7th May 2010
The Result?
I feel like I’ve gorged on the aftermath today.
I drove up to Rugby this morning, listening to the Today programme and then BBC Radio Five Live. After my meeting, I drove home to more of Five Live, mostly Peter Allen having fascinating and surreal conversations with pundits, politicians and passers by on College Green at Westminster — the best being his exchange with John Pienaar during which he complained that the Five Live political correspondent was gesticulating too aggressively with his ice lolly.
The exit polls, although dismissed at the outset last night, turned out to be completely accurate, predicting the Tory lead with no overall majority, the resilient second place for Labour and the deflated return on Cleggmania for the Liberal Democrats. It predicted what we’ve all imagined for the last few weeks: a Hung Parliament.
The outcome? Nick “I’m not the Kingmaker” Clegg has become the Kingmaker, announcing this morning that in his view it was Cameron, not the constitutionally enabled Prime Minister, who would get first dibs on forming a government. As soon as he said this Brown was effectively sidelined, left to play statesman Prime Minister, guiding the ship while the crew argued about the map.
Very soon after, the oily Cameron took to his podium to explain to Clegg, the Liberal Democrats, the Conservative Party and the country, why his party and the Liberal Democrats would make an awesome partnership of stable government “in the national interest”.
So as I write they are meeting behind closed doors and I wonder whether they’re hoping to agree some arrangement in time for the 10 o’clock news, thereby forcing the Prime Minister’s resignation and a change of guard in time for the financial markets opening on Monday.
Am I right? I was right to predict that Clegg would have no problem forging a relationship with the Tories and that’s why I, dear reader, voted Labour.
