Interestingly all the Tory papers are pleased Dave is in, but the excess is already starting to demand… sorry expect… things
Unless that is they think SamCam is the PM…
As headlines go though the “brokered Britian” has to be the best…
I find it interesting how comments from the Lib Dems are now revealing that Labour essentially binned them off, and I think it was probably the best decision.
Essentially it was lose-lose. Either party that entered a coalition was on a hiding to nothing. Labour would be accused of stealing the election, and the Tories/Lib Dems of betraying their voters.
In my opinion, either government (including this one) will/would collapse within six months, to the benefit of the opposition in new elections.
I predict in 6 months, the Con-Lib coalition will collapse and Labour will win the new election due to having a new leader and pick up lapsed Labour voters due to losing the Brown as leader turn off, and Lib-Dem voters who feel utterly betrayed, or voted strategically in order to keep out the Tories in the first place.
Steven
I don’t entirely agree with the analysis. Having just rejected Labour I doubt the electorate will re-elect them without giving the new Government a fair chance – fair play and all that. So if the Con/LibDem (some wag called it ConDem) coalition colapses within a short time it’s likely a Tory majority would emerge as long as DC isn’t seen to be at fault. On the other hand, in a couple of years the picture will be different. There will be plenty of gripes with the new Government, the effect of spending cuts will be telling, Labour will have renewed itself under a new leader and the electorate will have largely forgotten its gripes with Labour.
I’m sure the Mail et al know this so expect them to try to bring about a fast collapse of the coalition with the blame largely attributed to the LibDems.
Brown’s sons look like great kids and seemed to put a spring in his step as he left the scene. I wish the Browns well. How long before we start wishing he was still PM?
Whatever happens I expect this will mark a sharp reduction in LibDem tactical support in England and a disaster for them in Scotland in particular and Wales maybe slightly less so.
I guess it depends how much they can be seen to moderate the worst of the tory instincts.
I see they failed to stop that oily creep Osborne becoming CoE.
Electoral reform will be interesting – and maybe it’ll work out like the old saw about Nixon & China.
Maybe it’ll be something that only ever gets accepted by the right-wing in the UK if the torys do it.
Labour can now go off and rebuild – and with the LibDem moves expect a boost whenever the next election comes.
I suspect Cameron & Co. will find a way to call an election (regardless of what they say to the LDs on a fixed term/terms) within the next 12 – 24mths, in which case Lbour may well do very well – especially in Mervyn Kings comments prove true – “election victor will be out of power for a generation”.
I have no idea, but – having a replica Mirror from 23 November, 1963, the day of the first Doctor Who episode ever (also some American king being stabbed or something…) – I can tell you that they only used two dots for an ellipsis in the sixties, too.
People who think this coalition government will collapse within months is living in a fantasy world. They are here for the entire parliament, and we must learn to live with it.
The coalition will not collapse this year, or within twelve months. Nor, though, is it likely that such a diverse group can last until 2015 in the same form. A few tricky by-election decisions will arise; for example, should Glenda Jackson (aged 74) die, where she has a majority of only 42 over the Tories, but where the Lib Dems are still within 900 votes and came second in 2005, which coalition partner stands aside? What happens when spending cuts attack a cherishedLib Dem manifesto committment?
It’s in nobody’s interests to rock the boat just yet, but if the bulk of LD MPs get the clear message from resignation of activists and collapsing poll ratings (may not happen, but I suspect it will) that their alliance with the forces of darkness has been political suicide, then they will feel the need to widen the gap in order to avoid annihilation.
You may be right Neville, but a lot of pundits have come unstuck this week.
Check out the Mail’s columnists over the past week:
Brown will never resign.
Clegg will desert the tories for his fellow lefties.
Conservatives will be frozen out.
Markets will crash.
These writers claim knowledge and in some cases expertise. Their consecutive failures to understand the situation leads me to conclude..
