Election result.
 

Just had Bo Jo on the box boasting that the result was a crushing blow for GB.

Hmmm. Lesseee.

We are in the middle of a crisis, the tories are promising they are the best to solve the problems, GB is slated as a dour miserable git, Cameron as the shiny face to vote for and yet, the electorate do not see DC as an amazing alternative, because if they did, the tories would have walked it.

Whatever it says about GB, how badly does it reflect on DC and his gang to be so indifferently received by the electorate?

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Have to agree on that one, every chance to walk it, but is stumbling along. :D

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Whoever gets the PM job has a mountain to climb. If I were GB, I would resign now:unsure:

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Looks like Brown is desperately trying to hang on by claiming squatters rights and putting the begging bowl out for help from the Libs at present.
However if his own party had enough sense to dump him there would be a better chance of Labour doing a deal and hanging on for a while longer.

Whichever party get the job for the next few years could well end up out of power for the following fifteen or twenty, so its probably a no win situation for any one at present.

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Excellent speech from Cameron,..seems like a Con/Lib deal is on the cards,...amazing though it might seem regarding policy conflicts.

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Isn't he obliged to under the constitution, or whatever decides it?

If he just upped and walked out, there would be a fair old mess.

I repeat. He is getting all the blame for this for being in power, but whoever had been in the seat, the sh*tstorm would have been horrific.

Plus, in days of crisis, I want someone at the helm who sounds like he gave a ***** for the average working man.

You can expect savage cuts in benefits and public spending from the tories if they get in, which will really hurt the less well off, but I hardly see DC & Co stitching up any of their well off mates.

Liberal and tories? That will go down well, a bit like steak and kidney pie with custard.

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PR PR PR PR ... How can you get so many votes and so few seats and everybody saying how bad the LibDems have done ... when you look at the number of PEOPLE who voted and the proportion of those votes ... it's beyond me that we preach democracy to other countries ... hmmmmmmm :thumbdown:

Re: Election result.
 

Lib Dems just 1% less of the vote, but only a fifth of the seats that Labour have, already people are saying that electoral reform is likely to be one of the things that the Lib Dems will insist on to join DC and Co, even GB has hinted that he would want a discussion of reform, including a referendum.

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Its not so much the fact that the Tories haven't managed a comprehensive win mate, its the fact that Labour have lost so many key seats. Its in their losses that this election has to be gauged and from that respect its been a disaster. I think the Tories, considering how bad their share of the vote was last time, have done a brilliant job and its looking like they could easily finish on 307 seats, not thats up about 100 seats from last time, a huge gain and when you look at the 91/2 seats that Labour have lost.... quite a success really.

God help us with a Lab/Lib coalition, whereas I actually think a Con/Lib coalition with some Libs having key seats in power will be a good thing.

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It would be interesting to see what Lib dem voters, who voted to keep the Conservatives out, think of a Conservative/Lib Dem coalition. I think Clegg would lose any credibility he had. Lib Dem supporters I know absolutely loathe the Tories.

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He would lose more credibility if he forms a coalition with GB, he has said all along that not only does he not like his policies but that he can't even stand the bloke.... if he forms a coalition with a man he has publicly said he hates and couldn't work with he will look an even bigger idiot.

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Clegg and Cameron are having talks tonight, if that fails, then I have to assume that he will talk to Brown. Interesting to see what his demands will be, I assume that a big cabinet post will be required..

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I often wonder who is this average working man and what respect,if any, Brown actually has for him.
You seem to live in the past Bil,the average equivalent of yesterdays working man often has more like a middle class existance in todays World.
Plenty of so called working men have made it right to the top of the tree with little education,..just dedication and determination.
Yes there are those out of work or struggling but that applies in most walks of life at the present time.
Many of those at the bottom of todays pile are there as a result of their own failings or in some cases just plain laziness.
As for Brown caring about the so called working man/woman,...of all three party leaders, I don't think any of them look upon lesser mortals with a greater degree of contempt and arrogance than Brown,....as he recently most clearly exposed in public,.... for those not already fully aware.

