Not having voted in a UK election since 1987 or thereabouts, I made my way at dawn to the local polling station here in the countryside to be ready to strike a belated but fast blow today for Democracy.

I was stunned by what I found.

The local village hall was already besieged by hundreds of voters banging on the doors and rattling the windows, shouting for polling to open so that they might vote against Labour and for Daniel Hannan MEP, co-author of The Plan.

And yet they poured to the polling station, from all parts of the area. School-run mums, artisans, peasants, workers, students, academics, pensioners, blacksmiths, shop-fitters, social workers and nurses, accountants and pet-food sellers – they all were there, chanting as one in a swelling roar "Dan’s the Man"

A solitary Green supporter waving a sad-looking poster Will Hannan save the Rainforest? burst into tears and ran away after scores of people surrounded her chanting "Dan, Dan, Yes he Can!"

Two glum Labour supporters of all genders in shapeless facial hair and matching clothes got involved in a heated argument with a group of septic tank operatives over the famous Money speech in Atlas Shrugged.

Suddenly to collective astonishment and acclaim the Labourites fell writhing to the ground,  screaming that they could not stand the pressure of living a lie and defending Collectivism any more. Two members of the Women’s Institute revived them with hot tea from a Harrods picnic flask.

The whole thing became surreal as three smartly dressed ladies, one with a young leopard on a silver lead, arrived in a Range Rover and began to swig from a bottle of Serbian rakija which they had picked up on a charity mission in Kosovo.

At first slowly but then with accelerating passion and eerie moans they started to turn, dancing in a trance like whirling dervishes. Faster and faster they turned, until they quite lost control and spun away in the general direction of Carswell Marsh, to feverish applause. The leopard watched with a leer, licking its paws.

Finally the doors opened and the masses stormed inside. It took a while for some sort of order to assert itself, but finally British Decency defaulted back into play and a long orderly queue was formed stretching out of the building and way down the High Street towards the A420.

A huge cheer went up as a pole carying a hated speeding camera suddenly toppled over and crashed through the roof of the local offices of the Agency of Circumlocation, recently opened by Lord Mandelson. Its fall seemed somehow symbolic of a change of regime – and a deeper change of attitude.

I decided to go back later this afternoon to cast my vote when the leopard had gone and things had quietened down somewhat.

The British.

Placid munchers. Fearsome when roused.