Why is Clegg cosying up to Cameron?

newyorkshire "seeing as how Clegg ... got so few votes from the population."

Yes, it was definitely too early in the morning if you truly believe that - just check the numbers (649 results of 650) :-

portion count party
23% .... 6,827,938 ... Lib Dems
29% .... 8,604,358 ... Labour
36% ... 10,706,647 .. Conservatives

It doesn't matter which party you support, getting over 60% of the "winning" count, and nearly 80% of the "second" count, hardly makes it "so few votes".

If others who voted tactically for Labour or Conservative parties had voted for the Lib Dems it may have been second in portion of the voters, if not winner.

Because he hasn't got a Clegg to stand on!

SomeGuy - where's the 'like' button when you need one?

the Lib Dem MPs are not left of Clegg, the hippy sandal-wearing activists are, but they aren't representative of the voters or the MPs.

Also, and not to belabour the point, Cameron and Clegg are more or less the same politically.

Cameron is a very liberal Tory, and Clegg is a very free-market Liberal Democrat.

They obviously both like each other and get on.

The problem for both is their parties.

The Tories are way to the right of Cameron, on average. The Liberal Democrats are way to the left of Clegg, on average. They need a deal they can sell to their parties, but personally, I suspect both would often prefer working with each other than with their own parties!

The numbers mean that Lib+Con is more or less the only alliance that could work.

I guess Con+DUP+SNP might just work but the price would be so high.

Can you imagine how unstable Lab+LD+SDLP+SNP+Plaid+Green would be? That is what is required, in purely arithmetic terms. Lab+LD wouldn't be enough.

A Labour coalition without Brown - i.e. where Brown pushing off is a condition - is NOT Brown being able to form a Govt, which is the only way Labour can stay in power.

Plus a Lib/Lab/Nats coalition is barely enough seats to hold the house and Nationalists will extract some pretty strong concessions...

"There are loads of us who don't want their agenda pushed through which is why they didn't get an overall majority."

And there are loads of us who didn't want to suffer under Labour for the last 13 years but we had too.

They didn't get the overall majority because labour has spent it's time fixing the electorial system, if this were 1997 we would have had a landslide.

The conservatives need to take itself into power even if only under the minority, boot out Brown the squatter and change the elctorial system (not to PR) so that when the party with the most votes and seats gets elected they can walk straight into NO:10 not have to wait for the losser party to vacate.

Once thats done we can call another election.

Rebbecredheart. Yes. Into the wilderness as usual. Not elected for over 100 years...so what's new?

I suspect Clegg may not want to come to a deal with Cameron. But he wants to be seen to be making an effort as the Tories won the most seats and he knows he will be slated for going against the electorate if he went to Brown first.

However he may well turn round and say they couldn't come to an agreement/coalation so he will have to go to Brown. Then he can at least say he tried but still get what he wants from Labour (more likely to get a referendum on electoral reform). But maybe a Labour coalition without Brown.

Yay for expat! He is getting his moment in the spotlight and is on the any attention better than none bandwagon.A bit blair like

Lib Dem MPs are often fairly right wing. So are their voters.

It's only really the activists that are more left-wing.

Luddite. Because he has no choice, he lost seats, not gained them.

because a fundemental point of the Libdems is a fair voting system and real democracy and going by their principals joining with the Tories (who have more votes and seats so are the peoples choice) is the RIGHT thing to do for the country and the eceonomy.

Cons form a minority Govt, everyone votes on each issue as they please, no strong/tough decision get made but the Cons could probably make a lot of headway where they and the LDs agree.

OTOH:
Wouldn't sort the economy
Electoral reform might come through as an opposition motion and might possibly pass
Everything would take forever....

Does anyone know what would happen if Clegg refused to support either the Tories or Labour?

I don't think we should conclude that a con-lib alliance will follow just because Clegg and Cameron are talking. They are all trying to appear measured and reasonable and in tune with how the electorate has spoken. This is, or should be, a front for desperate, cunning political thinking, however. And all the superficial "we're morally thinking of the good of the country stuff" from all parties aside, the lib dems are extremely politically stupid if they don't try for a coalition with labour, I reckon. If Clegg is a power hungry sell-out (aka a proper political animal) he should sell out to Labour for all the reasons frakkin has highlighted, imo. An attempt at a coalition with Labour is the only realistic chance the lib dems will get for many, many years to reform the voting system to their benefit and this has been their stated goal for generations. Because Labour are in a weaker position, Clegg could also push for other concessions more easily- he could essentially decide whether G Brown stays or goes, for example. In choosing the Tories they would scupper any chance of PR for eons and probably alienate a greater proportion of their core support. If they just rule themselves out of the equation and refuse a coalition with either party, effectively ushering in a minority conservative government, they would be ensuring that their status as a powerless also ran party was cemented in the popular imagination for a long while. I think it's possible that they are not clever enough, united enough or red in tooth and claw enough to realise this and tenatiously pursue a lib-lab outcome though.

Because he's a power hungry sell out.

no chill, I didn't mean it like that and didnt know that it meant that actually.

Really sorry if you took offence...maybe a better term could have been smarming up to eachother or feathering their own beds together or selling their so called strong beliefs down the river to get a bit of 'power'? Guess, we will see.

I am fed up with hearing from pompous tories on the radio / television that they got more seats so most of their agenda should be pushed through.

There are loads of us who don't want their agenda pushed through which is why they didn't get an overall majority.

Reasons for:

Cons have the highest votes
It would be a more stable coalition. He doesn't need to make it formal - he could operate on confidence and supply
He has a chance to influence policy where he and the Cons agree.

Reasons against:

You could spin it that the country have said they don't want a Cons govt so Lib/Lab would be an anti-conservative alliance (dodgy IMO0
The rest of the party may not be happy and it could lead to infighting. The only way IMO he can now go to Labour is if they offer concrete electoral reform, make it clear that that's the only reason their joining forces and abandon them afterwards.

The country haven't stated they don't want Labour. More than a third in terms of seats said they did want Labour, slightly less in terms of votes, just more people want the conservatives...

It will never succeed long term but they could get a fair bit done, just nothing really major. For than you need a strong majority Govt or a very strong coalition on key issues.