Well, the Scottish Nationalists duly became the largest party in Scotland, though the humiliating fiasco of a shambolic voting system and malfunctioning counting machines meant we had to wait a day for confirmation of this. The implementation of large-scale but flawed IT systems has, of course, been a hallmark of the centralising, over-bureaucratic New Labour government; so no one should really be surprised these elections were worthy of the Third World. Roll on ID cards.

Before various Spanish Nationalists write to tell me what a fabulous precedent the SNP victory is, they should reflect on the fact that – exactly as in Catalunia – in order to govern they will have to form a coalition with two other parties. In Scotland’s case, though, neither of these support the SNP plan for a referendum on independence. And nor does 70-75% of the population. Nonetheless, an interesting few years lie ahead.

In poking [gentle?] fun at nationalist movements in the past, I’ve asked where were the León Nationalists in Spain and the Cornish Nationalists in England. But I was premature. The former appeared here a couple of months ago and the latter have just won two seats in the English local elections. So, what odds on my mocking prediction that, taking things to their logical extreme, I would end up as the Minister for Foreign Affairs of the nation of Merseyside? I should live so long!

I’ve also, in the past, blamed many things on the EU, though not always seriously of course. So I was naturally taken with this observation from Charles Moore in today’s Daily Telegraph:- One of the perverse effects of the EU’s dislike of the strong nation state is the rise of petty nationalism. If power moves away from London to Brussels, it makes sense to form a sort of ethnic gang which can lobby for money and play on the guilt that the big players feel about the smaller ones. All our Nationalist parties understand this. Sinn Fein, who take up power in Northern Ireland next week, and Alex Salmond of the SNP, and the various Welshmen, are now great believers in European civilisation, if civilisation is the right word for what the EU offers. . . Even the Cornish Nationalists gained two seats on Thursday: it's the way of the future. If this is true, then this announcement of mine a few months ago may not be so fanciful. Incidentally, my belated thanks to those readers who joined in the fun. Especially as it now seems prescient.

Back down on earth, one of the 3 headline items on the BBC Radio 2 news at 8 this morning was that Paris Hilton had been jailed for breaching a driving ban. And the first item was about a missing 3 year old girl in Portugal. Real news on the UK elections was squeezed between these ‘human interest’ stories. To “inform, educate and entertain”? Or merely to entertain?

Footnote: Word’s spell-check doesn’t recognise ‘shambolic’. But it is caótico in Spanish.