It doesn't look good, does it? As it stands this morning the Conservatives have won the most seats, with Labour not far behind, meaning we might be heading for a government with no clear majority. The Lib Dems, who recently seemed to emerge as a credible third party, have lost out big-time. What happened there? Probably a case of the British public chickening-out and voting for the devil(s) they know. Obviously we'll find out more as the day progresses but the UK's future looks depressingly Blue at the moment.....
While this is depressing news on the face of it, and any LibLab agreement would lack the clout to achieve much, a minority Tory government may not be so catastrophic in the long term. They will only be able to legislate with opposition agreement which should restrain the right wing excesses of neo-Thatcherites, but the cuts they make (which may be sooner but not much greater than those a LibLab coalition would be obliged to make anyway) will be remembered as Tory cuts. At the next General Election,likely to be called on the initiative of the opposition rather than Cameron, the LibDems might expect to fair very badly as a swing to Labour disposes of Cameron whose party will be associated with austerity for the next decade at least. Labour will forget its flirtation with electoral reform and we're back with the two party system that represents a minority. At least it's the Centre Left minority rather than the Centre Right. All I'd hoped for from this mess was electoral reform and that now seems very unlikely to happen.
ReplyDeleteoh I don't know. If Clegg has got any sense he'll use whatever coalition he forms to demand an overhaul of the electorat system and things will improve for future elections. That's the only bright thing about this election. well that, and a green MP and the BNP not winning any seats.
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