Friday, May 07, 2010

Bite the bullet


If there's one thing the electorate expects of politicians it's that they run the country.

At 11am today, this seems like a challenge. With 30 or so seats still to declare, no party can get a majority. The way the rest are likely to go:

  • A coalition of Labour and LibDems would not have a majority
  • A working arrangement between Tories and Irish Unionists would similarly fail
The markets hate this. The FTSE is down 10% since the likelihood of a hung parliament became clear. The pound has slipped on forex markets. The reason is simple: without a strong government, it's likely that the hard choices urgently needed to fix the economy won't be made.

As a Tory, I wish we had a majority. The reality is that we don't. That leaves two choices: either a minority Conservative government or an agreement or coalition government with the LibDems.

For many Conservatives, working with the LibDems is anathema. There are many LibDems who feel the same way about Tories. There is a simple message for these hardcore party members: stick to your position and voters will reject you at the next election. You have to put the interests of the nation first, and the nation needs a strong government now.

It's time to face reality. Things didn't go as well as the LibDems or Tories had hoped.

Deal with it.

2 comments:

Sachin_Srivastava said...

And how far do you advocate independence of Scotland??

Well i don't.

Just because Labours are strong in the North doesn't call for such actions. Or else you'd need further sub-divisions as Lib-Dems are strong in far-north too.

Even more, Ireland would have to bee divided too.(It has no conservatives/labour/lib-dems)

UK won't be UK and Grt. Britain won't be Grt. Britain.

What's your take??

Sean said...

> Sachin

A Tory/Libdem coalition has little to do with Scottish or Irish (or for that matter Welsh or English) issues and everything to do with the country as a whole. The economy of the whole country needs fixing, and a weak government of any political party, will not be able to do that.