Within minutes of the close of polling on election night, the BBC unveiled its exit poll (which has turned out to be stunningly accurate), and the Labour grandees went to work. Both Lord Mandelson, with his best shit-eating grin, and Harriet Harman, with her scary scowl, made it perfectly clear that Labour would offer the LibDems a referendum on electoral reform, in exchange for a deal that would keep Gordon Brown in No 10 and the Tories out of power. Apparently it's something they are suddenly strongly committed to, after ignoring it completely for thirteen years.
The LibDem leader, Nick Clegg, to his great credit said this morning that the Tories, with the most votes and the most seats, should have the first shot a forming a government. Maybe, unlike Mandelson and Harman, he's taken a glance at the arithmetic. The LibDems and Labour together would have more seats than the Tories, but would still be well short of a majority. So any such coalition would, no less than the Tories, be dependent on securing votes from the minority parties (the usual collection of about 30 nationalists and unionists, plus for the first time one Green) in order to get legislation passed. Since the Tories gained seats while both Labour and the LibDems lost them, the moral arguments seem perfectly clear.
Based on David Cameron's statement this afternoon, it looks as if we are going to wind up with some sort of Tory-LibDem coalition. I hope so, not because I have any love for the Tories, but because the prospect of Gordon Brown starting a second term as PM without winning even one election would be an even greater scandal than all the sleaze we went through in the last Parliament.
One unequivocal piece of good news: the awful LibDem candidate in my constituency lost. Maybe he can try running in his own hometown next time, and leave us alone.
2 comments:
Surely Cleg is going to get himself stitched up?
He went into the negotiations having more or less ruled out other options.
Cameron won't (cant?) offer a deal that Libdem Party sh'd accept so by default we get a Tory minority govt, no electoral reform and drastic deflation. In a few months Cameron will provoke an election on an issue of his choice. Libdems vanish.
What about Rainbow coalition: Clegg demands no ID cards, no Trident, Brown to go and Vince as Chancellor?
Where is the "safe house" he claims to be in? Is he locked up?
Peter
I think the LibDems are in a weak position here; the leadership knows that, but a lot of the backbenchers and activists are behaving as if they won the election.
If Clegg doesn't do a deal with the Tories, one way or another we will be facing an election quite soon, which is a disaster for both Labour and the LibDems in terms of their financing, but not so for the Tories who will find another Lord Ashcroft or two from somewhere. I can't see a "rainbow coalition" holding together, and as an Englishman I dread the demands that would be made by the SNP and Plaid just to keep the government afloat.
I think if Clegg can get a half decent deal from Cameron he will be inclined to accept it, in the interests of his own party's solvency as much as the country's, but whether he can carry his party with him is another question. My guess is it will be a "confidence and supply" arrangement rather than a coalition.
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