2010 Spring General Election

Quote Jose 1933
No, there is democracy. The squatter has stated his intention to resign as Labour leader.

You can’t resist the cheap jibes can you, you’re like a broken record with the needle stuck & furthermore you’re wrong, wrong, wrong as you yourself admitted.

Jose, like most of SKY news’ Tory presenters & ITN news journalists ( Tom Bradby in particular – God, didn’t he looked well miffed ) you are probably enraged, because just when you thought the "deal" was in the bag, BANG ! – auld Broonie throws a big spanner into the works – and Nick Clegg has now opened formal negotiations with the Labour Party. The Rainbow Alliance has a certain ring to it, don’t you think ?

Never count your chickens; that’s what my old granny used to say.

Fair enough. I’m not as enraged as Adam Boulton though.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdidz_48fGI

Best moment of this election so far.

I’ll have a rainbow alliance happily. Alex Salmond playing a major role in government – you just have to keep laughing if that is the case, surely?

Still, well done to Gordon for accepting full defeat today. He’s helped Labour a lot today, and more so than if he did it on Friday, so he’s played the game well.

And just a quick note to the poster who likes quoting me – if I know I’m wrong and I’m admitting I’m wrong, why on earth get riled over someone who liked The Sun’s way of referring to Gordon Brown as a squatter? It’s stupid.

Fascinating times, it’s almost impossible to drag myself away from the TV and internet!
Now I may well be as accurate a judge of political manoeuvering as I am of horses (ie not that good), but I rather think that Clegg is making a complete and utter balls-up on this.
He wants a referendum on PR. Yet, the Scottish Labour MPs (correct me on this Scots forumites) are hardly likely to vote for it are they?
Even if they did, it would still have to get through the House of Lords – may take upwards of a year if other pundits are correct. Can a rainbow-alliance of Labour, LibDems, SNP, Plaid-Cymru, Ulster and Green survive that long?

Furthermore, after all this brouhaha, all Cameron has to say is "this is what it’s like when you get no party with overall control; this is what you’ll get

ALL

the time if you ditch FPTP for PR". And many would agree with him. By playing Brown’s game maybe Clegg is lessening his chances of political reform by handing bullets to the FPTP advocates.

I think this is all hilarious. Teddy bears flying everywhere from the Press. Nearly as good as Boulton (thanks for that clip) was Nick Robinson’s fuming face earlier.

Basically nobody has won this election but the Tories won the most seats. Was it something like 10 million voted Tory and 15 Million voted Labour & Liberal together? I will be very surprised if the tribalism in British politics disappears as long as we have this voting system. I cannot see any way the Liberals could get into bed with the Tories. It would be electoral suicide for them. At the same time I cannot see them getting into bed with the Nationalists which simple Arithmetic would require.

My bet is a Tory minority government that will fail in a very short time and another election in October. Terrible for the economy but what do the Press care. They created this X Factor election.

With Brown gone suddenly Labour would look a very different proposition to the fickle public. When you look back it was all there on a plate for Cameron and he blew it against Brown who looks to have done very well. People voted anti Brown rather than pro Cameron or anything on policy.

Insomniac, I do think that Scottish Labour MPs would support PR. There is a huge anti Tory feeling up here as you can see from 1 Tory seat in 59. Funnily enough the Tories do much better in the Scottish Parliament because of PR.

Absolutely gobsmacked to see the Tories now offering a referendum on changing the voting system. I would have thought that was not something Cameron could offer without consultation with the party members. Desperate stuff and might be a step too far for some Tories. Maybe Clegg has played both of against the other superbly and may now go for a loose Tory Coalition.

Wit, who won?

…and why is it the ‘coalition of losers’ can do this?

Imo, the Conservative party have gone too far with the attempt to seize power by conceding too much ground. At this point in time do they actually need it? Any other coalition needs nationalist MP’s, which is hardly a good way for Labour to regain seats in England in the near future, so electoral reform is hardly something a Lib/Lab coalition can push through for sure anyway. David Cameron could fight more than well enough from opposition and he could cause another General Election in the Autumn in any scenario. A minority government wouldn’t be a disaster either if he just wants to get in 10 Downing Street somehow.

Gordon Brown has either pulled off a master-stroke or ruined the Labour party for longer than they have been in power. Time will measure that along with a possible coalition, although any success would have to be very doubtful still.

Clegg has let down any "new" Lib Dem voters already. He’s shown that his party doesn’t deserve the right to have a huge say in reforming the electoral system. Both major parties are really stupid in agreeing anything about electoral reform. Neither idea will work anyway. The Lib Dems just want the system which suits their own interests bets, and definitely not what suits the nation best. They could damage their selves greatly if they don’t have a referendum on the issue, which would mean teaming up with the Conservative party. The prospect of Clegg allowing some most "un-democratic" things to take place could be deemed quite shameful really given what he said in the leaders debates.

And the media have been exactly what you’d expect. Murdoch’s mob taking a huge view on one side. Just see Adam Boulton’s various angry rants’ on Sky, or read a Murdoch owned newspaper. The latest Boulton rant was against Ben Bradshaw, someone who I don’t view as worthy of ranting against. But, on the opposite side, you have the likes of Kevin Maguire from the Mirror offering a sad and lonely defence of all things Labour still.

Wit, who won?

…and why is it the ‘coalition of losers’ can do this?

obviously nobody got 326.

i’d say 306 was the winner, 258 second, 57 third. SNP fifth on 6 and Plaid Cymru joint seventh with SDLP on 3 each.

why would they do it?

a) brown desperate to cling to power to last minute ("dignified exit" my foot)

b) lab and lib-dems most in common

c) lab and lib-dems the parties of spending other people’s money, hence best placed to execute compulsory surgery on the public sector

Cameron could actually offer a far more potent constitutional reform than PR by addressing the West Lothian question – why are there 59 Scottish MPs at Westminster (only one of them Conservative) ?

no offence to Corm, Grassy, and the other Scottish engines behind TRF

…the election shows the UK’s real problem to be the 52% of the workforce on the public sector payroll

The last time I looked the public sector was about 6 million from a workforce of about 27.5 million.

Who are these 52% and what do they do?