Better days

Fearful whimsy

If anywhere encapsulates Thursday’ s local election results, it’s the far right For Britain Movement and a farleft acoustic guitar playing Green winning back- to- back seats in Walt ham Abbey, because the electorate apparently wanted the candidate which would humiliate the incumbent ( one being Epping Forest’s deputy council leader) the most. If anything encapsulates how long the public has been disengaged with politics, it’s the fact that Bolney Parish Council has had one Baron Von Thunderclap representing the Official Monster Raving Loony Party on it uncontested for over two decades because no one else ever cared enough to stand.

This is about more than Brexit, austerity, racism and climate change. When people’s electoral instincts cease being ideological or economical for whimsical, we are falling under the same miasma which saw a dangerous blowhard take the Oval Office and an array of snake oil salesmen preside over our European neighbours. Laugh at your peril as before your eyes this joke turns sour.

MARK BOYLE, Linn Park Gardens, Johnstone, Renfrewshire