An agreement has been reached according to sky news.

[JustBlameSue]

Between Tories and Lib Dems. No real details as yet.

Not that I take joy in watching the currency markets move like that but I wish I'd seen it with my own eyes.

I need new hobbies, don't I?

I'm watching with my hands over my eyes - ooh the suspense NC has a lot more power right now than he will probably ever have again.

Not NC who has the power now, it's the MPs... They're playing hardball over PR.

Why the hell is David Milband greeted with 'mr Miliband will you ...', while Yvette Cooper gets 'Yvette, will your husband be stabding ...' and 'Harriet, have you got a statement for us...'? Female politicians get no respect. It makes me very

Well yes - but all eyes are on NC and all breath bated

If the tories have offered voting reform it is a big step (even if it isn't the best type of voting reform).

the tories have the most MPs.

I will be furious if the likes of shirley williams (who I have until now admired) and simon hughes scupper a deal and force Clegg to do a deal with labour.

If the lib dems can't work with the tories they should just let the tories go it alone.

Up until now the lib dems have come across as more honest and decent than the other parties. They need to stick to being honest and decent and run away from the likes of peter mandleson.

come on nick join us on the dark side ...

frakked - DW says we need to get a life.

It is mesmerising though.

you are right Snowlady, LD have come across more honest until now ... but what is it they say "power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely". Didn't take long for Clegg, did it? All he needed was the sniff of power. What a cheap tart

Thought John Reid was very good on Sky.

I got the impression he was saying, in effect, that Labour should step back and just go into opposition. A few other Labour MPs and advisors have said similar tonight.

actually this from minthumbug upthread says pretty much what i think about all the people saying 'How very dare Clegg barter away LD votes'

"Everyone who voted LibDem was supporting PR because that's a big part of who the LibDems are.

If we have PR Nick Clegg (or whoever the LibDem leader is) will have to do deals with the left and the right in future to get laws passed. That's how a coalition after a PR election works

So you are cross that you voted LibDem and then Clegg sells you out to the Tories or Labour - why did you want the LibDem manifesto which introduces PR which would mean ALWAYS doing deals with other parties that you might not like??"

Big round of applause for a very valid point.

Why are liberals so keen to throw away an opporunity to influence government decisions directly?

I personally would just want to do a deal NOW (with the Tories) with deficit-cutting at its heart, and then push somehow or other (no idea how, really) for a referendum on STV, in the meantime really trying to increase public support for STV. AV just isn't worth dilly-dallying over.

Unfortunately, though, the burgeoning grassroots supporters of STV will shout Sellout! if there's nothing at all about PR in the agreement. But what's the point of putting AV in there, really, what's the point.

Missed that one, EAP.

Yes, agree entirely Minthumbug - if you want PR then you're always going to be cozying up to a party with a different philosophy. You can't say "yes I want PR but only if I never have to govern with the Torys/Labour". It's the whole point of PR that you don't end up with a two horse race.

Yes, but with AV you do end up with a two-horse race. They have it in Australia, enough said. It's not that I just want the system that's going to get the Lib Dems the most seats, but if a thing (like PR) is worth doing, it's worth doing well, you know?

You're all being much too hard on Clegg!

If he cosies up to the Tories, he'll

• offend lefty LDs
• not get PR

but will do the honourable thing of supporting the party who got the most votes.

If he cosies up to Labour, he's selling out on voters, more of whom voted Tory, just for the sake of getting PR.

He cant win!

He's between a rock and a hard place, for sure. That's the way it is. Still, I'd like to see them go with the Tories pronto because all the PR suggestions on the table at the moment are crap tbh.

Under AV, Labour would have won in 1997 with an even bigger landslide than it did.

God I thought I was indecisive but what is Nick up to?
Is he being a bit of a tart - or is it just me who thinks that?

wisteriawoman, it looks good to indicate that you've given both sides a hearing I think. Otherwise people will say "But you never gave Labour a chance!"

Yes, not sure that the Aussies are a great role model for equality, tolerance and fairness. There are the most racist nation I've met (gross generalisation, I know but it's true! - perhaps that's just the ones that move to the UK)

So this is an all or nothing position then, is it? See, I'm not sure it is (or should be). I think that the LibDems has much more to offer governemnt and I didn't vote for them primarily because of their PR stance. But that's my personal position so obviously it's just one data-point in the wider picture. I recognise that other LibDem-ers feel more strongly about it.

However, is a firm offer from a weak coalition better than a more ambivalent offer from a numerically stronger coalition? Decisions, decisions!

Well, we can say at least that if the Aussies can work out PR it can't be too complex

More seriously, PR need not be very complex but it's very easy to both fetishise or simply dismiss what's different. I've seen both proponents and opponents of PR be guilty of these errors to different degrees.

Some PR systems are probably worse than FPTP, others are probably better. Both Alternative Vote and Single Transferrable Vote are probably in the better category, with STV the superior of the two. I'm not convinced yet about AV+

But Labour are offering us a better deal on the voting system...

The tories are only offering a referendum on the least popular voting system, so we'll lose... particularly with all the Tory papers and Murdoch media dead set against it. That's crap.

TheHeathen - what are Labour offering?

I thought they were only offering a referendum on AV as well if I recall the discussion correctly a few days ago.

But Heathen will it actually get through in a LibLab government? The numbers are so finely balanced that, for example, the death of an MP at the wrong time could scupper the whole thing, it gets defeated and nothing happens. Or you're held to ransom by the nationalists - can't blame them by the way and it would be great for my family in NI plus really boost the position of some politicians that I really like there such as Mark Durcan and Naomi Long. But I'm not sure that it makes sense for the UK as a whole...

TheHeathen, I think it's fair enough to have a referendum on it. If we're going to be fighting a referendum and mobilising public opinion (which is a good thing) though, I want to have a referendum on STV, not AV. What I said above - if it's worth doing, it's worth doing well.

MrJustAbout, is there any way the Lib Dems can get a referendum on STV on the table as a private members' bill that has a hope of success? (if it has a lot of public backing?) Probably not.