UPDATE: Brown is currently announcing he’s going to see the Queen to resign and to recommend that she ask the leader of the opposition, ie Cameron, to form a government. But still, my post makes some valid points, not least that Nick Robinson should be sacked.
It ain’t over till the Queen lady sings…
The BBC are now performing a complete volte face and promoting a Lib Dem/Conservative coalition to the skies.
This is because, according to their ‘sources’, namely Charles ‘safety elephant’ Clarke, greedy backbench philanderer David Blunkett, that walking piece of unpleasantry John Reid and Bambi-eyed Andy Burnham (who must’ve been inhaling too much of his Maybelline mascara), that any Lib/Lab pact is dead.
The politicoliterati are still trying to turn this negotiating period into a two party adversarial contest (I blame Nick Robinson) – but that’s not what forming a coalition is about.
Take the Dutch model:
In the UK a party’s manifesto is its manifesto for government. In the Netherlands manifestoes exist to be melted during post-election negotiations, and fused together.
The process takes time. To do it in a week would be completely impossible in Holland. It cannot be done in days – or rather it can, but then Dutch people would strongly suspect that the job had not been done properly, and that the deal had not been well thought-out.
It’s understandable that the British newspapers are eager for a resolution, but it’s not correct that the UK is without leadership.
There is a caretaker government. The chancellor of the exchequer can continue to take part in discussions of the global economic crisis. Day-to-day decisions will continue to be made.
It’s absolutely normal, from a Dutch perspective, for parties to drive a hard bargain to get as many of their policies as possible into the programme of the new coalition government.
Dutch coalitions usually last for years… though one in 2002 fell after 87 days.
What is less normal is to have a party, like the Liberal Democrats in this case, in a position of so much power that it can make the difference between stable government and chaos. That is because, in the Dutch political system, there are always several coalition possibilities.
There is also less likelihood of a party holding simultaneous negotiations with the two biggest parties – so less scope for allegations of double-crossing.
This whole mess is a ridiculous media-driven one and it’s been talked up by the likes of Nick Robinson in order to fit his own preferred preconceived narrative.
This isn’t democracy, it’s government by media and the rumour mill, and in no way does it reflect the will of the voters.
If this latest rumour turns out to be true, the LibDems will, unsurprisingly, implode in acrimony and worst of all we’ll have a Tory government. The only upside is there’ll be another election along soon when it all falls apart as it’s bound to.
The downside is it’ll again be run under FPTP, and once again the voters will be robbed.
