This is a disaster

Politics I went to bed at 2:30 last night after an evening of building anger and indignation and an overflowing sense that humanity, or our local version of it, have once again fulfilled the low expectations we have for it. Reading the live blog from David Bartlett, political correspondent of the Liverpool Echo, who was at the count in Manchester offered a much clearer idea of what was happening than the BBC's tv coverage which after covering the protests outside the count, didn't return until the announcement. For much of the night the Greens and the unmentionables were neck and neck, then ultimately the flavour of proportional representation we follow meant that there wasn't much that could be done.

Last night's events were of the kind that commentary simply can't encompass. We could talk about low voter turnout, about how poorly some parties communicated their message and how well others misrepresented theirs, but what's the point? This is a disaster, idiocy has replaced intelligence in relation to politics and what had seemed like a relatively stable system is in danger of spinning off into the kind which just a couple of years ago, if it had been happening abroad, we would have glanced across nervously at and thanked whoever or whatever we believe in wasn't happening here, and we only have ourselves to blame.