I actually side with Steve. Phil’s point stands up, if the party are popular in the first place.
If a party gets a majority, and has a popularity, the electorate have put their faith in them, and are prepared to give them a fair chance to see what they can do.
Tories have no natural popularity. And they are on a very short leash.
If a party the voters didn’t like anyway, turns out to be as bad as they suspected, they will be out very quickly.
I’m a Labour party member, and I assure you, other than winning a majority, this is the best we could have hoped for.
And it’s the very reason we declined to give the Libs the offer they wanted.
Lib Dem vote will be destroyed by the time this finishes. People vote for them for the same reason they vote Labour.
They expect them to oppose the tories in parliament on their behalf.
Lib Dems can no longer be trusted to live up to their primary function. And it’s a massive gaffe by Clegg, in the long term.
No progressive voter will ever feel comfortable voting Lib Dem again. Because, if it’s close, they could well back the tories.
No Tory voter will ever feel comfortable voting Lib Dem again. As they know full well the could potentially prop up Labour as well.
This will produce real tribal voting patterns for a decade or so.
The Libs NEEDED to try to form a deal with Labour. And if that wasn’t possible, step aside, and form an opposition with them.
That’s their core vote.
Labour have 255 seats, and 30% of the electorate with Gordon Brown. Their support is very resiliant and strong.
Add in David Milliband, and it immediately jumps to to 35% in my opinion.
A messy Lib/Tory coalition, and it could possibly push 38-40%.
I assure you, Labour will win at least 300 seats at the next election.
I see an interesting pattern where the proportion of words verses pictures on a front page is generally proprotional to the quality of the publication.
I think the issue people forget when discussing the longevity of the ConDems is that it is completely dependent on the Lib Dems for legitimacy, and the Lib Dem’s voters are completely up ina rms over this. I haven’t met a single Lib Dem voter happy with this, many are furious, and Facebook especially is on fire over this.
The Lib Dems only did this to try to gain the AV system to get them more seats at the next election, but if they realise their core support will be decimated by this (progressives and Scots especially will never vote for them in a generation) they will be forced to pull out, and a minority government, the Tories will be forced to call new elections as their own hypocritical arguments about ‘democratic legitimacy’ will return to haunt them.
Labour will be revitalised by a new leader (a huge amount of voters could not bring themselves to vote for Brown) and they’ll pick up huge amounts of dissaffected Lib Dem votes and edge past the Tories.
Unfortunately, “a minority government, the Tories will be forced to call new elections as their own hypocritical arguments about ‘democratic legitimacy’ will return to haunt them” cannot now happen, as today the rules on votes of confidence were changed, so that the opposition only wins if it receives 55% of the vote; what this means is that a party with 293 or more MPs is safe for the duration of Parliament. Cameron has also decreed that the next election will not be until May 2015.
Thus, in the absence of mass Tory defections or a truly astonishing set of by-elections, we’re precluded from voting again for five years, even when the coalition goes tits-up.
Try as they might portray it that way the simple truth is that the national mood was in no way similar to 1997.
Yes the press did their best to whip up that mood but most people I ever talked to or saw simply talked about Brown’s Gov as tired and lacking clear ideas as to what to do next.
People kind of thought Labour’s time was probably up but I just didn’t get the feeling I recall in 1997.
There simply wasn’t (aside from those usual tory press circles & the tory fanclub, the sort who just couldn’t understand why Labour kept winning in ‘01 & ‘05) the sheer dislike and obvious mood to eject the Gov in the way there was in 1997.
That’s why I can easily see them bounce back, interestingly Labour’s bedrock support turned out to be 30%, even with the terrible economic situation (which surprisingly people it turned out do not entirely blame the Labour Gov for, and quite rightly in my view) and despite after all the constant press attacks and the supposed vital new leaders in both tory & LibDem partys.
