Another unelected labour PM

Yep, there's not a real politician available to comment.

I guess if they wheel out doddery ones and they say the wrong thing it's less of a monumental fuck-up than if someone who matters says it.

Challenging, I absolutely agree that those previous administrations didn't have proper democratic mandates either. FPTP has always been a desperately unfair, distorted system. But even within this unbelievably crappy system, the Tories have not won this election. The only way you win is by getting a majority, and they haven't.

The broader point about democratic mandates was in answer to those who were implying that a LibLab pact (representing more than 50% of the population) would somehow be an undemocratic outcome - patently untrue. (Just as a LibCon pact would be resoundingly democractic.)

We'll have to agree to disagree on the hung parliament point. Seems pretty clear to me from the pre-election polls that it's exactly what the country wanted.

Yes I just saw Hurd. Can never see him without remembering that Spitting Image puppet with the ice-cream head.

I guess all the parties are having to wheel out the grandees because the current generation are behind closed doors biting each other's legs off.

Agree Aussieng. It's ridiculous to say people voted for a hung parliament, it's simply not possible. How could you attempt to get that result without knowing who everyone else was going to vote for?

Also, in response to policywonk's comment "A minority Tory government would have no true democratic legitimacy; 64% didn't want it", Labour's share of the UK vote in 2005 was 35.3%. So in 2005, when Labour won the election, 64.7% of the population didn't want them to.

Share of national vote for Labour in 2005= 35.3%

Share of national vote for Tories in 2010= 36.1%

So why do you think that Labour got the mandate with a lower share of the vote than the Tories got in this election, when you say the Tories shouldn't have it?

Even in the 1997 Labour landslide, the winning party only got 43.2% of the vote. So more than half the population didn't want them.

This year Labour got 29% of the vote, which is not far off their low point of 1983 when they got 27%.

So if your argument is that the Tories don't have a current mandate to rule, the same has to be said of almost every government in history and certainly doesn't support Labour being in power.

Not a Tory btw, can't decide which is the best of a bad lot.

AV bad. Bad bad bad.

oh dear....is forming the next government so important to them all. I can't help feeling that AV would be a terrible mistake for all of them including the lib dems. No one would ever get anything done.

stressed - he's rushing out onto the pavement and saying that he will be offering the LD's a referendum on AV.

Lal - today so far I have seen /heard - Douglas Hurd, John Major, Lord Baker and only Michael Heseltine and Michael Howard

Where have they been keeping them? WHY are they being wheeled out now? What does it MEAN?

"William Hague is desperate isn't he"

What is he doing?

Nice ven diagram amicissima.

Interesting bourbon - but would a referendum outcome need to go to a HoC vote?

Or maybe Balls will end up being PM, but with a majority of just over 1000, it may be a short tenure even if labour won again.

it was only today that I had a lightbulb moment - radio was on and suddenly William Hague came on talking about the negotiations. I suddenly realised...... Jesus! It's them, isn't it??? Its the same old Tory party. I'd forgotten about William Hague and what a twat he was

Yes true Aussie, obv. nobody put an x by 'Hung Parliament'. But the public, broadly, was enthusiastic about the idea. I reckon we just wanted to torture 'em for a bit. Agree everybody thought LD vote would be much higher.

William Hague is desperate isn't he

god, I wonder if he's got the backing of his parties for this. I bet he hasn't.

It's panic

Just a thought - Harriet Harman or David Milliband could be PM - what a joke.

Iain Dale points out this:
"How can you possibly go into coalition with a party whose leader you don't even know the identity of? What if a new Labour leader reneged on the terms of a coalition and called an immediate election on taking office? Have you thought about that? Well have you?"
which is a good point..

No time to read this thread. Just wanted to say the thought of a lib lab government with yet another unelected PM makes me feel literally sick. I really feel that labour have done enough to mess this country up and I cannot bear that there will be more of it.

Ypu won't get Plaid or SNP voting for AV+ as it favours the large parties.They minght go for AV but most labour MPs won't STV will take years to implement,muti memeber constuencies,open or closed list could go on forever ,it will get completely mired in committee where MPs cannot be whipped so successfully

We'll have to agree to disagree on the hung parliament things Policywonk. I doubt many people allocated their vote in an actual attempt to achieve a hung parliament - if they had presumably the LibDem share would have been higher.

bourbon, it's a fair point about figurehead/tone-setter I think. But it's not like GB was wildly popular and lots of people will now be thinking 'As, I wanted him to stay and now I feel all cheated' Much more likely that more ppl would have voted Labour had it been led by someone else IMO. So I just don't put as much weight on this issue as some people do I guess.

I think they could muster a Parliamentary majority for PR, just (assuming all Labour MPs were whipped into voting for it). But if it was a referendum, would it have to go to a parliamentary vote as well?

"there is good and bad on all sides and if possible I'd give 60% of my vote to one party and 40% to another! "

Aussieng - I agree...

I want to create my own political party so they'd all agree with me

AV locks them out even more than a % bar on PR would.

AV is majoritarian and inherently skewed towards very large parties. It's a sop to the LDs because it makes the system fairer for them by turning it into a tripartite system