The drizzle has finally stopped, I’ve checked and tidied up our local recycling depot and I should now be out in the garden hoeing the potatoes and what am I doing? Glued to BBC News channel anxiously waiting further developments in this apparently endless round of negotiations. After a fairly calm couple of days, I confess that the tension is beginning to get to me. I am shouting at the TV, not a good sign. I shouted at John Reid last night, I shouted at Malcolm Rifkind this morning. Yesterday’s men both of them, and neither having anything constructive to offer.
This really is a heart versus head conflict for me, my heart would incline towards a progressive alliance with Labour but the numbers simply don’t stack up, even taking the Nationalists into account. My head tells me that our first priority must be a strong and stable government and the addressing of the financial deficit. But supporting the Tories? Ughh! Talk about “supping with the devil”, this could be far worse.
A loose, supply and confidence arrangement with the Tories with a referendum on AV+ rather than simple AV may be the best we can make of this horrible situation. It’s one thing to talk glibly about hung parliaments and coalitions before the event, it’s quite another to actually build the trust necessary to create the compromises required to form a coalition when the event has taken place.
Good luck to our negotiating team, I don’t envy you one bit, but I’m not going to blame you afterwards.
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2 comments:
A loose, supply and confidence arrangement would be suicide for your lot. As soon as the Tories get that honeymoon increase in the polls that all governments get they'll be off back to the electorate looking for thirty more seats.
Dare I say that you are being excessively cynical? I do believe, naive as I am, that all three parties are negotiating in good faith, I also think that party finances have been sufficiently depleted to prevent the calling of another election for at least a year, unless Ashcroft has many more £millions to contribute.
However, that is to discount the fractious nature of both Conservative and Labour backbenches. Their behaviour will ultimately determine which of us is right.
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