No matter how they try and rig it I think that first of all a succession of votes of no confidence would make the tory & LibDem partys a public laughing stock and secondly this assumes LibDems do not end up wavering & refusing to act on their conscience; I don’t see that myself.
Mind you, that sort of move is exactly the sort of undemocratic stunt I expected from the party of the likes of brattish oily twerps like Osborne.
Voice of Reason – It’d be very easy to get a vote of no confidence if the Lib Dems defect as that’d give them both 315 seats, which is my point. More as the SNP would join in too.
If the Lib Dems base utterly reject their party’s decision to parter the Tories (as seems very likely) it won’t be enough to just abandon the coalition, but they’ll be compelled to force the Tories to call new elections to abate the anger.
“Mind you, that sort of move is exactly the sort of undemocratic stunt I expected from the party of the likes of brattish oily twerps like Osborne.”
Exactly. Complain about Labour being undemocratic (despite being perfectly entitled to form a coalition under our system) then move the fucking goalposts 100 miles the day you get in.
Nick Clegg is either very smart or very stupid. I can’t work out which yet. He certainly will have alienated many of the lib dem supporters at the moment, but he might be clever enough and charming enough to win many back. If he can be seen to be a force of good in the coalition – reigning in the torie’s worst excesses – it could be good for him. if he can’t he can always claim that the tories never really wanted ‘a stable goverment for the good of the country’ but only wanted power at any cost and he could then claim the moral high ground. Meanwhile Labour can regroup and watch the ConDems struggle with the shite economic situation the world is in at the moment. Whatever happens I reckon this has not been a bad result for Labour (so long as they don’t end up with a leader called Balls. Imagine what the Fail could do with that! Change your name, Ed)
Steven: If the Lib Dems abandon the coalition and vote against the Tories in a vote of confidence, with 306 MPs the Tories still have 47%. Paragraph 6 of the text of the agreement states -
“Following this motion, legislation will be brought forward to make provision for fixed term parliaments of five years. This legislation will also provide for dissolution if 55% or more of the House votes in favour.”
Even if the Tories lose the delayed poll in Thirsk, and Labour, the Lib Dems, SNP, PC, SDLP, DUP , Alliance and Green MPs all vote together, they only have 338, or 52%.
Once the Bill is passed, the Conservatives CANNOT be voted out of office.
why don’t we all reserve judgement on this government until they put some policies into effect? I mean, by ConDem-ing (see what i did there?) them outright before they’ve even DONE anything aren’t we just acting in the same petty, partisan way the DM and DE do?
Joe, how happy would you have been if Brown had been the one rigging the rules with this 55% cr@p?
Since when was it ok to ensure (technically at least if not practically) that you cannot face and lose a vote of no confidence and not face the exact same consequences every Gov post-war has?
I get the feeling the ‘ZanuLab’ faction would have screamed the place down with their cries of the end of democracy, tyranny and dictatorship.
Well fuck me, that IS a grim day for democracy that a minority party can’t be removed, and extremely telling about the Tory lust for power that this is the first bit of legislation they’re looking to bring in.
That said though, if people protest enough and the opposition (together having a majority) block enough legislation, even though legally they aren’t forced to, they’ll be compelled by popular (and media) opinion to call an election to stop the paralysis.
…as the Tory support relies on two things – fear, and promised prosperity. If the country’s going tits up due to nothing going through parliament, then people get poorer and they worry about the Tories, not who they’re demonising, and their support will evaporate, including, crucially, from the papers who only care about their bottom line.
As Mail Man says, there’s a difference between technical and practical, With this new lew, technically they can cling on, but practically, it doesn’t work like that.
Technically and legally, Gordon Brown could have formed a Lib/Lab coalition – look how that went down – the court of popular opinion killed it and forced Labour to walk away from it.
