Nick Clegg gives the Tories the go-ahead

Billy Blofeld

Well done Clegg. The Labour Party will prove to be a difficult cancer to remove from the nations body.

Like any tricky disease Mandelson has already started to mutate with his hint that they'll ditch Brown.

Mandelson would love to be puppet master in a Lib / Lab coalition - Mandelson just wants to deliver "change he can deceive in".

Together Clegg and Call-Me-Dave must purge Labour.

Richard of York

LOL speccies you are really not listening are you.
Tories have to prove they can form a government in the national interest.
No MP's in Scotland or NI. Handful in Wales and it is very clear the policies the tories fought on are not acceptable ....£6b out of economy now will not happen and that puts OIk in a position he would have to change everything in his plan. PR is a fundemental and the tories could never deliver it.
The tories would fall at the Queens speech and that is not in the national interest.
Wake up and listen to what is actually being said not what you want to hear.

Happy Days!!!!!!

Nicholas Hallam

Encouraging thoughts here: http://www3.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2010/05/07/has-bunco-got-this-one-right-on-the-tories/

Cameron offers some PR system for the upper house, and to redraw commons constituency boundaries so that each has much the same number of electors. If Clegg balks at this and climbs into bed with Labour he won't look good.

Mario McMillan

Clegg looks like a man of integrity with this. We could do with more of that. Good on him.

Was it me or did Harriet Harman immediately disappear from the BBC studios during the Clegg crossover? That tells you all you need to know...

AndyinBrum

Richard, I know it's hard for you to grasp, but the public sector is not the economy. It's that thinking which has led us into the financial hole we're in

Mike, Brighton

Richard of York : Well the country isn't listening to Labour is it? You appear to have lost comprehensively and the Tories whilst not forming a majority taking 100 seats from you is an incredible result. Brown will be gone in a few days followed by your appalling party

Tim Carpenter LPUK

RoY ".£6b out of economy now will not happen"

It never could, because that meme you parrot is utter tripe and makes you out to be a fiscal incompetent.

Snowman

Peter, It may cheer Cameron and his batting team, but for the future of the country, and the fate of conservatism, it's a no go area.

Cameron must be stopped falling into this trap. The noble notion of the Tories that it’s their duty to have a go for the sake of the nation would be akin to Lord Gordon’s admirable but insane charge.

Let the two tribes of the spending phylum to embrace each other and perform the surgery, the time will come for the Tories to mop up the blood letting.

Hugh

If Clegg does support the Tories without insisting on a Lib Dem coalition and a referendum on voting reform it would prove he actually is different than the other politicians and "the two old parties". I'd be amazed.

Mark

Richard of York: "No MP's in Scotland or NI" - Isn't the constituency of Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale in Scotland?

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/scotland/article7113053.ece

Wilber Wilberforce

Richard of York.
I have been reading your childish posts for many months now, and to me you embody everything that is abhorrent about the malevolent scum that has ruined this country.

You will find your paymaster out of a job within a week and consigned to the rubbish heap of history.

You will then be able to plot,scheme and spin,blame others and rant at a new Government you can do nothing about, from the corner of whichever dingy socialist bar you frequent. And I shall laugh.

DownTrodden

While double Dick still spouts that rubbish about £6bn out of the economy (of course the temp VAT cut didn't take any money out, did it?) he may be write about Janus Clegg who could make an offer the Tories have to refuse just to give a semblance of his much loved fairness before embracing Les Cyclopes.

Andy

Richard,

The election is now over.

You can go back to your day job (although now Bruin's toast I suppose his trolls are too).

As you so rightly say (for once) 'Happy Days'

Paul Hawkins

Tim Carpenter

no need to worry, Ricardo of York is multi-skilled - he is incompetent in a wide range of areas

paulg

Richard you are right I want the conservatives to allow Scotland, NI and Wales to have PR as there system for election to Westminster. They can promise this in the first Queens speech.

But in England we have more pressing problems and FPTP should remain for the time being as the Lib-dems proposals have been thoroughly rejected.

See thats how consensus can work for all our advantage- we all get a little bit of something.

Happy days indeed.

Dickie

Would the Libs accept Boris as PM ?

