Last week’s election results produced mix cheer for the major political parties. However they are but a prelude to next month’s EU referendum

An extraordinary state of paralysis exists in our national politics today, unlike any set of circumstances I have known in 45 years’ reporting, primarily from Westminster but also from Scotland and from Strasbourg. There is an unpopular government in London, and an incompetent Opposition in Parliament. Added to that, we have two party leaders whose survival in office is in serious doubt, and a highly volatile electorate. There is a sense of crisis in our political life – in the state of the Union and in our international status – which cannot be resolved for six weeks, and may only get worse thereafter.

Last week’s local elections might perhaps have resolved some of these issues but we can see now that they have only served to crystallize the sense of stasis. The results for the Labour Party were dismal in England, disastrous in Scotland and disguised (but similarly terrible) in Wales. Yet they were still not quite as bad as they might have been. The expectations of an electoral catastrophe were narrowly averted, and then further ameliorated by Sadiq Khan’s election as mayor of London.