Some have commented that the coalition won’t collapse this year and I hope they’re right as I’d rather like to see the political reforms promised. However, I do think a collapse would be in the interests of some Tories as it would lead to an election in the Autumn which I think the Tories (like it or not) would win as a new Government carries a lot of good will in the early days. Next year the Labour party will have recovered from its defeat and spending cuts will be causing a lot of trouble for the Government so the election would be less of a walkover.
The scenario I see is attempts from disgruntled Tories making life difficult for LibDem ministers in an attempt to make them walk out giving Cameron little choice but to (blamelessly) call an election. I expect the Mail et al will be only too willing to join in this process.
Blimey. This must be important. The Star has relegated Jordan to the bottom left!
“dave new word”? bloody hell sun, you do realise you’re not meant to make the dystopia comparasons to the party you supported, right?
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by mailwatch. mailwatch said: Front Page: New PM Special: http://bit.ly/dq9lJl #media #dailymail [...]
Strangely the Star is also the only one that mentions the Lib Dems with any real prominence. Don’t they know they’re supposed to ignore them?
(oops, merk, you’ve put the torygraph up twice there)
Interestingly all the Tory papers are pleased Dave is in, but the excess is already starting to demand… sorry expect… things
Unless that is they think SamCam is the PM…
As headlines go though the “brokered Britian” has to be the best…
I get the impression that, like the rest of us, Dave doesn’t really fancy SamCam although he thinks he should.
The Mail front page makes me want to be sick.
I find it interesting how comments from the Lib Dems are now revealing that Labour essentially binned them off, and I think it was probably the best decision.
Essentially it was lose-lose. Either party that entered a coalition was on a hiding to nothing. Labour would be accused of stealing the election, and the Tories/Lib Dems of betraying their voters.
In my opinion, either government (including this one) will/would collapse within six months, to the benefit of the opposition in new elections.
I predict in 6 months, the Con-Lib coalition will collapse and Labour will win the new election due to having a new leader and pick up lapsed Labour voters due to losing the Brown as leader turn off, and Lib-Dem voters who feel utterly betrayed, or voted strategically in order to keep out the Tories in the first place.
Ade: “The Mail front page makes me want to be sick.”
I get that feeling most days.
Steven
I don’t entirely agree with the analysis. Having just rejected Labour I doubt the electorate will re-elect them without giving the new Government a fair chance – fair play and all that. So if the Con/LibDem (some wag called it ConDem) coalition colapses within a short time it’s likely a Tory majority would emerge as long as DC isn’t seen to be at fault. On the other hand, in a couple of years the picture will be different. There will be plenty of gripes with the new Government, the effect of spending cuts will be telling, Labour will have renewed itself under a new leader and the electorate will have largely forgotten its gripes with Labour.
I’m sure the Mail et al know this so expect them to try to bring about a fast collapse of the coalition with the blame largely attributed to the LibDems.
Brown’s sons look like great kids and seemed to put a spring in his step as he left the scene. I wish the Browns well. How long before we start wishing he was still PM?
Whatever happens I expect this will mark a sharp reduction in LibDem tactical support in England and a disaster for them in Scotland in particular and Wales maybe slightly less so.
I guess it depends how much they can be seen to moderate the worst of the tory instincts.
I see they failed to stop that oily creep Osborne becoming CoE.
Electoral reform will be interesting – and maybe it’ll work out like the old saw about Nixon & China.
Maybe it’ll be something that only ever gets accepted by the right-wing in the UK if the torys do it.
Labour can now go off and rebuild – and with the LibDem moves expect a boost whenever the next election comes.
I suspect Cameron & Co. will find a way to call an election (regardless of what they say to the LDs on a fixed term/terms) within the next 12 – 24mths, in which case Lbour may well do very well – especially in Mervyn Kings comments prove true – “election victor will be out of power for a generation”.
Why does the Mirror only use two dots when using an elipse?
@Ashleigh
I have no idea, but – having a replica Mirror from 23 November, 1963, the day of the first Doctor Who episode ever (also some American king being stabbed or something…) – I can tell you that they only used two dots for an ellipsis in the sixties, too.
