Morning after the night before
Friday, May 7, 2010 I can't pretend I'm not disappointed that we're going to end up with a hung parliament. The interesting thing is, what happens next? As I understand it, it is up to the party leader (ie the prime minister) not the party to decide what happens next.
Presumably Gordon Brown will take advice from senior party members, but it's his decision and the decision he has to make is this: does he resign, having effectively lost the election, or does he try and do a deal with one or more of the other parties, notably the Lib Dems.
Nick Clegg has already said, earlier in the campaign, that Brown is finished and he cannot work with him. He has also said that the party with the largest number of seats should have the opportunity to form the government.
What Clegg cannot do, as I understand it, is a deal in which Brown is forced to step down so he work with someone else - David Miliband, for example.
If Brown cannot do a deal he has to resign, simple as that, and if that happens I would expect David Cameron to be given the opportunity to form a government.
Cameron then has three choices: one, to form a minority government; two, to do a deal with one or more of the smaller parties who will support the Tories in return for "favours"; or, three, create a coalition government.
If Cameron does a deal with the Welsh or Scottish nationalists that gives those regions countries some sort of protection from planned cuts, a lot of people - including me - are going to be very, very angry.
Meanwhile a deal with the Lib Dems would almost certainly have to include a change to the voting system, which the Tories don't want because it will hinder their chances of winning an outright victory in future.
What a mess.
Reader Comments (4)
Gillian Merron (bansturbator)- Defeated, Lincoln.
Good .
What I find absoloutely frustrating is that there are still people who are naive enough to vote Labour ,
Labours client state is definately keeping them away from annihilation.
No doubt about it.
Some figures doing the rounds in the blogosphere:
Percentage of seats/percentage of votes:
Tories 48/36
Lab: 39/28.8
LD: 8/22.8
or..
Votes per seat: Tories: 34,737, Lab: 33,453, LD: 124,655
I understand Mugabe is checking out our voting system..
Yes the postal vote rigging which is definately been going on in mostly inner city areas could well turn out to be Labours undoing.
Specky -
I totally sympathise with your first comment.
Know what the Public needs ?
"Education, education, education."
But REAL education.
The sort that involves choosing the Red Pill............
(If I'd written 'The Matrix', I'd have chosen a different colour - but, there you go).