Scarecrows aren't real people.

The British press is hysterical at the calmest of times, so the weekend’s events have given free reign to the most absurd statements. One that keeps being repeated is that the ‘market needs a Government by Monday’. Another is that ‘the nation has spoken’. I am left wondering why imagery is controlling the affairs of a country full of actual people.

‘The market’ is the political equivalent of the bogeyman. If you don’t vote for a right wing party, ‘the market’ will not be happy. If you do vote for a party that believes in the redistribution of wealth, then you’d better do it in significant numbers. ‘The market’ can’t cope with anything indecisive. And what ‘the market’ hates the most is a hung parliament. A hung parliament means that ‘the market’ will collapse, and when a market collapses it won’t revive until it has eaten you, your family, your grandma, even babies…

Like most imaginary fears, the best cure is to take a deep breath and wait to see what happens. My rudimentary knowledge of Economics tells me that the most significant market collapses have not followed hung parliaments, they’ve followed seismic mistakes by the people who work in merchant banks. And that’s the point: ‘the market’ is what things are worth according to the people who are trying to buy them. It isn't an entity capable of rational thought.

It’s pretty hard to say what millions of people across the word mean when they buy or sell a stock. They may be responding to personal circumstances or they may be expressing disgust at the outcome of an election. They may, even, just be doing whatever everyone else is doing.

This problem with interpreting what groups of people mean has led to lots of commentators declaring that the hung parliament is ‘what the country wants.’ ‘We have spoken’. I’m not sure that I agree. An election, it seems to me, is a way of taking a snapshot of what individuals are thinking.

10.7 million of us want an immediate start to tackling the deficit from a largely Euro-sceptic, low-taxation government. 15.4 million want to continue borrowing to nurture a recovery, with a government that would redistribute wealth and continue to have strong ties with Europe. The 15.4 million are divided into two groups who disagree over issues such as electoral reform and the tax system.

The problem is a simple one: not enough of us agree. We haven’t spoken with one voice – we are fairly evenly divided. And the only way we will agree is by continuing to debate the issues until some of us change our minds. That will require stronger, clearer arguments from our politicians.

So hopefully the market won’t have a tummy-ache tomorrow: and if it does, we should put it to bed until it recovers. Joining a coalition should be like joining a Casino or taking out a credit agreement – there should be a mandatory cooling-off period. If a politician cites ‘the market’ as the reason for their haste, take it as a sign of their own desperation – not the market’s.