People who think this coalition government will collapse within months is living in a fantasy world. They are here for the entire parliament, and we must learn to live with it.
The coalition will not collapse this year, or within twelve months. Nor, though, is it likely that such a diverse group can last until 2015 in the same form. A few tricky by-election decisions will arise; for example, should Glenda Jackson (aged 74) die, where she has a majority of only 42 over the Tories, but where the Lib Dems are still within 900 votes and came second in 2005, which coalition partner stands aside? What happens when spending cuts attack a cherishedLib Dem manifesto committment?
It’s in nobody’s interests to rock the boat just yet, but if the bulk of LD MPs get the clear message from resignation of activists and collapsing poll ratings (may not happen, but I suspect it will) that their alliance with the forces of darkness has been political suicide, then they will feel the need to widen the gap in order to avoid annihilation.
You may be right Neville, but a lot of pundits have come unstuck this week.
Check out the Mail’s columnists over the past week:
Brown will never resign.
Clegg will desert the tories for his fellow lefties.
Conservatives will be frozen out.
Markets will crash.
These writers claim knowledge and in some cases expertise. Their consecutive failures to understand the situation leads me to conclude..
They could make it up (See what I did there).
Phil/Steve
I actually side with Steve. Phil’s point stands up, if the party are popular in the first place.
If a party gets a majority, and has a popularity, the electorate have put their faith in them, and are prepared to give them a fair chance to see what they can do.
Tories have no natural popularity. And they are on a very short leash.
If a party the voters didn’t like anyway, turns out to be as bad as they suspected, they will be out very quickly.
I’m a Labour party member, and I assure you, other than winning a majority, this is the best we could have hoped for.
And it’s the very reason we declined to give the Libs the offer they wanted.
Lib Dem vote will be destroyed by the time this finishes. People vote for them for the same reason they vote Labour.
They expect them to oppose the tories in parliament on their behalf.
Lib Dems can no longer be trusted to live up to their primary function. And it’s a massive gaffe by Clegg, in the long term.
No progressive voter will ever feel comfortable voting Lib Dem again. Because, if it’s close, they could well back the tories.
No Tory voter will ever feel comfortable voting Lib Dem again. As they know full well the could potentially prop up Labour as well.
This will produce real tribal voting patterns for a decade or so.
The Libs NEEDED to try to form a deal with Labour. And if that wasn’t possible, step aside, and form an opposition with them.
That’s their core vote.
Labour have 255 seats, and 30% of the electorate with Gordon Brown. Their support is very resiliant and strong.
Add in David Milliband, and it immediately jumps to to 35% in my opinion.
A messy Lib/Tory coalition, and it could possibly push 38-40%.
I assure you, Labour will win at least 300 seats at the next election.
Lib Dems could well be decimated.
Labour will win a majority
Mail Man
Lib Dem support is completely finished in Scotland. As in, they will lose all of their seats there, come the election.
Wales, they will lose most of their seats, I suspect.
May hold up OK in the West Country, as it’s a none-labour area anyway.
I suspect, they will lose around 25 seats minimum at the next election.
Hopefully the coalition will collapse once Scottish voters desert the Lib Dems at next years Holyrood elections.
We didn’t vote for a party that’s gets into bed with friends of “nutters and fascists” as…er … Nick Clegg said a few weeks ago.
Quentin Letts article in today’s newspaper is amusing, if you want to read a bit of bitterness.
He’s going on about Cameron’s night. And how there wasn’t much love from the crowds.
He puts it down to:
1: Gordon Brown arrogantly holding out for 5 days, robbing him of his Blair moment
2: Blair’s welcome was completely stage managed, and fake anyway.
My main problems being, nearly 300′000 people turned up to welcome Tony. 300′000 people.
That’s a lot of “stage management!”
