bedfellows

crikey mcmoses but what a turn up for the books, and it isn’t what i would have done.
this time last week three men each had different views of where they would be right now.
david cameron saw himself as the prime minister at the head of a majority parliament.
nick clegg saw himself as either the head of the second strongest party or at the very worst the kingmaker who could play the important role in deciding who would be prime minister.
gordon brown saw the end of his political life.
then the public spoke. they spoke not with a shout, not with a whisper but with an emphatic mumble.
the result: the much heralded hung parliament. for some it was to be the right result, oh how they rue that view now.
the conservatives got 306 seats (36% of the vote).
labour got 258 seats (29% of the vote).
the liberal democrats won 57 seats (23% of the vote).
while it is a bitter pill to swallow the conservatives won, even if they didn’t win an overall majority.
now if i had been gordon brown this is what i would have done: on the friday morning i would have stood at 10 downing street and announced that the labour party were not going to enter negotiations in order to form a coalition, but were preparing to become the official opposition. why would i have done that? several reasons. on a personal level gordon brown has had a torturous time as prime minister neither getting the rub of the green or the credit he deserves, so a period as leader of the opposition would have allowed him to go on the attack and let him show his authentic voice. for labour a period in opposition would be a chance to regroup, recharge and re-asses.
and yes in my fantasy politics gordon brown would have been in charge of labour.
if i had been david cameron i would have probably have listened to the liberal democrats and if the demands were too much i would have said i would be happy to go it alone as a minority government.
poor old nick clegg he has got what he wants and he has found out that it is a poisoned chalice. now he is running between the two parties in order to get the best deal he can possibly can.
while it is true there is a better fit between labour and the liberal democrats, an agreement between the two parties would still not be enough to run the country. in order to do that they would need the support of other parties, such as the scottish national party. for those that support this idea it is seen as a progressive coalition, others have called it a rainbow coalition or a traffic light coalition. more accurately, and more harshly, it has been seen as a coalition of the defeated or losers.
as a down payment for working with labour it seems the liberals have demanded gordon brown’s head, although the price is too high it has been paid. what makes it even harder to swallow is that the eventual prize, a barely sustainable coalition, will lead to labour being unelectable for years to come.
so i am with john reid and david blunkett, labour shouldn’t enter into a coalition, they should man up and be the official opposition. let cameron and clegg be pals and provide an effective opposition to them, sit back and watch them fail.
nick clegg started out looking like a fresh broom in politics, now he is looking like a shabby harlot. now who would have thought that when they were casting their votes.