Democracy has spoken – but was anyone in power actually listening?

If he truly cares about Britain, Cameron needs to find a way to listen to other points of view and to move to consensus rather than confrontation

David Cameron speaks outside of Downing Street (Getty Images)

A night of thrills and spills saw plenty of self-important men and women shown the exit, while one (highly relieved) bloke will continue in the most important job of all – and his biggest task will be stitching back together all the disparate voices in our democracy.

Following the landslide in Scotland, a large number of people will justifiably feel short-changed. Twice as many people voted for Ukip as voted for the SNP – and yet it ended up with just one MP. The results highlight the shortcomings in our system – not just the urgent need for proportional representation, but also that our main parties continue to attract members from a small gene pool. So many young people and those who haven’t had a university education feel that a political career is unappealing. Consequently, we have a pretty unrepresentative bunch of men and, still, woefully few women in Westminster.

Over the past few weeks candidates on all sides were often indistinguishable. They harped on about the same short agenda and used the same trite phrases. They travelled around the country surrounded by acolytes, with their soap boxes and stone plinths, posing for carefully stage-managed photo opportunities in canteens and pubs, playgroups and factories, cocooned from the messy world the rest of us function in. The one thing none of these politicos did – with the exception of Nicola Sturgeon and her ever-present fan club – was connect with real people in a two-way conversation. Which means there remains a resounding gap at the centre of our democracy.

David Cameron, if he truly cares about Britain, needs to find a way to listen to other points of view and to move to consensus rather than confrontation. If I was an adviser in No 10, I would ban the phrase “working people” – as if they are the only folk that matter in the UK.

Britain is made up of fat, thin, lazy and busy people. Single people and families. Widows and pensioners. They all matter equally. I would beg Cameron to stop seeing every issue in terms of right and wrong, as if there’s only one way to run the NHS, transport or education. In the lives of you and me – the people who pay for government with our taxes – we constantly have to accommodate other people in order to function. We would never get away with the ridiculous posturing so many politicians use as their preferred modus operandi.

If Cameron can’t change the way he works, stripping away the special advisers and the spin doctors, then he won’t last very long in his new job. His biggest task is to find a way to make the House of Commons better reflect our country. Then we’ll have a democracy we can be proud of. At the moment, the system is running on empty.

Rocky Horror sequel gets the treatment it deserves

The influence of The Rocky Horror Show lives on: it’s been voted the most popular production ever at the Royal Court, where it premiered in the tiny theatre upstairs in 1973, and, ever since, it’s always been on stage somewhere on the planet, and spawned a whole genre of parody shows. After it was launched, the original production quickly transferred to the Kings Road Theatre. I spent opening night hanging out with Little Nell and her compatriot, the truculent Australian artist Brett Whiteley. Happy days!

Rocky became a worldwide hit on stage, then a movie in 1975 (and won another cult following), and then Richard O’Brien wrote a sequel, Shock Treatment, in 1981, based around his original pair of lovers, Brad and Janet. Sadly, reviews were grim.

Now, history has almost repeated itself as Shock Treatment has been transformed into a jolly musical on the tiny stage of the King’s Head Theatre in Islington, playing to packed houses. Brad and Janet’s marriage is on the rocks and they agree to appear in a TV reality show, where Brad is set to undergo electric shock treatment live on air.

As a satire on television, there’s nothing particularly fresh about the story, but the evening is packed with singalong numbers and plenty of gags about the cult of self. Television host Ralph Hapschutt, played by Mateo Oxley, is particularly toe-curling. He is worthy of a part in The Only Way is Essex. The show deserves to transfer to the West End and a wider audience – it certainly got me chuckling, and that’s not easy.

Paying tribute to the godmother of social satire

Our need to dissect British tribes (from posh to punk) and their mindsets started in the early 1970s with a prickly journalist called Ann Barr, who has just died aged 85.

Considering her ability to spot the minutiae of social trends, meeting Ann was a complete surprise. You couldn’t imagine a woman less suited to hang out at fashionable parties – rather shy, waspish and quietly spoken. She had a great set of antennae and in 1982 co-authored The Official Sloane Ranger Handbook with Peter York, cleverly documenting the foibles of a pretty dim upper-middle-class group of people – who weren’t the slightest bit offended. After it came out, Sloanes even copied the look and the customs, without realising the work might be satire. Princess Diana stepped straight out of its pages, from her pie-crust frilled blouses to the permanent pearls.

I met Ann at the start of my career in 1971. She was features editor of Queen magazine, where her greatest literary achievement was Barometer, a list of utterly bizarre predictions of the fashionable and desirable – from lamps to slippers to food – now often emulated but rarely equalled. Barometer spawned our never-ending obsession with lists. A true original.

PAs are there to assist – the clue’s in their job title

George Galloway has lost his seat, so presumably he won’t be looking for a PA. The task of catering to the daily requirements of the deposed Respect MP sounds quite demanding, according to one of his former assistants.

She has lodged an official complaint with the Parliamentary Standards Authority alleging that she only spent about a quarter of her time on official duties. She alleges that her tasks included helping with Galloway’s wedding plans, doing his ironing, making his breakfast, and buying his underwear.

Galloway has strongly denied her allegations, and claims that the PA, whom he sacked, had a “vendetta” against him. Actually, they are all tasks I’ve asked my PA to do at one time or another.

One of my cleaners even kept a log of his tasks and sold his “story” to a tabloid a few years back, revealing that he was “shocked” to be asked to wash my smalls.

If I could do it all so easily, why can’t today’s teens?

According to one headteacher, young women should not be continually tested during their time in sixth form. Jenny Brown of St Albans High School says tests put too much pressure on girls as they prepare for their A-levels.

She says there should be a clear year during which they can enjoy “Saturday jobs, going out and making mistakes… and to learn from these mistakes and fall in love.”

I’d say that 16 or 17 is a bit late for that, based on my own experience. I’d fallen in love several times, lost my virginity, had an abortion and still managed to achieve 11 O-levels by the time I’d reached sixth form.