I knew deep down when I went to bed on the eve of the General Election that we would wake up to bad news. That is not to say that the Tories gaining 97 seats at the expense of Labours 91 losses and the LibDems loss of five seat was bad news, not at all. What was bad was that the real loser, Gordon Brown was as the Sun newspaper said, “squatting” in 10 Downing Street.
OK, the Tories only had a 36.1% of the votes or more to the point 10,706,647 against Labours 8,604,358 and the LibDems 6,827,938. So what if the combined Lib / Lab vote was more. The fact remains that the electorate did not vote for the other two parties in sufficient numbers and the Tories did indeed climb a mountain to get where they are today.
So here we are with the prospect of some sort of coalition which I fear the LibDems will spend more time demanding ‘payment’ for services rendered in supporting Cameron than in getting on with the job of ditching some of Browns profligate spending and borrowing policies.
I saw a friend of mine write elsewhere that if the Labour voters who so much hated Brown had NOT voted, if they didn’t want to vote LibDem or Tory, then Brown would have had an even worse political defeat!
Lets NOT forget what he did to the country behind our backs when he was the ‘Iron Chancellor’ shall we? I for one know that our voting pattern is, as I was told recently, in our DNA. It’s hard to NOT vote for your ‘blood party’ then – I have only not cast a vote once and regretted ever since.
Lets see what pans out over the next few days.
[Regards to my friend ‘MAD’ who is no doubt feeling quite mad now over the result he least wished for] ‘TIT’
1 comment:
Dear TIT,
For the Sun newspaper, or anyone else for that matter to claim that Gordon Brown is now ‘squatting’ [or similar terminology] in Downing Street is to demonstrate a complete and thorough lack of understanding and comprehension of both the constitution and the legal system. But then I might expect not much more of the two faced contempt from this type of gutter press filled with selective reporting and audacious bias. There has been much criticism of Brown mainly headed by the media who seem to have at times selective a memory when it suits them. One of the complaints, for example, is that taking over from Tony Blair mid-term as leader of the Labour party made him an unelected Prime Minister. Strange then that the same media forget that John Major who replaced Margaret Thatcher in November 1990 as leader of the Conservative party and thus also became Prime Minister in exactly the same situation. It was to be another two years until John Major called a general election in April 1992, but I do not recall the media ever hounding him as an unelected Prime Minister during those two years.
Both the constitution and the legal system are clear. Gordon Brown is still the Prime Minister and the Labour party is still the party in Government until such time as the Sovereign invites whoever it may be, Cameron or Brown, [given the aid of assistance from other minor parties] to form the next Government, until then the status quo remains. It does so for the reason that whilst any negotiations are ongoing by others to agree on a coalition there is still a government in power. So Gordon Brown is not squatting as the Sun puts it he is carrying out his duty and awaiting the outcome of ongoing negotiation prior to tendering his resignation to the sovereign as Prime Minister as a coalition is formed.
I think a ‘Hung Parliament’ is the thing we all least wished for.
Your friend MAD
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