Call me cynical. but I suspect 300′000 cheering people turned up for Blair as 44% of the country voted for him. All of whom wanted him there.
Cameron got booed, as only 36% voted for him, and 50% of those only did so, as they just wanted Brown out!
I see an interesting pattern where the proportion of words verses pictures on a front page is generally proprotional to the quality of the publication.
As somebody has pointed out on another board, this coalition could be called “ConDems”.
I think the issue people forget when discussing the longevity of the ConDems is that it is completely dependent on the Lib Dems for legitimacy, and the Lib Dem’s voters are completely up ina rms over this. I haven’t met a single Lib Dem voter happy with this, many are furious, and Facebook especially is on fire over this.
The Lib Dems only did this to try to gain the AV system to get them more seats at the next election, but if they realise their core support will be decimated by this (progressives and Scots especially will never vote for them in a generation) they will be forced to pull out, and a minority government, the Tories will be forced to call new elections as their own hypocritical arguments about ‘democratic legitimacy’ will return to haunt them.
Labour will be revitalised by a new leader (a huge amount of voters could not bring themselves to vote for Brown) and they’ll pick up huge amounts of dissaffected Lib Dem votes and edge past the Tories.
Steven:
Unfortunately, “a minority government, the Tories will be forced to call new elections as their own hypocritical arguments about ‘democratic legitimacy’ will return to haunt them” cannot now happen, as today the rules on votes of confidence were changed, so that the opposition only wins if it receives 55% of the vote; what this means is that a party with 293 or more MPs is safe for the duration of Parliament. Cameron has also decreed that the next election will not be until May 2015.
Thus, in the absence of mass Tory defections or a truly astonishing set of by-elections, we’re precluded from voting again for five years, even when the coalition goes tits-up.
Chris
Try as they might portray it that way the simple truth is that the national mood was in no way similar to 1997.
Yes the press did their best to whip up that mood but most people I ever talked to or saw simply talked about Brown’s Gov as tired and lacking clear ideas as to what to do next.
People kind of thought Labour’s time was probably up but I just didn’t get the feeling I recall in 1997.
There simply wasn’t (aside from those usual tory press circles & the tory fanclub, the sort who just couldn’t understand why Labour kept winning in ‘01 & ‘05) the sheer dislike and obvious mood to eject the Gov in the way there was in 1997.
That’s why I can easily see them bounce back, interestingly Labour’s bedrock support turned out to be 30%, even with the terrible economic situation (which surprisingly people it turned out do not entirely blame the Labour Gov for, and quite rightly in my view) and despite after all the constant press attacks and the supposed vital new leaders in both tory & LibDem partys.
tvor
No matter how they try and rig it I think that first of all a succession of votes of no confidence would make the tory & LibDem partys a public laughing stock and secondly this assumes LibDems do not end up wavering & refusing to act on their conscience; I don’t see that myself.
Mind you, that sort of move is exactly the sort of undemocratic stunt I expected from the party of the likes of brattish oily twerps like Osborne.
Voice of Reason – It’d be very easy to get a vote of no confidence if the Lib Dems defect as that’d give them both 315 seats, which is my point. More as the SNP would join in too.
If the Lib Dems base utterly reject their party’s decision to parter the Tories (as seems very likely) it won’t be enough to just abandon the coalition, but they’ll be compelled to force the Tories to call new elections to abate the anger.
“Mind you, that sort of move is exactly the sort of undemocratic stunt I expected from the party of the likes of brattish oily twerps like Osborne.”
Exactly. Complain about Labour being undemocratic (despite being perfectly entitled to form a coalition under our system) then move the fucking goalposts 100 miles the day you get in.
Classic Tory lying, hypocritical fucks.
