IT seems Theresa May is a woman of her word. Prior to the general election, we were warned against a coalition of chaos.

Few believed it would happen and yet she has emphatically delivered – just not in the form anyone was expecting. May promised us a political landslide. Instead, she delivered a landslip.

The result of this monumental misjudgment is a minority government that is rapidly being forced to come to terms with a MayDUP friendship with its Northern Irish counterparts.

The interests of a small number of voters now hold enormous political sway in Parliament.

This is the result, firstly, of a voting system afflicted with an increasingly ulcerous democratic deficit. However, it is a clear indication of the potential that smaller parties have, even under first-past-the-post.

The morning after the election, the PM promised business as usual. Westminster obliged by, as usual, overlooking the needs of much of England, including Yorkshire.

Yet far from the electoral earthquake in Northern Ireland, a reading of a different sort flickered on the political Richter scale.

The Yorkshire Party, recently form to give a voice to our neglected region, is now the sixth most voted for party in England and, for the first time, registered on a national level as well as surpassing more established parties in many constituencies.

Not bad for a party that is not yet four years old.

If enough of us support local parties, not only will we turn the heads of those in Westminster, Yorkshire, once itself a royal throne of kings, could once more be kingmaker.

Chris Whitwood, Deputy leader, Yorkshire Party