Olaf Rye

It perhaps reflects the complete ignorance of fiscal matters by Labour supporters to make the argument that £6 billion being removed from the economy will jeopardise the 'recovery'. This reflects the interest on our DEBT for a few weeks and most of this is leaving the economy to pay foreign creditors. None of the parties have been honest about the scale of cuts necessary merely to control the deficit, much less begin reducing the debt. Once the cuts come into effect, whether done voluntarily or under duress by the IMF, I suspect another election will be necessary. Nonetheless, for now, let me quote from the music group 'Steam' in honour of Gordon Brown, the 'genius': 'Na na na na na na na, Hey-ey, goodbye !' (and good riddance).

Dirty Euro

Tory Mps think not what you can do for your country but what you can do for yourself. LOL LOL LOL

growupgetreal

Peter, I think you're misreading what he's up to here.
He's saying "right, Cameron can have first pop at a deal with us". Which he'll refuse. He can then team up with Labour, which is what he wants to do, and justify it by saying "well the Tories had their chance but couldn't put together a majority". Lab/Lib pact with cosy jobs for Nick and Vince. PR put in place. Game up for the Tories.
What a hideous and terrifying prospect.

Richard of York

@Wilber

And you represent everything the British people hate about the tories....elitist and purile.
Self serving and greedy people like you are loathed with a passion.......lol

Happy Days

Willie de Peepul

Richard of York
May 7th, 2010 11:49am

Yes, Wilber is one of the British people.
As are you.

Fergus Pickering

Lord Gordon? Do you mean Lord George Gordon who was mad and instigated the Gordon riots? Or perhaps General Gordon who was betrayed by Gladstone and died in Khartoum? Nope? Then you must mean Lord Cardigan, or Trevor Howard as he is sometimes known.

Wilber Wilberforce

@Richard
I work very hard for a living and yes I am fortunate, however I wish to see the country back on its uppers like seemingly more and more of the electorate.

I just do not wish to be lied to any longer, told what to do, watched, overtaxed, contribute my hard earned tax to supporting dole scroungers and illegals who do not wish to get off their arses and do something for themselves.

I do not wish to have a deficit bigger than Greece, I do not wish to have more managers than doctors, I do not wish to keep reading that knife crimes go unpunished , I dont wish to see taxes rise just to create more non jobs for the nanny state.

People may not like the ideas of the Tories as what went before became unpalatable, but now it is time for something different. Hung even if it is.

I am not elitist as you may call me, I wish to see a fairer deal for all ,thats the rich, the poor and most importantly the middle classes who work their arses off to get by.

Labour party RIP

Percy

Voting reform is going to be Clegg's price whoever he ends up with, might as well be Dave. The Tories would at least have some say on the legislation, in opposition they'd have none. They have to be pragmatic.

Victor Southern

By the way, Tricky Dicky - exactly how many MPs has Labour in Northern Ireland?

You have lost the election, deservedly. For the past 10 years at least the country has been run by press announcements calculated to deceive the public. Sectarian interests have come before the total public interest. A huge number of unelected "Ministers" sit in the Lords which has become a cesspool of self-serving party apparatchiks.

The country is, in reality, bankrupt and only international faith in the eventual commonsense of the British people has kept us afloat in the bonds market - they have been relying on Brown going.

Labour have lied their way every day and in every way through the past 6 weeks so we need no more lies from you. Go off and lick your wounds - and hope that the party still has funds to pay you.

Lord Monkington-Smythe

Hi Richard

I do find it amusing that you bash the Tories for being elitest... Labour has deserted it's core working class membership and sucked up to oligarchs and bankers for the last 13 years. It's how they got elected. Remember the quote? "I am intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich" I bet the comrades loved that.

Clegg has just destroyed Labour with his statement. Don't worry though, I am sure you will be just as loquacious in opposition.

Derek

Snowman

Lord Cardigan, I believe; but your point is well taken.

Osred

Is RoY a real person or a random quote WUM programme?

EyeSee

Clegg is talking sense even as he must be disappointed. But the poll results show one thing very clearly; had Cameron been a traditional Conservative he would have won handsomely. People were not turned on by the eco-nut tripe that underpins LibDem thinking. The Greens were polling way below UKIP and BNP (Cameron take note; it may well be that if you persist with wind farms etc, violence will follow). f there is to be another election soon, he needs to get a grip. He did best in the debates when he was angry with Brown, because he sounded like a Tory.

As a footnote. I wonder if you could find someone, anyone with a cogent reason for voting for the likes of Brown and Balls.

