Waking Up to a Massive Election - Part II

Sorry for the pause.

Where was I? Oh yes:

The day(s)

May 6th was run with all the competence you'd expect of a banana republic holding it's first election, not the cradle of parliamentary democracy. I'm not one to judge anyone when it comes to administration, though, so let's move on. Turnout, at about 65%, was slightly up from last time, but fell well short of the 70% the more optimistic analysts were predicting. Would (relatively speaking) so many people have bothered if we hadn't had a) the debates, b) a supposedly "viable" third party to vote for and c) a hung parliament? I doubt it. I think we were heading for a record-breakingly low turnout. Maybe I'm wrong, though. It has been known.

I stayed up to watch until about 1am, but it became clear at that point that nothing was going to be decided soon. In fact, it wasn't decided for several days. Parliament was hung, as we all know, and the three main parties began schmoozing each other in earnest, trying to find a majority. In the end, the Lib Dems got into bed with the Tories, giving them a majority of the seats in the Commons. I have to say, I found the wheeling-dealing fascinating to "watch". I say watch, but I really mean wait outside a room furiously speculating about what's going on inside until the door opens and a man in a suit tells you how you're going to be ruled for the next 5 years. It wasn't supposed to be like this. In this hyper-democratic age, of Twitter, Google and Wikipedia, we aren't supposed to find this sort of thing interesting anymore. But we (or at least I) did, I have to admit.

Anyway, the negotiations swung hither and thither (we think), but as I said above, the end result was some kind of bastard Clameron, Cleggaron, Libcon, Con-dem-nation arrangement, where the Tories dropped the nasty stuff from their manifesto, picked up the choicest (cheapest and most popular) bits of the Libs' manifesto, gave a few cabinet seats and promised to stop being mean and talking over Nick Clegg at PMQs, and got the majority they were looking for. Some people have said since that this coalition was actually preferable to Cameron than getting a narrow Tory majority of his very own, as this way he gets to rout the right wing of his party and bolster the liberal side that he possibly mistakenly sees himself on. If that's right, it could be great, as we'll see a much less nasty Tory party, but it'll be awful for the Labour party, as the centre ground is claimed for the blues, possibly permanently.

I've heard plenty of people since the agreement was made calling Nick Clegg a "sell out", for getting into bed with the Tories. I've also heard people say that the Tories conceded too much to the Libs in the negotiations. I think both accusations are nonsense, to be honest. I really can't see that Clegg had any option but to go with the Tories. He'd been saying all through the campaign that he'd support the party with the most seats and votes and, well, here it was. He couldn't really go back on himself. A Lib-Lab coalition would have looked like a coup d'etat, basically. Additionally, the maths wasn't there for Lib-Lab. They would have needed every single rebellious backbencher to walk in lockstep with the party leadership, as well as the single, solitary Green member and a ragbag of assorted nationalists. It wasn't going to happen.

And I'm glad, truthfully. Not that the Tories are in government - that's a bit of a blow - but if you'd offered me Labour out (I really do think they deserved the kicking they got for so many of the decisions they made over the last 10 years), a liberal voice in government, some (if not all - the Libs just didn't have enough votes or seats to demand PR) political reform and coalition (weak) government a few months ago, I'd have snapped your hand off. Let's see how this one goes.