A taste of things to come

I think it is far too early to be condemning as there are far too many "what if" situations.
So much doom and gloom, without any real substance, just speculation at what might happen.
Oh, and so much vitriol. Why is that?

'simplest'.... ??? The idea that two parties with very different policies on fundamental issues could work together is many things but it's certainly not 'simple'.

As I have said on my own thread, I came to the conclusion that there should be a con/lab coalition. This would be possible now that GB is going.
Most of the British Isles voted for one of these two parties.
It is wrong that minority parties should hold most of the power.
I know that there is no hope of this but I think it would be far and away the fairest solution and incidently, the simplest.

Vomiting in a contained or utterly wild way, still an over-reaction though, non?

I think we'll end up with a conservative government of some kind at the end of all this

I don't mean to be patronising, I'm just expressing an opinion! The electorate said they wanted a hung parliament, and now they've got one. And now they have to wait and see how it is going to play out - and not pee their pants because politicians are compromising and negotiating with one another. imo

I really admire John Reid for his comments.

I see Plaid and Ulster are already grasping away for more money.

This all stinks, if I was DC and the cons I would walk away now and let them all get on with it. The concept that one Green MP can rule the roost is unacceptable.

I said this somewhere else.

I heard a piece on the radio the other day about how it took the Germans about twenty years to get used to how coalition governments work

takes ages to dismantle the tribal politics structures

takes a long time for people to get used to it

i agree with Stewie actually. I think this shows how politics really works - we're seeing it for the first time - it is all compromise and discussion and negotiation

The electorate need to grow up and understand that.

Just before the election John Prescott was arguing against PR, saying that it would result in individual politicians scrambling over who was going to get the juiciest cabinet jobs - and he was exactly right!

I am very worried that if Labour did return to power as part of coalition, they would carry out their intention to push through 'immediate legislation' for electoral reform with no referendum first.

That's not the point. The point is that countries other than England already take a far higher spend per head than England does from the public purse (I know the arguments about the difficulties of providing services to remote populations and equality of access, but it is still higher) and a number of the minority parties have made it pretty clear that the 'price' of their support in a minority coalition will be that their region sees fewer cuts than elsewhere. That isn't right and it isn't fair.

'and the thought of the country having to throw even more money at Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to hang on to an unstable coalition appalls me.'

Oh yes i forgot we don't pay anything into the collective pot, how dare we want any of it back.

I'd hope a lot of Labour supporters feel rather uneasy about this. Certainly on Facebook all the people on my friends list who were very vocal in their support pre-election have gone very, very quiet....

Fascism has nothing to do with economic policy - the Nazi's were a National Socialist party!

Has it? Labour are pretty high up on the facist/authoritarian policy scale IMO.

The may not be right wing, but then most facist governments aren't.

I'm appalled by what Campbell, Mandelson & Brown are doing. David Blunkett and John Reid are absolutely correct. I'd ask any Labour supporters who are in favour of this stitch-up going ahead what they would think if the Tories and Labour vote figures were switched and the Tories were the sitting government. You'd be appalled in that situation and rightly so. This is a massive, contemptuous two fingers in the face of democracy & the voting public.

I am appalled by the thought of a Lib/Lab/Green/Ulster unionist/every other tiny party pact.

I am a Labour supporter by instinct, but am horrified by Gordon Brown's "grasshopper who sang all summer" act and the thought of the country having to throw even more money at Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to hang on to an unstable coalition appalls me.

It would actually make me vote Tory when (as it will) it all collapses. I actually think that that might be the best thing for the Tories to do now. Step back and let that happen.

I also do not get this "ooh, well together the Labour party and the Lib Dems have more votes than the Convservatives " argument that keeps getting trotted out. Yes, but together the Lib Dems and Tories actually have a majority. And it is presumptive in the extreme to assume that Lib Dem voters would have Labour as their second choice. Barring nutters like the BNP, I would have voted for anyone before my local Labour MP, who spends his entire time on highly paid consultancies and is deeply dismissive of his constituents.

Interesting point; Hermann Goering gave evidence in his war crimes trial that, under the British system, the Nazis would have won every seat in the 1933 election.

The sabotaging of the Con Dem alliance has Mandelson's sticky fingerprints all over it. No-one but him could have got Brown to finally give up IMO, and Mandelson hasn't been elected by anyone!

I don't think that the Progressive Alliance is in any way sustainable - I agree with what David Blunkett said this morning. The country's massive debt is still the most urgent problem we are facing, and I think that the Con Dem option would be the best option to start sorting it out. The markets seem to want the Conservatives, and they would have Vince Cable on board for good measure.

Stewie - I don't think PR is working very well in Germany at the moment. Merkel's incredibly weak position has put the Euro at grave risk this last few weeks. PR was also one of the reasons that they ended up with Hitler too...