What I mean is...

Can the electorate ever be wrong?  Because it seems to me that that - however expressed - is the response of the major parties to the results of the recent elections.  "We get it - we understand what you are saying - but you have failed to understand that we (and only we) have the answers to your problems" - that as I see it is what the Conservatives, Labour and LibDems are all saying.  So - is this a valid position to take?  We've talked about this before - we elect people to act on our behalf, but does this mean that they must do what we want, even if they disagree with us?  The problem is twofold - firstly (and I've said this many times before) not voting is as much a statement of opinion as voting. Something like two out of every three people chose to express themselves by not voting.  So the "earthquake" said to have been created by the results is more of a minor tremor. UKIP's 20-some-odd percent comes down to something more akin to nine. Secondly, there seems to be an idea that everyone who votes for a particular party does so for identical reasons - which is an obvious nonsense.  So what are we supposed to make of that.  If party A has the most votes, and party A's main platform is the abolition of broccoli, does that mean that all those who voted for party A wish to do away with broccoli, or did some of them vote party A for other reasons - maybe they thought party A's candidate was particularly handsome or beautiful, or perhaps they voted party A because they didn't like the other parties, or they were passionate about saving the hedgehog, which is a minor part of A's manifesto.  So the question perhaps is not can the electorate ever be wrong, but more can we ever really know what the electorate are saying?