Nick Clegg is either very smart or very stupid. I can’t work out which yet. He certainly will have alienated many of the lib dem supporters at the moment, but he might be clever enough and charming enough to win many back. If he can be seen to be a force of good in the coalition – reigning in the torie’s worst excesses – it could be good for him. if he can’t he can always claim that the tories never really wanted ‘a stable goverment for the good of the country’ but only wanted power at any cost and he could then claim the moral high ground. Meanwhile Labour can regroup and watch the ConDems struggle with the shite economic situation the world is in at the moment. Whatever happens I reckon this has not been a bad result for Labour (so long as they don’t end up with a leader called Balls. Imagine what the Fail could do with that! Change your name, Ed)
whoops, just re-read my comment. I meant ‘reining-in the tory’s worst excesses’
Minus-points for grammar and spelling.
Steven: If the Lib Dems abandon the coalition and vote against the Tories in a vote of confidence, with 306 MPs the Tories still have 47%. Paragraph 6 of the text of the agreement states -
“Following this motion, legislation will be brought forward to make provision for fixed term parliaments of five years. This legislation will also provide for dissolution if 55% or more of the House votes in favour.”
Even if the Tories lose the delayed poll in Thirsk, and Labour, the Lib Dems, SNP, PC, SDLP, DUP , Alliance and Green MPs all vote together, they only have 338, or 52%.
Once the Bill is passed, the Conservatives CANNOT be voted out of office.
why don’t we all reserve judgement on this government until they put some policies into effect? I mean, by ConDem-ing (see what i did there?) them outright before they’ve even DONE anything aren’t we just acting in the same petty, partisan way the DM and DE do?
Joe, how happy would you have been if Brown had been the one rigging the rules with this 55% cr@p?
Since when was it ok to ensure (technically at least if not practically) that you cannot face and lose a vote of no confidence and not face the exact same consequences every Gov post-war has?
I get the feeling the ‘ZanuLab’ faction would have screamed the place down with their cries of the end of democracy, tyranny and dictatorship.
Come on, be honest about it?
Ahh, I get you now.
Well fuck me, that IS a grim day for democracy that a minority party can’t be removed, and extremely telling about the Tory lust for power that this is the first bit of legislation they’re looking to bring in.
That said though, if people protest enough and the opposition (together having a majority) block enough legislation, even though legally they aren’t forced to, they’ll be compelled by popular (and media) opinion to call an election to stop the paralysis.
…as the Tory support relies on two things – fear, and promised prosperity. If the country’s going tits up due to nothing going through parliament, then people get poorer and they worry about the Tories, not who they’re demonising, and their support will evaporate, including, crucially, from the papers who only care about their bottom line.
As Mail Man says, there’s a difference between technical and practical, With this new lew, technically they can cling on, but practically, it doesn’t work like that.
Technically and legally, Gordon Brown could have formed a Lib/Lab coalition – look how that went down – the court of popular opinion killed it and forced Labour to walk away from it.
Some have commented that the coalition won’t collapse this year and I hope they’re right as I’d rather like to see the political reforms promised. However, I do think a collapse would be in the interests of some Tories as it would lead to an election in the Autumn which I think the Tories (like it or not) would win as a new Government carries a lot of good will in the early days. Next year the Labour party will have recovered from its defeat and spending cuts will be causing a lot of trouble for the Government so the election would be less of a walkover.
The scenario I see is attempts from disgruntled Tories making life difficult for LibDem ministers in an attempt to make them walk out giving Cameron little choice but to (blamelessly) call an election. I expect the Mail et al will be only too willing to join in this process.
Shock, horror! There’s a Muslim in the new cabinet (Baroness Sayeeda Warsi). No doubt she’s busy “crowding out” the “English” cabinet members.
@Chris
‘44% of the country voted for him. All of whom wanted him there.
Cameron got booed, as only 36% voted for him, and 50% of those only did so, as they just wanted Brown out!’
Wow, that’s quite a lot of assumption. You should work for the Mail.
matthew:”I wish the Browns well. How long before we start wishing he was still PM?”
Not long matt, not long.
When the people realise what an utter moron Osbourne is.