we are all losers

For such an 'unpredictable' election the outcome of it was oddly predictable. Everyone chose to err on the safe side, the very definition of conservatism. And when I say 'everyone' obviously I mean about 30% of the population. The Daily Mail was ecstatic, as if they had engineered it all, which of course they had. It was interesting to note that when we at work were entering 'purdah', the pre-election period wherein nobody is allowed to do anything that might be seen to be favouring one party or another, the Daily Mail was entering some kind of anti-purdah, when it was allowed to stop even pretending to be a newspaper and report, say, Ed Milliband's determination to fill the country with as many East European rapists, thieves and murderers as possible as though it were fact.

'Red Ed', as they quaintly called him, was presented as a strange mixture of tyrant, dweeb and Lothario – had he been a real person, he might have been quite interesting. In reality, he looked more like a victim of bullying, which is essentially what he was. But at least he was more interesting than Cameron, who even in his victory speech didn't sound convinced, saying that we were now 'on the brink of something special', when as everybody knows, no-one is ever 'on the brink of' of anything except disaster. Although to be fair, that was down to his speech writer – who has now resigned.

A perceptible gloom seemed to hang over BBC radio the day after the election. The Cure's despairing A Forest made a possibly unprecedented appearance on the Ken Bruce show; Jeremy Vine (or whoever was standing in for him) swiftly followed it up with Eve Of Destruction by Barry MacGuire. We also had the crushing disappointment expressed in Hot Chocolate's So You Win Again although that might have been because Errol Brown died. And who can blame him?

As for the BBC's supposed left-wing bias, at least if it exists they make a show of hiding it. When David Cameron made his pre-election appearance on the JV show the other topics he was sharing space with were cracks appearing in your home and the last days of the Nazis, which certainly seemed suggestive. Next day, however, it was dogshit and sexual assaults, so it could have been worse.

The one bit of good news from the election was that Nigel Farrago didn't get elected. UKIP should probably team up with Islamic State – they both hate women and gays, and want to turn back the clock (they could enjoy lengthy negotiations over just how far). The political landscape does seem to have changed since the election. The Mail on Sunday featured on its cover a protest by 'the Hard Left'. The Hard Left! Where have they been? Before the election there hardly seemed any difference between Left and Right – now politics, it seems, is getting divisive again. I was oddly cheered by this. After all, even if you tend to sit on the fence it's nice to have something going on on either side.