The Staggers: Hung Parliament

Nick Clegg made few references to the Conservatives in his speech yesterday, other than to praise David Cameron for helping to build a "new kind of politics".

But there was also a little-noticed dig at the Tories' election campaign. While discussing the "new politics", Clegg declared:

Never again will anyone be able to frighten the voters by claiming that coalition government doesn't work.

That was a thinly veiled attack on the Tories' ... read more

A new ComRes poll in this morning's Independent has the Tories on 37 per cent (-1), Labour on 33 per cent (-1) and the Liberal Democrats on 21 per cent (-1). So not much change there.

But much more interesting, as ConservativeHome's Jonathan Isaby points out, are the supplementary questions on electoral reform and hung parliaments.

An impressive 78 per cent of ... read more

When, aged 16 in 1988, I got up to deliver Focus leaflets at 6am, went out canvassing voters during the dark days after the SDP-Liberal merger and found myself dealing with the continuing Owenite SDP in by-elections in Epping and Vauxhall, or even -- most embarrassingly -- when I stood on the back of battle buses (well, open-topped vans), urging the electorate through a loudhailer to "go for gold", the ... read more

With the possible exception of his Sky News counterpart, Adam Boulton, the BBC's political editor, Nick Robinson, looked like the most shocked man in Britain following Gordon Brown's Downing Street announcement yesterday afternoon.

"Audacious" was the word Robinson used on the television and on his blog, but you suspected something stronger was going through his mind. Since last Friday, Robinson has barely deviated from a line that has David ... read more

Until recently, we have all assumed that there are four possible outcomes of the current talks: a Lab-Lib coalition, a Con-Lib coalition, a "confidence and supply" arrangement beween the Tories and the Lib Dems, and a minority Conservative government.

We can now remove the last of those options from the list. George Osborne has just become the first senior Tory to rule out a minority government.

In an  read more

Following Gordon Brown's extraordinary, game-changing statement, here is a guide to how a progressive alliance could be constructed. Bear in mind that as Sinn Féin's five MPs refuse to take their Commons seats, a government needs 321 seats for a de facto majority in the House.

Labour: 258 seats

Liberal Democrats: 57 seats

Social Democratic Labour Party: 3 seats (Labour's Northern Irish sister party)

The Alliance Party: 1 ... read more

Gordon Brown, 5pm, Monday 10 May 2010:

We have a parliamentary and not presidential system in this country, and as I said on Friday, with no party able to command a parliamentary majority arising from the general election, my constitutional duty as Prime Minister is to ensure that government continues while parties explore options for forming a new administration with majority support in the House of Commons.

The business of government has ... read more

Most Conservative MPs are reluctant backers of what they see as a grubby deal with the Liberal Democrats when they should be enjoying unfettered power, but none has put the dilemma they face better than this:

We feel the hand of history on our gonads, squeezing very hard.

The line comes courtesy of Gary Gibbon, who reports that senior Tories think an informal agreement (not a coalition) ... read more

This is the interview that catapulted the Sky News anchor Kay Burley to the top of Twitter's trending topics -- not a moment to celebrate, perhaps. Burley was interviewing David Babbs of the campaign group 38 Degrees, one of the people behind yesterday's protest calling on Nick Clegg to deliver on his promise for electoral reform.

Many viewers complained that Burley, who at one stage ... read more

A demonstration today brought together a range of democratic reform groups, blogs, campaigns and organisations at the instigation of Guy Aitchison, George Gabriel and others. It gathered in Trafalgar Square and then marched to Smith Square, where the Lib Dems were meeting to decide on their strategy.

Word went out that a delegation could go and meet Nick Clegg to hand in a petition. Over 1,000 ... read more

Nothing better demonstrates the unfairness of our electoral system than these three charts, all based on the results of the 6 May election:

It should be noted that things are not as bad as they once were. As John Cleese reminds us (courtesy of this archive clip), when the Social Democratic Party/Liberal alliance got 26 per ... read more

The BBC reports that Gordon Brown "delivered a diatribe laced with threats" when he spoke to Nick Clegg last night by phone.

The Liberal Democrat source added that this was in contrast to "the respectful and constructive talks" between Clegg and David Cameron.

Clegg has expressed frustration with Brown's negotiating style before, most notably after the cross-party talks on MPs' expenses in June. It was Brown's obstinate ... read more