UK election update

Different views apparent in the UK press as the day comes to a close:

The Scotsman has already concluded "Liberal Democrats to hand power to David Cameron"

But the article makes clear that the results aren't quite that certain yet.

A Times analyst concludes that a Tory minority government is still the most likely outcome

The Mail sees Tories and LibDems inching closer to a deal

while the Torygraph isn't quite so sure just citing "positive and productive" quote from the two sides, which is politicianspeak for "we have nothing substantive to say"

which is about what the BBC seems to have heard

The Guardian says that talks are breaking up, but it turns out they just mean for the evening...

The Independent covers all the bases by noting that Clegg is being urged by his party to break off talks with Cameron over Tory refusal to budge on PR as it assures us that Brown battles on and asks Cameron how and why he failed so signally to win outright, given all the factors in his favour.

All in all, the news seems to be "no news" for now.

one further comment

OK, I take it back.

I told the Globetrotter the other evening that I thought that even if Labour managed to get the LDP and some of the smaller parties into a coalition, they couldn't make it up to a majority.

I *think* that Labour + LDP + SDLP + SNP & Plaid Cymru would just barely squeak over the threshold. In the unlikely event they could all come together.

But I think that will be the only way that the LDP gets serious electoral reform; I think Clegg is having to decide at this point if accomplishing some of their other goals and a limited, Tory-flavoured version of ER is worth getting into bed with the Devil.

Frankly, I hope he doesn't. I think a Conservative government would be disastrous for the country right now.

On the other hand, whoever takes the country through the next couple of years will be about as popular as Harold Wilson. Maybe it's better to let the Conservatives have the poisoned chalice...

(no subject)

Interesting comment by Baroness Williams of Crosby, a senior member of the LDP in the House of Lords (and (a) former Labour MP and (b) _daughter_ of Vera Brittain--who, I don't know about you, but I had to read again and again in every bloody class about WWI or women's studies)

from the Grauniad

Williams was particularly concerned that there has so far been no talk of securing the composition of the United [K]ingdom. She said: "I am very concerned that preventing the break-up of the union has played no part in the negotiation between the Tories and Lib Dems.

"The Tory party made no gains to speak of in Scotland in this election … and recently, the Tories have been talking almost entirely about England. My sense is that negotiations cannot conclude without it being made clear how to keep the nation together, because if we do make a deal with the Tories, we are handing Scotland to the SNP on a plate."

Nice that someone is noticing and thinking about this...