And so the inquest begins. Why were the people of England and Wales so emphatically indifferent to being given the power to elect their police and crime commissioners (PCC)?
There will be arguments about the wisdom of holding an election in November, the lack of information, the fact that many details were only available online, concerns about politicisation of the police, the vast constituencies, the shortage of high-profile candidates and on and on.
An acting director general. An acting head of news. There's a joke going round that there's more acting in BBC management at the moment than in EastEnders.
But there is a serious point. What we are seeing at the moment is not the thorough structural radical overhaul promised by the BBC Trust but emergency measures to try and steady the ship.
Politicians have complained of an ambush, after David Cameron was surprised on ITV's This Morning by a list of people named online as paedophiles. Is our democracy moving into cyberspace, and should we be worried in case the values of the internet prevail?
Facebook and Twitter campaigns, it seems, are replacing the old-fashioned demo or sit-in.
One begins to lose track of how many inquiries and investigations the Jimmy Savile scandal has spawned. Amid the soul-searching that follows such revelations, there are always demands that lessons be learned so nothing like it "can ever happen again".
That, indeed, was the line from the prime minister on Wednesday when he called for a rethink in the way sex abuse cases are dealt with.
To the general public, there may be something almost bizarre about the editor of one of BBC journalism's flagships - Panorama - commissioning an investigation into why the editor of another of BBC journalism's flagships - Newsnight - decommissioned an investigation.
Tonight I heard one correspondent on a rival channel describe it as "corporate cannibalism".
Here's my report on fears of a low tour-out for the first-ever elections for police commissioners. My question to would-be voters: "Are you excited about the PCC vote?"
With less than a month to go before the first ever elections for police commissioners in England and Wales, there is still some concern that poor publicity will lead to a low turnout. They will be elected on 15 November and replace police authorities in each force area in England and Wales, making police directly accountable to voters.
Here's an excerpt of my report for the BBC's Inside Out programme on some of the radical solutions being tested around England to help tackle the elderly care crisis.
With many of us living longer the challenge of providing care for the elderly is becoming a major issue.
When I was a cub reporter on my local newspaper in the late 1970s, I returned from the magistrates court with what I thought was a front page story. A councillor had appeared on charges of sexual assault on young girls, an alleged abuse of power that had left me shocked.
But my disgust turned to outrage when the news editor told me they wouldn't be running the story. "Our readers don't want to hear about that kind of thing," he said. I remember he used the word "paedophilia" - a term I hadn't heard before. Whatever it meant, it was not a subject deemed worthy of space in that evening's paper.
At lunchtime today the normally bustling city of Manchester paused to pay tribute.
Hundreds of police officers from every rank and branch filed solemnly into the cathedral as thousands more lined the streets, boots and service medals shining in the autumn sun.
Could it be that Labour leader Ed Miliband's demand that all school pupils must study maths until they are 18 has been prompted by new evidence that his own MPs struggle with numbers?
The man in charge of the party's policy review, Jon Cruddas, admitted this weekend that he is "barely numerate". And when the Royal Statistical Society (RSS) recently tested the ability of honourable members to answer a relatively simple mathematical question, only a quarter of Labour MPs got it right.
My son has just turned 13 and I made him a card to mark the moment he became a teenager. I put a picture of him as a choir-boy next to a Photoshopped shot of him as a saggy-trousered gangsta rapper - the innocent child mutating into a growling ball of rebellious fury. But a series of recent official statistics are making me question whether the old joke is true any more.
With less than 50 days to go until elections for the new police and crime commissioners (PCCs) in England and Wales, there is growing anxiety that one of the government's flagship criminal justice reforms resembles a slow-motion car crash.
The introduction of directly-elected commissioners was hailed by its Conservative architects as a vital step in "giving people democratic control over policing priorities".
One can see it etched on the faces of young bobbies just beyond the fluttering tape which marks the edge of the crime scene. The murder of two of their friends and colleagues has left them in deep shock and grief.
There is anger in their eyes too, but they know above all they must remain professional. Greater Manchester Police find themselves in the role of both crime investigators and crime victims.
If Wednesday was about truth, today is about justice. The report of the Hillsborough Independent Panel opens up a new path down which the campaigners are set to march.
There is now a very real possibility of prosecutions of police officers or others found to have been involved in the systematic amendment of key statements to the original Taylor inquiry in 1989. A case could be made that this was an attempt to pervert the course of justice, trying to airbrush out the evidence of potentially criminal negligence.
The UK's national conversation is conducted in sceptical tones but for a few months we have talked in cheerful, optimistic voices. Have we changed our default position for good?
If the Conservative right see the appointment of Chris Grayling as a signal that the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) is going to re-adopt the slogan "prison works" then I think they may be disappointed.
The MoJ is in the middle of a programme of severe budget cuts and central to achieving the 26% savings is ensuring the prison population of England and Wales can be stabilised and, ultimately, brought down.
Here's my report about the 2,000 students who potentially face deportation after a London university had its licence to teach and recruit overseas students revoked.
London Metropolitan University has had its right to sponsor students from outside the EU revoked, and will no longer be allowed to authorise visas.
Here's my report on new research that suggests young people who smoke cannabis run the risk of a significant and irreversible reduction in their IQ. The findings come from a study of about 1,000 people in New Zealand.
Although cannabis is widely used in the UK, possession can lead to up to five years in jail. The research has been seized on by both sides of the debate over whether to legalise cannabis.
In the sultry Athenian air, this feels like a place holding its breath.
Greeks have always scrawled on walls. But after sunset this troubled summer, masked graffiti agitators have roamed the capital's streets applying their urgent exhortations to every flat surface they can find.
Mark joined his local paper after leaving school, inspired to become a journalist by playing Waddington's Scoop aged 13.
He has won numerous awards for his reporting. Most recently, his writing won a Royal Statistical Society award for excellence and was a finalist in the online journalism awards in San Francisco.
His ambition is to try to chronicle the story of changing Britain, and for Arsenal to win some silverware.
Before becoming BBC News home editor in 2004, Mark was home and social affairs editor at Channel Four News and political editor at Five News.
This page is best viewed in an up-to-date web browser with style sheets (CSS) enabled. While you will be able to view the content of this page in your current browser, you will not be able to get the full visual experience. Please consider upgrading your browser software or enabling style sheets (CSS) if you are able to do so.
~RS~q~RS~from=2012-11-17T10:50:41Z~RS~z~RS~31~RS~)
