That's it! We now have a decision!
Gordon Brown has just this minute resigned, and, as I write this, is heading to Buckingham Palace to tender his resignation to the Queen. UPDATE at 2050: it has all now happened, and David Cameron is now confirmed as Prime Minister.
There is already a short Downfall excerpt for this...
So it's to be a full, formal coalition rather than an informal one or a mere "arrangement", with either five or six Cabinet posts for Liberal Democrats. That last seems excessive, and half that number would seem to have been more appropriate.
Never mind: I wasn't in the negotiations so don't know what happened or why. We are where we are, and at last we have a workable majority government by coalition.
It is not really a surprise to me that the talks between the Liberal Democrats and Labour failed. Apparently they "hardly got off the ground", to quote Sky News' Adam Boulton. The Lib Dems later issued a statement to the effect that Labour "never took the business of power-sharing seriously."
It really wasn't going to be workable, and there would have been too many often-dissenting factions within a five-way (or more!) coalition. The Lib Dems would want to be more in control than that, having presumably agreed some manifesto policies with the dominant party during their negotiations. I gather that Ed Balls was not very helpful either, as a member of Labour's negotiating team...
Rumours and other noises are emerging regarding who is going to get which Cabinet post; and which policies are to be kept from each side, and which are to be dumped. I shan't put anything here on these matters, and wait for official confirmation of what has been agreed.
It feels like Britain is about to awake from a 13 year coma.
ReplyDeleteThat's a good way of looking at it. Yes, it is rather like that!
ReplyDeleteJust hope putting things right doesn't mean Labour get back in after the next election. No-ones going to like the medicine that's coming our way.
ReplyDeleteIndeed: and we are all going to have to watch for risks of that.
ReplyDeleteThe trick is to get all the worst stuff out of the way fairly early, though not all at once.
That strategy will show benefits by the time of the next election, by which time it should also be possible to reduce the "pain factor" somewhat.