Brown lays down for the good of the team

Amazing... so Brown is stepping down as Labour leader, and formal talks are in progress between Labour and the Lib Dems for the "traffic light coalition".

If this works out, Brown'll go down in history as the man who facilitated the transformation of UK politics... by performing just badly enough to produce a hung parliament in the election (but not so badly that DaveCam became PM).

On the other hand, if a coalition is formed but falls apart before PR can be passed, or if they call a referendum that fails, it's probably game over for the left in Britain for a generation.

This is high-stakes political poker but I'll be f***ed if it isn't exciting.

I don't know... I still think minority Tory govt or a loose Lib Dem-Tory governing deal are the safest options for Labour - but if this rainbow thing does come off, I'll be very glad to be proved wrong.

Where do we go from here...?

"Uzis on a street corner". (Jeez, I used to love Marillion...) Well, it ain't quite come to that yet, but every other coalition permutation has been punted around in the press with abandon over the last 48 hours.

Looking at the parliamentary arithmetic (and after 13 years of governments who had big enough majorities to be able to pretty much ignore parliament, isn't it nice to be talking about the parliamentary arithmetic again?) Tories plus Lib Dems, with a combined total of 363 MPs, is by far the most stable coalition option available.

The problem is that there's not enough in it for the Lib Dems to make it a goer - unless Clegg is a fool, which I don't think he is.

I can see the attraction from DaveCam's point of view - he gets to govern on a slightly more moderate version of their programme (which will play well to swing voters). Dave will be able to face down the Tory hard right (of which more in a moment) by pointing out that circumstances are difficult and being in coalition demands a degree of moderation. He won't give way on electoral reform - he'll have a commission to discuss it and changes will be cosmetic if any.

After which point, he calls another election, wins an overall majority (if he can), and the Lib Dems are unceremoniously dumped - having achieved almost nothing.

What's in this for Nick Clegg? The offer of a few cabinet posts, implementing a slightly modified Tory programme. No PR. Some commentators have suggested that the electorate will reward the Lib Dems for their commitment to stable govt. Er.... they're much more likely to drop the Lib Dems like hot bricks for being Tory collaborators. Especially if Labour presents a more palatable option under a new leader next time round.

I think Clegg is just going through the motions here. I can't see a formal coalition between Lib Dems and Tories working out. He'd be signing his political death warrant.

What about the alternative coalition which parliamentary arithmetic allows (just about) - a Labour-Lib Dem - plus 4 or 5 minor parties "rainbow" or "traffic light" coalition? The numbers stack up as follows:

Labour 258 + Lib Dems 57 + SDLP 3 + Alliance 1 + Green 1 = 320. Just short of a working majority, but for this govt to go down, there would have to be 321 votes against them. The opposition would be: 306 Tories + 8 DUP = 314. If both the SNP and Plaid Cymru tagged on to the Tories and DUP, they could bring down this coalition. But that's unlikely to happen in my view. The coalition could offer them a better deal (however slightly) than they'd expect from a Tory govt, and then they're effectively onside.

Make no mistake - this would be a lashed-up, opportunistic coalition (so would a Tory/Lib Dem arrangement, but the numbers are a lot stronger for that one). It would demand almost total voting loyalty from Labour and Lib Dem MPs to work out - so the likes of Frank Field (to name an obvious loose-cannon maverick) would have to somehow be kept onside. One way of doing this (as practised by Jim Callaghan in the late 1970s, the last time the numbers were like this) would be to turn crucial parliamentary votes into confidence motions - so the govt falls if Labour MPs vote against a bill to introduce proportional representation (which would be one of the main objectives of the coalition). It's also highly vulnerable to by-election losses, particularly if there's a public backlash. The Tory press would do its damnedest to make sure this coalition was unpopular.

There's also the practical matter that I don't think Clegg particularly relishes the thought of working with Gordon Brown - but Brown won't want to quit just yet to give way to another Labour leader. Perhaps if he said he'd stand down just before another election after the necessary PR legislation has been introduced that would be just about acceptable to all sides. It's a big ask, though.

