WELL that was exciting wasn’t it? They called it Super Thursday, presumably in the vain attempt to elicit any form of enthusiasm among the voting populace.

But in reality, despite the almost tropical weather, the mood was more akin to a rainy weekend in Wigan.

Due to the blanket coverage afforded to next month’s EU poll, the local elections despite their importance seemed like a warm-up exercise for June 23.

An opportunity for all those Ukip voters to practice the complicated business of marking their ballot with an X.

At least they got to leave their mark next to a candidate though.

In one London borough, Barnet, the Tory-led council handed out incomplete lists to polling stations.

Scores of names were missing and residents — including, in a spectacular irony, those wishing to vote for the Women’s Equality Party — were turned away.

Even worse for the Tories, who are desperately trying to exploit allegations of anti-semitism within the Labour Party, chief rabbi Ephraim Mirvis was also not on the list.

Turnouts for local elections are low enough as it is without actively preventing people from voting.

But enough of events in the capital, which if you believed the mainstream media you could be forgiven for thinking was the entire country.

It was not just in London where self-important loudmouths and chancers were fighting like ferrets in a sack for ill-gotten power, however diluted.

Scotland and Wales both held elections for their own devolved institutions, while that most anonymous of species — candidates for the position of police and crime commissioner — tried to remind everyone that they did really exist and in fact mattered.

How, in good conscience, can you be expected to elect someone you’ve never even heard of to a job that doesn’t actually mean anything?

Even the title is ludicrous, suggestive of someone who commissions crimes, like a tin-pot Mafia don in a cheap suit giving you an offer you can’t believe.

I can’t help thinking that when they came up with the system of democracy this isn’t exactly what they meant.