Unnecessary Uncertainty

Never have Angels missed so sorely the words:

I,  ...... the Acting Returning Officer for   Welwyn Hatfield, hereby give notice that the total number of votes given for each candidate at the election of ......was as follows,  ...... And that  Grant David Shapps has been duly elected as Member of Parliament for the  Welwyn Hatfield Constituency.

It's not so much the Hatfieldyness of it (though most of us keep an interested eye on the constituencies in which we grew up) but the immediate, assured certainty of the make up of the Commons, and all that carries in its train, within 24 hours of the ballot. Here, a full week after the count, the composition of Chamber of Deputies and Senate has still  to be certified by the electoral court,  the President of the Republic denies that he has had any discussions with interested parties and, until the Parliament is confirmed, meets, and elects its Speakers, presumably will retain that stance (which none of us believe is real.)

The Five Stars determinedly refuse to touch pitch: 'renew your strange alliances of the last destructive, betraying 14 months (and more); don't try to cleanse the electorate's palate with a draught of 5Star', is the caustic reply to all 'Democratic' advances.  As for the People of 'Liberty' they haven't even made an attempt; they just wait patiently for Bersani to recognise where his objective, existential Party interests lie - where they have always been -  and that Democratic Party ethical left claptrap is also a lid covering long term collaboration in corrupt plundering by all political parties which has been "ripped off as from a tin of tuna" to borrow Grillo's words.

The Right don't mind being seen to be in it for themselves, their voters are (straightforwardly or bent) voting for themselves and their families;  the Left must come to terms with who and what they are.  The political, constitutional and institutional dishonesty is breathtaking, as is the media pretence of disinterested reporting.  The opinion pieces are venomously partisan, which is only fair, though the moral tone and condescension could be eased-back to the relief of the repelled reader.

We may not get what we voted for out of all this but the image of the Left, in all its institutional and politically ethical fancy dress, as a ripped-open tin of tuna  will still be there when we go to vote again.