Hung Parliament?

By Michael J.W. Stickings

The latest from the BBC:

The Conservatives are on course to be the largest party in a hung parliament, after nearly 400 election results.

Tory leader David Cameron said it was "clear that the Labour government has lost its mandate to govern".

The Lib Dem vote was up 0.9% on 2005 and Labour down 6.4% after 399 results. The Conservatives are up 3.9%.

Although Labour are set to lose over 90 MPs, Gordon Brown said he wanted to play a part in the UK "having a strong, stable and principled government".

Downing Street says the Labour leader, re-elected in Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath, will try to form a coalition in the event of a hung Parliament.

But shadow foreign secretary William Hague says any attempt by Brown at securing a pact with Lib Dems "would be a shameless piece of politics".

Well, no. Presumably the Queen would ask Cameron first if he could form a government, but he'd only be able to form one with minority support in the House of Commons. If Brown could successfully put together a coalition with the LibDems, perhaps by agreeing to a national referendum on electoral reform (as the LibDems want the country to adopt a proportional representation system for elections to Westminster), among other things, he could make the case that he has the support of a majority of MPs and is therefore in a position to form a stable government. (If Cameron were to form a minority government, a Labour-LibDem coalition could defeat it on any confidence vote, forcing another election.)

But this is all just talk right now. Of course Brown is talking as if he could form a coalition government. What else is he to say? He can't give up -- not yet. I just wonder if the LibDems are prepared to sign on to Labour for the long run, or if they'd not rather sit back, let Cameron govern for a time, and try to build on their fairly strong support for the next election. I also wonder if Labour really wants Brown to remain in power, particularly at the head of a coalition government. Surely much of the party would rather just move on, even in defeat, putting the Blair-Brown years behind it and moving forward under new leadership.

We shall see. At it stands right now, Labour and the LibDems don't even have enough seats collectively to overcome the Tories. It's 213-157-33.