Depressed Lefty red eye - The morning after the night before

[Nymphadora]

Hello

I thought you meant "pretty fucking quickly"

at least he can be all smug-bastard about a majority win,

people are still fighting to keep them out.

conservative is a change we DON'T want.

Popping in for an update, and trying not to get despondent about possibility of Con/Lib alliance.

Thanks for the link to the guardian article, PW and VRL has cheered me up no end. I particularly liked the senior lib dem saying of Cameron's offer:

"You wouldn't buy it off a used car salesman,"

OOOH, What about

"David 'Gammon'on"

Do you know what really pisses me off? That in the Guardian article the Lib Dems see the "right wing press" as a reason to not go with Labour.

FFS. What is WRONG with this country, that this is even a consideration?

am very very glad there was no tory landslide, and that labout hasn't been obliterated

as penth said earlier, maybe it's time for labour to regroup and come back stronger

wow - that Guardian article is really good. Especially the analyst's take on the pros and cons for coalition with either party.

So essentially the lib dems are screwed whatever they do - and the other two parties are screwed if they do nothing.

Conclusion: we're all screwed. At least for the moment. Is it passe to blame the banks again?

Mmelindt - I think they have a point.

Most of the press is effectively right wing, and the problem is that an alliance with Labour would - in simple terms - be a "fuck you" to the electorate, disenfranchising the party that the voters chose to give a majority to.

Of course the liblabs would attempt to spin it differently, saying that the mandate was to a coalition - but without the support of most of the press, they would be looking at a bleak winter of constant harping, and blame for inevitable hard decisions that will have to be made.

More importantly, with massive press opposition, a referendum on PR is unlikely to succeed. If the Mail, the Sun, the Telegraph, probably the Times and many of the sundries ALL lobby against the referendum, PR will be dead in the water before it's even been discussed - and that will be the end of it for the foreseeable future. They won't get two chances for a referendum in this generation.

IMO

We're not screwed, the Tories are screwed

They don't have a majority. The Libdems can say thanks but no thanks to their offer, after Clegg does as promised and tries to negotiate.

The progressive parties can be the bigger people and help them get really important stuff through the commons but block the worst Tory stuff.

They will not be able to do what they want and they will fail

There will be another election within 18 months, labour will come back stonger and sort out electoral reform

Or I am just hallucinating from lack of sleep and starting on the wine again

course I suppose a liblab coalition could just bring in PR and no referendum - but still, I think that the hostility of 80% of the British press is not something to undertaken lightly.

I don't blame them for giving it consideration.

I think the LibDems will refuse to work with the Tories, they will lose too much if they do. This is their one and only chance to get the electoral reform that will get them the representation they want.

By going to the Tories first they can gain the moral high-ground that will then justify them getting together with Labour as the two minority parties and make it palatable to the wider electorate. They can say that it isn't that they didn't want to work with the Tories but that the Tories were not willing to compromise and listen to the voters.

The inevitable outcome of this would be a referendum on electoral reform. (and we will all live happily ever after)

yes, Mme Lindt- that line made me flinch

anyway I've had enough now, and ds is pestering me to watch Facejacker

these threads have been great. The line about Cameron offering Clegg a cushion to kneel on "while I fuck you up the arse", and the mental picture of Mandy slithering up the back stairs of LDHQ will stay with me a while longer

ta very much all

...oh, and get some sleeeeeep!

'They will not be able to do what they want and they will fail'
aubergines I really hope so

right now i want Clegg to tell the tories where to go, and bring on a tory minority government

i agree with yv about the press-they could make it impossibly hard for a liblab coalition to govern, it would just be a horrid, messy nightmare.

aubergines - I like your analysis

That's what I hope will happen really. The Tories can shoulder the blame for all the crap, fail to get their really right-wing cuts through, fall victim to a no confidence vote in 2012, and labour and the lib dems will prance off into the sunset hand in hand.

Yes, thought it was v interesting and sadly accurate about what would happen if LibLab pact proposed referendum on PR.

Looking like minority TOry gvt would be best outcome - gives the country a chance to get used to the LibDems looking governmental, and gives both Lab and Lib a chance to regroup and get serious about electoral reform, without leaving the hard-of-thinking with an obscure feeling that there'd been a Guardianista coup.

But a minority government - can't you hear the bleating of the financiers already:

"What about the maaaaaaaaaaarkets?"

Where is sophable?

Clegg needs more time than the markets are going to give him to make the least worst decision.

The Irish equivalent of Radio Four (RTE1) has an interesting take on this part of the process. Tonight, they were sagely saying that getting things sorted in 4-5 days would be very fast and that coalitions can take weeks to establish. They are clear too that Clegg's power extends to the exact moment when he makes his deal.

At the moment here we have a coalition in which the Greens participate. They had a Lib Dem-like pure reputation until a few years ago, but by entering into, and clinging to, a coalition with Fianna Fáil they have destroyed their own credibility. If they retain 3 seats in the next election it will be a miracle.

I think it would be very useful for the BBC to step back and give us a guided tour of how coalitions have played out elsewhere in the EU to better illustrate the tensions and possibilities.