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I am hoping that the talks work out, if they don't I am shitting myself at two possible outcomes. Firstly that the Lib Dems decide to back up Golden Brown or, worse yet, the Tories go to Northern Ireland to garner support.... then we are in real shit, giving vindictive Irish politicians the power over an electorate that they have "history" with... not nice.

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One thing that can be said in defence of our first past the post electoral system is that it usually produces a clear result. This time it hasn't and it's all a bit of a mess. If we change to PR, won't we just get this mess every time?

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Quite possibly,though the present system isn't ideal.
When a party has a clear majority of votes over its nearest rival as is the case this time, it should at least be given enough power to run the country.

On a lighter note I like the Sun headlines,..Squatter Holed up in No.10.....
though no one would have noticed it yesterday, if he hadn't come out of the door begging for a few scraps from the Libs.

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I don't live in the past, but I look to the past to see what people have done and thus guage what they might do in the future.

I seem to remember that the tories fought long and hard against the minimum wage, and anything like that which might improve the lot of the basic worker. Labour got us that, and it just implies to me that no matter how bad Labour might be, the tories would be worse.

It's all very well for those among us who earn well above the minimum wage to shout 'I'm all right Jack, pull up the ladder'.

That was ever the instinctive shriek of those who had no desire to ever think of those worse off than themselves.

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True, but then I would say that the result reflects the electoral mood. There just isn't anyone who stands out as being truly worth voting far.

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Well, First past the post produces a result that doesn't reflect the way people have voted.

PR produces some godawful coalitions that leave countries in the thrall of minority groups exerting influence far beyond their share of the vote.

To me, the simplest by far is to have first past the post with a transferrable vote.

That avoids the looney coalitions but still gives a good element of PR.

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And what about the LD's that voted to keep Brown and his chums out, would they be happy if Clegg got into bed with Brown!:) Whichever way he goes, he's bound to upset quite a few.

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Yes, I'd favour that system. I think someone said that there are only three countries in the EU that have an absolute majority (no idea who they are), the rest are some sort of coalition, so it seems quite common elsewhere.

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You have a point but I prefer to have an MP who lives in and is accountable to my constituency, rather than a proportion of some party in the collection of faceless beaurocrats in Whitehall.

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I suppose no system is perfect but the Kiwis changed in the 90s and seemed to have it working okay. Although I guess with PR there's less chance of corruption. :(

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I have no knowledge of politics in NZ. I do know that coalition governments are the norm in many EU countries. I don't understand why it is seems to be a problem for UK politicians. Pehaps it is time they started to work together?

I don't agree that PR would improve the corruption. If anything it might make the situation worse by removing the electorates right to remove a corrupt MP. What might make a difference is where evidence of fraud and corruption is found then those MPs should be prosecuted - No one should be above the law.

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I agree, but over 2 million more voted in favour of the Tories, I guess someone somewhere thought they might be better for the country.

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Very well put!

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Seems Gordon was more than a little upset at yesterdays turn of events and last night had a very angry rant at Clegg down the telephone line according to the BBC.

Somehow I don't see this working out so well.
The mottley crew of Libs don't even seem able to agree amongst themselves, let alone work in harmony with another party.
At this moment they have a disorganised rabble of their own supporters howling for blood outside their own HQ.
It definitely doesn't look good at all.

Whoever the Libs get together with,if they ever get together with anybody at all,...I reckon it will be a marriage made in hell, and I would be forecasting a very quick divorce.

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Its unreal, the SNP got only 400,000 odd votes and they are calling on the Lib Dems to create an alliance with them, Plaid Cymru and Labour... Salmond is a pillock, the Scottish people deserve better than that twat for sure, for a leader of a party with only 1.7% of the vote to try and stop the democratic decision of over 10 million people makes my blood boil!

