Would the last person to leave London please turn out the lights?

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There are 1,168,738 reasons to be ashamed of London tonight.

Bravo.

What makes it worse, it that everyone has been so cringeingly oblivious and manipulable.

The media, right-wing in its vast majority, have cynically propagated myths about the Mayorship of London, telling everyone that:

a) the Mayorship is irrelevant and purely symbolic.

b) Ken Livingstone is corrupt - with articles by Andrew Gilligan tiptoeing precariously between investigative journalism and mud-slinging libel.

c) Boris Johnson is anything other than a clueless puppet of Tory HQ and their campaign team.

But, of course, Londoners haven't noticed this - reading between the lines not being our strong point evidently. No-one noticed that the Evening Standard hadn't officially endorsed a candidate while it laid into Ken Livingstone so voraciously - despite the fact that electoral rules and industry regulations demand that the press provide balanced coverage of an election unless they are officially supporting one candidate over another.

And so people just lapped it all up like obedient sheepdogs, put their X wherever they were told, and danced behind Boris Johnson all the way to Hamlin.

People's itsy-bitsy attention spans had got bored of Ken Livingstone. Never mind his successes as Mayor or the remarkable creation of the first city government in the capital for 14 years. Because he doesn't have a silly haircut or make amusing racist remarks. You could see in his victory speech that even Boris Johnson felt a bit guilty.

"It's a protest vote!" they cry. The Labour government at the moment are stumbling punch-drunk and clueless and people have expressed their protest at that fact, which is more than understandable. Democracy is about change and about registering the desire for change. But not change for change's sake, surely? Some 69,710 people voted for the British National Party! It beggars belief. Can you not see shades of Germany 1933 - as the democrats jostle for elbow-room in the middle-ground, the extremists clear their throats in the wings... Ok, it probably (or at least hopefully) doesn't represent quite so catastrophic a sea-change as that, but the exaggeration is justified.

Ultimately it has been a smart move for the Tories. They know full well that they don't have the substance or political acumen to provide a viable alternative to Labour's considerable shortcomings, and so chose as their Mayoral candidate the one man for whom substance and political acumen are mere sideshows in his circus of buffoonery. Never mind that the Tories have not suggested any tangible solutions to the crises being faced in the UK at the moment, as long as David Cameron can smile smugly and rub his hands in glee, he can continue to make a mockery of democracy in London. He would rather inherit a country in tatters than see things turned around in the here and now.

Paul Merton summed it up rather well on this evening's Have I Got News For You. He said of Boris Johnson: "It's just a disaster isn't it? If he wins he's going to go off and do something surprising and extraordinary and people are going to go: 'Oh no, he's a fucking idiot'."

Ah well. I never thought I'd be ashamed to be a Londoner. But there you go.

Let us all raise a glass of Etonian port to a future of politics dominated by platitudes, celebrity, and a modicum of common-sense conspicious only by its absence.

Go and vote! Right now! Run!

What the hell are you doing sitting there reading this? Go and vote, for goodness sake. Go. Now. Right now. Put that cup of tea down, tie up that dressing gown and get yourself to the polling station posthaste. People didn't die in wars to defend your right to sit on your arse reading my blog (though there's still time).

If you're in London, do the right thing, for crying out loud. As a good, impartial journalist, I'm not going to tell you who I think you should vote for, but use your X wisely, for all our sakes! Before you cross the box on the pink Mayoral Candidate sheet, just pause and think.

My blog last week will give you some hint as to what I think the right thing for London would be (or certainly what the wrong thing would be), but don't listen to me - The Observer makes a very interesting case, as does Charlie Brooker, albeit it with more vitriol and much less (if any) balance.

Vote, vote, vote, vote. If you don't, you'll have no right to moan about buses, tubes, schools, crime, anything - because you couldn't be bothered to have your say. The country is in turmoil at the moment: the government is faltering at every turn, the opposition are just grinning smugly and providing absolutely no viable alternative, and the extremist factions clamour ever-louder in the wings. Rarely has Britain been so in need of a big electoral turn-out to get itself back on track, and rarely has the people's opinion mattered so much faced with a Parliament so devoid of ideas on all sides. Now is not the time for apathy.

Use your vote to show faith in the government's ability to turn things round. Use it to protest at their mistakes. Use it to support the local candidate who will make the biggest difference to your life. Use it to fight climate change or improve schools.

Excuse me proselytising (I don't do it often, honest), but exercising your democratic right to vote is about as sacred a privilege as you can have - don't waste it, whoever you choose to vote for.