Sir Graphus

I think I agree with your analysis, growupgetreal. But voting patterns will change with PR. Furthermore, this is a good election to loose, and a bodged together coalition of people no-one voted for, in terrible economic times, is not a good advert for PR.

Frank P

The electorate were given the choice of a traitor, a twerp and a toff. More voted for the toff than either of the other two; but it is horrifying that so many voted for the traitor and it indicates just how successful the Labour's immigration scam - a la Neather - has been. But not quite successful enough - yet - to ensure neomarxism into perpetuity!

It is now up to Cameron and Clegg to draw a strait-jacket from the Parliamentary stores, force the traitor into it and carry him kicking and screaming to HM to resign. We can then have a period of hiatus, before another election, without the embarrassment of having a nutter stomping around in No.10 frightening the markets. Any other solution to the problem of this The Dung Parliament would make Zimbabwe look stable.

Unfortunately it will probably mean that the twerp gets a de facto seat in the Cameron Cabinet, but as Cameron himself is a bit of a twerp (as well as being a toff), they should get on well enough together until we are forced to go through the whole fkg rigmarole again. But next time I won't stay up all night to watch the debacle unfold. O England my England!

JONNY

Oh dear - how very inconvenient.
Polls have beem showing a third of LD voters prefer Cameron to Brown, if it came to a Hung Patliament.
Tiresome how Life is always a bit more complicated than Richard's BaBOO thinking will allow.

Snowman

A friendly advice to those who respond to the one with the rhyming name: avoid it, the man’s insanity’s inbred, he cannot help it. The men in white coats should arrive soon and put him out of his misery.

Ivy Eileen

" he is incompetent in a wide range of areas" - oh, lovely. Humour always defeats tripe.

THX1138

Labour get 7,517,128 votes for 225 seats. Liberal Democrat get 6,001,707 for 48 seats. We need Electoral reform NOW!

Andre

Richard of York Population of England and Wales combined is 54 million - Scotland is just 5 million. So the national interest is clearly served by the MPs elected in England and Wales - the greater majority of whom are Conservatives. The lunatic left - the SNP and McLabour - all 48 of them should have no say in how the London government of Britain is constituted. Get rid of Scotland and we save well over 6 billion quid straight off not to mention the year on year financial drain of keeping the place afloat by funding made up gov jobs.

Paddy

Wilber Wilberforce:

Hear, hear. But I don't give Brown a week.

Paddy

Richard: It's going to be wonderful watching Brown be "prized" from Downing St. finger by finger.

The people have spoken and it sure ain't for Brown.

Lowest percentage of votes for any PM

Has the man no shame.

David Bouvier

I am astounded by how few journalists and commentators on TV can do the maths ...

There is no stable coalition or informal alliance except Con-Lib or Con-Lab. Based on the current projections, and assuming DUP stay with the Conservatives Labour would need not just the Libs but more or less every other minority party to get to a bare majority - the kind of majority than requires no days off, MPs voting from sick beds, etc.

Kudos to Nick Robinson and David Owen for doing the counting - everyone else seems to be unable to add up.

Nicholas

It is a measure of the malignant thinking of socialist New Labour supporters like Richard the Dork that they can be triumphalist about this result.

An England which has voted overwhelmingly for a Conservative government is dependent instead on a British parliament and the behaviour of a man who still occupies No.10 mainly as a result of Scottish and immigrant votes, having presided over the largest and longest influx of uncontrolled immigration into England in history, admittedly orchestrated by the party he represents for largely ideological purposes. And who also does so in the hope of some sort of manipulated coalition with another party soundly defeated in England and which has lately opposed this same government on both its record and its intentions. A man who has been central to and presided over the worst government this country has ever experienced; a most corrupt, deceitful, venal, self-serving and lying gang who have steadfastly eroded British values and British civil liberties, betrayed our country in Europe and besmirched our constitutional and parliamentary heritage and institutions. This government that presided over devolution for Scotland, Ireland and Wales now denies self-determination to England?

There is trouble ahead and it will centre on the political representation and will of the English people.

Paul B

Who is self serving in this world Richard? Public servants in Greece and here, who cannot wake up and smell the coffee, so vote to keep their unaffordable goodies. When they can`t get their own way, they burn three workers to death. Or businessmen men and entrepreneurs, who work their gonads off to provide work and taxes for the nation and expect to be able to enjoy the fruits of their labour. That's what labour is, what real jobs are. Not your quango, public sector, client state, non wealth producing "progressive" (which I always though was crap rock music) bollocks that Mandy is talking about.