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So the Scottish Nationalist party got only 1.7% of the vote, but then again, they didn't have a candidate in the vast majority of the seats, what is more important to them is the % of vote they got in SCOTLAND, the only place where they had candidates, and I bet it's a hell of a lot higher. Look at the Conservatives in Scotland, only one MP and a very low % of the votes. Best thing would be for Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales to have totally separate governments, then we could have an English Parliament, and each country could do there own thing. The problem that the British Politicians have is that, since the second world war, they haven't had to get on with each other, the different parties have just done their own thing, scrapping the laws etc that the previous party put in place, changing things really for changes sake. A hung Parliament could be a good thing, because it will stop any of the extreme measures happening.

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Sounds like a "real change":thumbup: not the half warmed over Thatcherite doctrine as spouted by snitcher Cameron.

What about devolved government for those english who live north of Watford? They have been ignored by Westminster for far too long.

It may seem a little radical, but when most of the important decisions are dictated from Brussels, do we even need a Westminster parliament, all they seem to do is squabble :unsure: and as for the house of lords - what a waste of space they are:eek:.

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19.9% Mike, but thats not what I am talking about, the SNP are suggesting that an Alliance should be formed in Westminster, to stop the Tories taking power, thats not in SCOTLAND, its in Westminster, where the British parliament sits, we are not talking Scotland here, and when we look at it that way, they hold just 1.7% of the votes, just 400,000 votes, compared to the 10 million plus of the Tories....

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Should have allowed Scotland indepedence 30 years ago then? They always complain that they don't get the government they vote for, so I don't think they'll have any sympathy for your argument here. It's strange though - the Conservatives would dominate Parliament if Scotland left the union, yet it's the Tories who are the biggest opponent of independence. for Scotland, they even opposed devolution.

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.. and so they should. The rest of Europe is uniting and the bloody Celts are trying to become separate...

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What I've asked myself was, do you think the Tories could have won a bigger share of the vote, if they stuck to their more traditional values and stood apart from the other 2 parties? I watched the debates, and they seemed to agree with each other a lot.....

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Whilst the Libs didn't do as well as expected, I wonder if it had not been for the USA type TV debates and Cleggmania, they would have done much worse and the Tories would have scraped an overall majority, as seemed likely a few weeks ago.

Whilst the Tories appear to be reasonably flexible in trying to do a deal, there is a huge amount of pressure from within the Lib party to get everything they are asking for.
They almost give the impression that they should be in the driving seat, despite the fact they only have about a sixth of the seats that the Tories won.
Hopefully the Libs will come down from their ivory towers and get real, but I can't see it,and should their intransigence lead to another election they will most likely suffer the most.
In the meantime Labour will have the boost of a new leader,so even a re-run election may be too close to call and could end the same way again.
What then?..:confused:

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I sense there's gonna be another election coming. People in power don't give up power easily, especially if you're Nick Clegg and the ball's in your court. If he's a typical human being, he'll try to force the Tories to go to at least the center and adopt some Lib Dem policy in exchange to keep Labour in check, or Clegg allies with Labour and brings the Tories down, forcing another election. Why can't American politics be this interesting :confused:

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Was going to say because the USA is better organised,but thinking back about ten year or so there was a big squabble and nobody in the US seemed to know who had won or had the most votes when it was all over.

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Hi, all this talk about nobudy could seeing the crisis coming is rubish. Are they saying that nobody in the goverment saw what was happening, nobody in the treasury, nobody in the FSA, nobody in the Bank of england. Do me a favour, all Brown was interested in was getting the tax reveues in to squander.
Baz

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Seems all this election hoo haa is overshadowing the main EU crisis somewhat,where the value of some major banks incl.the UK ones has collapsed by a fifth in the past few days and the big EU knobs have even called a Sunday meeting,a rare event indeed,to see whats to be done.

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So presumably you have loads of evidence that the tories tried to get GB to stop all that?

Please don't make me laugh. They are all as bad as each other.