Clegg The Kingmaker

As was predicted this has been a tight election and no party has gained an overall majority. The Conservatives secured the most votes but will be disappointed nonetheless, despite their talks of success, given the party’s high approval rating even a few months back.

However there have been some surprising results. Labour has been criticised for performing badly but personally I think this is a huge success story for Labour, bearing in mind that last year the Conservatives were miles ahead in the polls and some pundits were claiming that we could see Labour lose power for a generation. Instead, although 48 seats behind the Conservatives, they have a chance of clinging on to power if they can make a deal with the Liberal Democrats, which has already been dubbed a “Coalition of Losers”.

The other big surprise was a loss in votes for the Liberal Democrats despite a recent surge in the polls. Nevertheless because of the Conservatives failure to win an outright majority they have turned out to be the kingmakers in this election. Nick Clegg now has a difficult choice of who to support to form a government.

David Cameron has been trying to woo Nick Clegg much to the dismay of many members of the Conservative Party. A Conservative-Lib Dem coalition seems to be the option the media thinks most likely. However I’d be amazed if an agreement was reached. The key issue the Lib Dems would want in a coalition is a referendum on the voting system, but  the Conservatives would never allow that given that it favours both Labour and the Lib Dems. On other key issues like Europe there are vast differences between the parties and it would show how desperate Cameron is for power if he sacrifices some of his party’s key issues to the Lib Dems. Nick Clegg for his part would alienate many of his own voters who are anti-Conservative.

Clegg would have problems if he supported the Labour Party as well. After all his talk of change he will not want to be seen to be propping up a failed and unpopular government. However the party is much more in tune with the Lib Dems and have already spent the best part of a day promising the Lib Dems a referendum on the Proportional Representation system they so desperately want.

So I believe the most likely result is that talks fail between Cameron and Clegg and they turn instead to the Labour party for a coalition. This would most likely come with a demand for Brown’s resignation so that they can justify it as “change”. But this would leave us with a second consecutive unelected Labour Prime Minister.

We are going to see an interesting couple of days, with the media speculating on what’s going on in the Leaders’ private talks. Voters will have to wait at least a few days if not weeks before they know whether it will be a Labour or Conservative coalition running the country. Either way, any deal will likely prove unstable and we could see another election before the end of the year.