Yes, we do still have Lib Dems in the north

Sorry, I meant to post this much more punctually. Age takes its toll, especially after an all-nighter at the Sheffield election count.

Still, there is something to be said for the snail's pace. In the words of John Ruskin (who got a lot of things wrong, but not this): "A fool always wants to shorten space and time. A wise man wants to lengthen both."

Foolishness is too strong a word, but there is a fair bit of unwisdom in current apocalyptic accounts of Liberal Democracy in northern England after Thursday's results. Here we go again; the metropolis is sewing-up another outfit for us out here to wear: the graveyard of the Lib Dems. Clegg's tomb.

Calm down, dears. What we have seen has been dire for the Lib Dems; but also a familiar working of the first-past-the-post's system's worst flaw, the exaggeration of how people actually voted. It is an interesting side-issue to note how little this 'winner-takes-all' disadvantage featured in the AV referendum campaign; but then the distortion is not just in the system but in the way that its black-and-white, or red-and-blue, unsubtlety appeals to us in the media to exaggerate further.

Wipe-out! Disaster! Catastrophe! Earthquake! Yet look at this: there are 32 Liberal Democrat councillors in Sheffield today (out of 84), the same number in Newcastle-upon-Tyne (out of 78), 22 in Hull (out of 59), 21 in Burnley (out of 45) and so on, and on across the north. These are tallies which would have seemed impossibly glorious at the real nadir of Liberalism. Why! South Lakeland even has 32 (out of 51 and therefore comfortably in charge); given its other claims to be part of paradise, this is the place for any seriously discomfited Lib Dem to spend a bit of me-time.

I'm not making a Lib Dem point. In the past, this treatment has been meted out to Labour and the Tories too. Both are still here, often in strength; and when democracy's wheel turns again, the Lib Dems will be here too.

The Northerner has done its own bit for the new political set-up, meanwhile. Helen's Mum, born a Wainwright and hence with the right stuff, although not related so far as I know, is newly a councillor in Warrington. Poor Chris Thomond, on the other hand, is pondering what might have happened if a long day of Guardian photography had got him home from Swaledale and Whitby to Bury in time to vote (first time he's missed since becoming eligible in 1983).

Straws had to be drawn in his ward after the Tories and Labour level-pegged on 1822 votes each. Labour's Joanne Columbine picked first, went as is only proper for the one on the left, and won. Labour took control of the borough as a result, by 26 to 20 Tories and five Lib Dems. So these were quite some straw (though actually in these modern times, they used a handy pair of cable-ties instead).