Voting is public theatre and it underpins our fine democracy

SHE may have started it seven weeks ago – but we finished it yesterday.

The great British exercise in democracy entitled 47 million people to give their verdict on Theresa May’s demand for five more years in power.

And an opportunity to say what we think of Jeremy Corbyn’s new-style Labour Party.

Half a million more people are on the electoral register since 2015, a testament to the passions roused by this unexpected election of 650 MPs to Parliament.

It was a day to be proud of, whatever the outcome. Come rain – it did – hail, or shine – it did that too – we trooped to more than 40,000 polling stations to cast our votes.

In church halls, in schools, in farm barns, in community centres, even in pubs, we gathered to collect that ballot paper, seek the discreet privacy of the booth and pencil a cross next to the candidate of our choice.

It is a ritual that dates back more than a century, a tradition that shouts our values, all the more to be cherished when it’s under attack from terrorists.

Other countries have adopted electronic voting, but we stick to a tried and tested method that underpins our democracy. Voting is a kind of public theatre.

Party leaders posed for the cameras after voting, another part of the show. The Lib Dems’ Tim Farron in Kendal, UKIP’s Paul Nuttall in Congleton, the Greens’ Caroline Lucas in Brighton, Jeremy Corbyn in Islington and Theresa May in Maidenhead.

They, like us, had only one vote. It’s our votes that decide which of them leads the next government. And whatever the outcome, that’s a matter for rejoicing.