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General Election 1966: Alan Gilmour interview; ENGLAND: London: ITN House: Studio 9:INTCS/Side Alan Gilmour: SOF:(Lead in Q: How accurate was the computer?)- Well, some of the first seats if you remember, Cheltenham for example, with no Liberal standing and then had Guildford where there was a Liberal standing, but Liberal votes had gone down, and one has to get, if you like, some good starters for your forecast and you're likely to get something of a high bias in your early stages which, you just have to we to wait until you get more results, until the thing levels off ... Q: And now you reckon it's firmly on 100-101?- SureQ: Anywhere any big surprises? Anything that didn't go remotely consistently with the rest of the country?- Once more the computer was a bit baffled by the Liberals as no doubt lots of people are. The computer at one stage was certainly predicting Eric Lubbock to lose his seat and it would never have guessed that Dr [Michael] Winstanley would have won Cheadle, so those are some of these things which didn't seem to go quite the way as the rest of the constituencies Q: How long would it take a man - a psephologist if you like, an expert on voters - to do the work that these computers do?- I would think that if he could really sit down and work seven days a week using a slide rule, he might do it in I think about 15 years - that's without holidays thoughCS Snow asking question SOF:Q: It seems to me the way we use these computers to work out the final majority of the new government suggests that we all vote rather like computers and that we're all incredibly consistent - this is rather a depressing thought isn't it?MS Alan Gilmour and Snow as Gilmour answering: SOF:- I think it's extremely depressing, in fact I think this election to a certain extent has been a lot more like the '59 election than the '64. In the '59 election it was all fairly similar throughout the country - there were differences but neverthe...