Hamish Champ: A blue victory and deservedly so

So, the long campaign finally came to an end. Many experts had predicted the blue hordes would win, while some were convinced those bedecked in red would gain a victory by the slimmest of margins at the last minute. Others saw the possibility of a third, surprise champion.

In the end it was my beloved Chelsea wot won it. Sadly I couldn't be at the Bridge yesterday to witness our emphatic victory over Wigan, but by God I was there in spirit. There are some who suggest the quality of this past Premier League season hasn't been of the highest order, but being a Blues fan I fundamentally disagree.

Meanwhile that other battle between those sporting blue and red - with a bit of fluorescent yellowy orange thrown in - ended less conclusively. I heard someone remark that the general election result was just as a poll taken before the three televised leaders' debates predicted it would be. All that effort and money spent, it was noted with some degree of amusement, and we got the same result.

This is being somewhat disingenuous. Whatever one thought of the TV debates, they raised the profile of the election, even if they had little impact on how people finally voted.

Still, I got it wrong when I thought the Conservatives would win a clear, albeit small, majority. Given the tawdry performance of the Labour government I expected David Cameron and his colleagues to have persuaded more people to vote for the Tories than eventually did.

Bizarrely some almost sought to blame the electorate, or at least regarded it as naïve. I saw a chap called Hugh Hendry, the boss of a hedge fund outfit called Eclectica Asset Management, effectively berate the voting public on the BBC's 'Newsnight' programme last Friday evening for not recognising the seriousness of the UK's economic and financial situation. We will all soon be reaping what we've sowed, he declared, although he didn't strike me as someone who'll exactly struggle to pay his next gas bill.

I thought Hendry's observation missed the point rather. It wasn't the fault of Joe and Josephine Voter that we now have a dog's dinner (pig's breakfast? Ed.) of a Parliament; it was the politicians' job to convince us to vote for them​. At the end of the day they weren't convincing enough. None of them.

Last Thursday night I had planned to stay up to see the results come in. Maybe there would be a 'Portillo Moment'. That sort of thing's always good for a laugh. Ed 'Complete' Balls, perhaps? Sadly it was not to be, apart from the ousting of BIS Committee member and pubco critic Lembit Opik and former home secretaries Charles Clarke and Jacqui 'What's that you're watching on telly dear?' Smith.

As the polling stations closed I was in the public bar of an inn in a small North Yorkshire town, playing darts with a Publican ​colleague and listening to a group of elderly locals armed with accordions and banjos - and what in one case looked suspiciously like a lute - barnstorm their way through a selection of Ye Olde English folk songs.

In the wee small hours of the morning and with sea shanties and songs of unrequited love still ringing in my ears I tottered off, intent on watching the political map of the country writ anew across the flat screen telly in my charmingly appointed room. Yet within minutes sleep got the better of me.

Then again, apart from the outcome being the first hung Parliament in 36 years, I don't think I missed much…