Richard of York

R0Y is waiting for the bag of Crap to burst over Shameron's head.
Tim Montgomerie sums it up well the grass roots wanted a very different campaign and were over ruled by the tory toffs who thought they knew best.
I don't give a toss if Brown stays or goes as long as the days of right wing elitism is wiped off the political map of Britain.

Happy Days!!

Oh and as for Wilber ......prats like you do not have the monopoly on hard work.....the only difference is that you keep more of your money than others less fortunate by cheating the public out of your fair share of taxation......greeks are paying now for the fixation on tax avoidance as the nation sport.

Happy Days

James

It's a clear sign that the population has no confidence in any of the Parties running the Kingdom. Surprising really that there was not a greater number of spoiled ballot papers!

Let's just hope that the politicians agree on one thing, to work for all our benefit and not their own!

djw2009

Yes, well done Clegg. Thanks for rolling over at your moment of maximum leverage. Your party will never be in a position to demand PR again - and you flunked it again. Note to Clegg: the "nice guy" act is mean to be just spin for the camera. If you end up believing your own rhetoric on this - you get shafted.

Wilber Wilberforce

@Richard

I can certainly assure you that I pay my taxes fair and square.

I do not wish to be told by some left- wing nutter such as you that I cheat and hold on to more than I should.

That is slanderous.

I do not have the monopoly on hard work as you say, but I expressed the view as did most of the country that the Labour party that have ruined this country are not fair for all.

Just for the few.
Labour RIP

Coeur de Lion

I worry that bloggers here are taking Richard of York too seriously. The real world needs sentiments like his so that we can admire the nature of socialism - abusive, envious,ill-educated, economically illiterate, ideologically narrow, closed to debate - but, and aren't we lucky, has so far in this country been unable to display its primary characteristic - mass murder. (Tho' the NSDAAP had a go in 1940)

denis cooper

I note that electoral reform is a negotiable area according to the statement Cameron has just made, and I suggest that this is what he should offer Clegg:

If Clegg agrees to support the continuation of FPTP for the Commons, Cameron will agree to take the edge of its unfairness through reform of the House of Lords - replacing its present members by the candidates who have just come second in each constituency.

And he will agree to do that as a high priority, before those potential Second Members of Parliament become unavailable.

FPTP-SPTP - two birds with one stone.

Teepee

As the afternoon progresses things seem less, not more clear cut. Dave has said what he won't do. Gordon has said what he will (though not yet offered his head which will surely be Nick's first demand). Will we stray from personalities back to policies? My money's on both Dave and Gordon ending up with egg on their faces when Nick gets concessions on the proposals they rubbished in the leadership debates - a good look at how we deal with those illegal immigrants who are already here, ID cards and of course Trident. Putting the latter into the strategic defence review may end up looking like a small ask in the whole scheme of things.

denis cooper

Nicholas Hallam @ 11:14 am -

If any conventional form of PR is introduced for the second chamber then inevitably there will calls for PR to be extended to the Commons.

The only way to retain FPTP for the Commons permanently rather than temporarily is by introducing a new system of PR for both chambers simultaneously, a system like FPTP-SPTP.

Lord Boyders

'Happy Days', curiously this US sitcom began in 1974 which is when we last had a hung parliament, which shows that even if Richard's brain doesn't work he is somehow subconsciously connected to something outside normal reality.

Coriolanus

TeePee makes good sense. We could end up with some excellent Lib Dem policies (immigrants already here, re-evaluation of defense/Trident, no ID cards) but a Conservative Government plus Brown's ignominious exit. Best of both worlds.

Snowman

Derek & Fergus:

apology, of course it was Cardigan, thanks for spotting it

Olaf Rye

ROY, are you suggesting that the fiscal crisis in Greece is ultimately the result of tax avoidance ? Did the Greeks really lose more of their GDP in tax avoidance and thus had to borrow the difference ? This is patently absurd: the crisis there is a result of profligate public spending, much as the crisis here in Britain. No party can possibly make a cogent argument in favour of such an high debt burden and in the end this will hurt the most vulnerable and thus the constituency that the left purports to support the most. Social programmes really pass the money back to some of the taxpayers less administrative costs (which are exorbitant), but because of our debt burden, a good quarter or third will further be lost to finance the debt. In the end, Labour has buried its own supporters by their myopic fiscal policies.