Letters to my sons.

Dear boys,

we still don’t have a new government but things are really hotting up today. The Lib Dems and the Conservative spent all day in talks and it seemed that a deal was possible between the two parties. But things were afoot between the Lib Dems and the Labour Party. The funny thing about this election is that nobody won it and at the same time nobody lost it as the result was a hung parliament. Some have said that because Labour didn’t retain power they must have lost but this is false for two reasons:

1. No other party won an outright majority.
2. Just on the percentage of votes cast, combined with the Lib Dems, the two would have over 50% of the votes.

The idea, put about by the Tories, that they “won” the election is laughable. They got 306 seats out of 650, 47% but only received 36.1% of the popular vote. According to the Tories everyone else should just stand aside and allow the Tories to rule for 5 years – meaning that 63.9% of the popular votes cast should be ignored. Claiming that ignoring 63.9% of the population is “the democratic voice of the people” is utter rubbish.

Gorden Brown’s decision to resign today is a master stroke of timing. He had to go at some point but the timing was exquisite – the Murdoch Press was trumpeting that Cameron and the Tories were due to take power via Sky News, that the deal was done and that a new Tory era was due to begin. But, unbeknown to them and behind the scenes, the Lib Dems and Labour were meeting at the highest level – Nick Clegg leader of the Lib Dems met with Gordon Brown. Clegg told him that he could enter a coalition but Brown would have to go. Senior Labour figures had also told Brown he had to go, but when? After a day where the Lib-Con pact looked promising the announcement of his resignation was like a bomb going off.

Brown hates the Tories. If voting reform can be achieved it would mean the end of the Tory party ever having exclusive power again. Brown would have achieved much more by resigning and helping the forming of a Rainbow Alliance than staying on in power and looking desperate to retain his position.

I’m not a fan of the Labour Party and Moron Brown but today he completely out manoeuvred the Tory party and with any luck he has manoeuvred them out of power for the foreseeable future.