SO – we, the people, have spoken. A trifle incoherently, let’s admit. Still, our voice has been heard. Loud if indistinct, it brought the political process to a chaotic halt.

But our voice is not the crucial one in restarting government. Throughout the General Election the endeavours of the parties were all about pleasing us, the people.

The mission took our would-be future Prime Ministers into factories, schools, supermarkets.

They devoured ice cream and fish and chips.

One even risked conversing with an unexceptional citizen in Rochdale – an encounter he found particularly disagreeable. But he had to patch up his insulting remarks. And the reason is that, fleetingly, it was not merely that offended citizen but we, the people, who mattered most to the politicians.

Yet, within hours of the stalemate result, the word was that a deal needed to be cobbled up “in time for the markets opening on Monday”.

Yes, “the markets” – the money markets, that is. Throughout the campaign no one spoke of them. But immediately afterwards, they became paramount.

In the event, the markets had to wait. Experts assured us this wasn’t the disaster it might have been. For the markets were preoccupied with the debt crisis in mainland Europe, especially Greece. Even though the UK is the financial hub of the world, the bankers and traders had bigger headaches than our governmental vacuum.

Fact remains – having delivered our confused verdict, our impact on political events is exhausted. Ceases. Until the next General Election, the markets rule.

Meanwhile, we might well contemplate the gaping holes in our electoral system exposed by this election. Polling 23 per cent of the vote the Liberal Democrats won a mere 11 per cent of the seats. Nationwide, the Green Party polled 285,616 votes and gained a seat.

With just 110,970 votes Northern Ireland’s SFLP ended up with three seats. But UKIP failed to win a seat despite attracting 917,832 votes – three per cent of the total.

Overall, each Labour seat was secured with an average vote of 33,338 votes, but the Tories needed 35,021 for each of theirs. And their failure to gain an outright majority came despite receiving 500,000 more votes than the number which gave the Blair-Brown government a majority of 67.

All these inconsistencies need rectifying.

And that’s before we turn to the unjustified power wielded in Westminster by MPs for devolved administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Why did Scotland swing strongly to Labour? Because folk up there recognise that only Labour will provide the generous funding that sustains the perks they have awarded themselves.

AN election night ritual for many is to line up a few beers, perhaps stoke up the fire, and settle down to watch the drama unfold.

But is a full-blown party, at others’ expense, called for?

The BBC evidently thought so, hiring a boat on the Thames and inviting along more than 100 celebrity guests to give their views.

All, ranging from Bruce Forsyth to Ian Hislop, earn a black mark. Why? Because evidently they were as unaware as the BBC of how badly this indulgent bash would play with the viewers.

Or maybe they were indifferent, which is just as bad. The Beeb has compounded its guilt by refusing to reveal the cost of hiring the boat, paid for from the licence fee.