Eureka. The solution is a con/lab coalition

[ninna]

Why should the power in the country be held by minority parties.
Conservatives and labour polled overwhelmingly the majority of the votes. England voted mostly tory, Scotland and Wales voted labour.
Now that George Brown is going, I think it would be the perfect solution. Between them, these parties contain the majority of able mps.
I believe they could work together for the good of us all.

George Brown? Who he then?

ninna - we have already had an unofficial labour/tory coalition over Iraq and managing the economy so far...didn't work very well. If they want to have an official coalition fine..would be interesting to see a con/lab cabinet.

I don't think new labour have any able MPs in their current front bench team. Yvette cooper and Darling are the most acceptable.

i think labour will have more able people than the libdems have.
The country did vote tory/labour overwhelmingly. No clear mandate was given. It would be the just solution.
The one proviso which would have to be made is-negotiations could only be carried out by elected members of parliament.

It's certainly an idea!

I think too demanding for them to get their heads around it now though. Requires such a huge shift of thinking - it's a cultural thing.

i heard someone on the radio the other day saying that in Germany it took them through the 60s and 70s to work out how to have coalition governments effectively, and to stop the tribal politicking.

We're infants still, throwing out toys out the pram and clinging on -

but we might get there, in oooh, about 20 years?

I believe they could do it. They would provide such good checks and balances for each other.
I can understand why people are not happy about first past the post when no clear mandate is given. Similarly PR seems to give too much power to minority parties. This would be the perfect solution.