many seats SF/IRA would gain if Ireland became an economic basket-case again. Justa thought.

A faraway thought, perhaps. As far away as Northern Ireland, where the electorate has clearly decided that Sinn Fein/IRA is something good with a few bad side effects.

THE British electorate on "the mainland" turned out in surprisingly high numbers, given that the Blair slogan 'Forward, Not Back', constituted a direct insult to the intelligence. And the Tory slogan, 'Are You Thinking What We're Thinking?', while a tad more creative, was just a bit sad, and a bit sick.

The Tories were also screwed by their Iraq war record. They called Blair a liar, yet at the time they felt that the war was something good with bad side effects, rather than something evil with good side effects.

The campaign was deeply dull, but the TV election technology has never been more impressive. Dazzling, even, with the red button giving us interactive multi-screen coverage all night long.

The BBC coverage was sumptuous, with Peter Snow and his famous range of special effects always walking the thin line between the spectacular and the ridiculous. The Sky studio set-up was more modest, but the red button opened up new vistas for the election junkie, allowing the truly desperate cases to overdose on scenes of people just standing around a count centre in Darlington, waiting for the election officer. And waiting. And waiting.

Ah, that's the stuff. And while RTE moved Mark Little and Bryan Dobson to London, the style was old-fashioned, one of frugal comfort. Though if you lived up a mountain and could get no other station on your TV, this would do the job for you.

NOW if only the petty politicians could provide a half-decent contest, politics might catch on again, on "the mainland".

Early doors, they were trying to get excited about "a complex picture developing", with the Tories doing well in Kent, a lot of students voting for the Liberal Democrats, and with predictions that the Labour majority might be slashed to about 80, maybe as low as 66.

If Bertie Ahern was watching this, with his miserable single-figure PR majority, he must have been weeping. What does his old pal Tony know about the real world, about "deflector candidates" and the like ?

Media moguls must be wondering if a switch to the PR system in Britain might make for a more exciting race, and a better show all round. Certainly in recent times, both in Britain and America, early exit polls have been wrong, which crucially provides a narrative, a few twists and turns before the night is through.

And back in 2000, when the polls suggested that Bush would lose Florida, and thus the whole election, I recall this Republican pundit on Sky insisting against all the available figures that Bush would not lose Florida, no matter what the polls were saying, no way, no how.

His words seemed strange, at the time. It was like he knew something . . .

But the Americans have been getting it right where it counts, with a nail-biting 50-50 split between Republicans andDemocrats which is perfect for TV. Which is what it's all

about, really.

- Declan Lynch