The questions of democratic legitimacy of this coalition, which are being asked by commentators on the right, are bollocks, as Will Hutton points out in the Observer. It's not a "coalition of the defeated" because if you count holding an overall majority as a measure of "winning" and not getting an overall majority as "losing", EVERY party "lost" the election - including the Tories - and anyone who can put together a govt that can't be voted down is in the "winners". In terms of public opinion, this coalition would represent around 55% of votes cast - 19% more than the Tories on their own - so it's actually much MORE legitimate than a minority Tory govt (which I'll come on to next).

But I still think there's a lot less than 50/50 chance that we'll get this. It would be an unstable and rickety arrangement. And if it does collapse before delivering voting reform, the consequences for the left - and the middle - of British politics would be disastrous.

The safer bet for Labour and the Lib Dems - in some ways - is to let Cameron form a minority govt. The Tories would be allowed to pass a finance bill and implement the less controversial aspects of their programme, but some stuff would be a no-go area - for example the Tories' voting reform bill, which aims to change constituency boundaries to more or less guarantee a permanent Conservative majority. That's their idea of voting reform - the system is rigged against them, so instead of a proper reform, they will re-rig it to suit themselves. One has to admire the chutzpah of this, but there's not way the other parties would let them get it through.

Which is a very good thing, because without it I think Cameron will find it difficult to win the next election. People make parallels with 1974 - when Harold Wilson's minority Labour govt secured a tiny shift of voter support in their favour to win a majority of 3 in the second election that year - but why should we believe Cameron will get a honeymoon that lasts any longer than (say) 3 months? The economic problems seem to be getting worse, not better, in the short run, and the Tory spending cuts (which I would recommend Labour and the Lib Dems let the Tories implement just to show how crazy this policy is from an economic point of view) will provoke a 'double-dip' recession. Cameron will be under vicious pressure from the right-wing of his party to run a radical far-right govt, and given that his parliamentary position is so precarious, he'll find it difficult to resist the call of the nutters.

Meanwhile, the opposition parties can bring the govt down at the moment of maximum unpopularity, and - even if cash-strapped - Labour would probably win an election - or at least emerge as the largest single party - with a new leader under existing constituency boundaries in first-past-the-post. And then it's bye-bye Dave.

There is a huge argument raging on the blogosphere about whether Labour should go for the rainbow coalition or let DaveCam form a minority govt - assuming that the Lib-Con coalition talks fail. The best article I've found so far arguing for the rainbow coalition is Steve Richards in the Independent. As for supporters of letting Dave go it alone, Lance Price in the Guardian, and Richard Murphy on his blog, provide the strongest arguments.

On balance, I think Tory minority govt is safer. It gives Labour time - under a new leader, who should be elected ASAP - to work out a combined approach to electoral reform with the Lib Dems (and maybe other smaller parties as well) and synchronise their manifestos on this issue at the next election. Cameron of course has the power to call an election but so do they (by voting him down in conjunction with any combination of a few smaller parties), so it becomes a question of what the opinion polls are showing and who jumps first. The theme of the election next time may well be old politics (Cameron, leading a Tory party riven by infighting which has ALREADY BEGUN - only 48 hours after the results came out!) vs new politics (represented by a unified offer of voting reform from all serious opposition parties.

It's going to be just wonderful. Looking forward to it.

Reflections on an extraordinary 20 hours

Well, what an extraordinary election result. I doubt we'll see anything as mental as this again in our lifetimes.

From 10pm when the exit poll first showed the Tories with 307 seats (later revised down to 305) I was absolutely riveted to the screen (although we did take a 20 minute break for curry).

We were scared shitless at about 11, when the Sunderland results came out, that the Tories had done FAR better than the 5.5% swing registered in the exit poll. We were seeing 11% swings in two of those three Sunderland seats (actually I think one was Washington but it was in the north-east conurbation area anyway) and that would have put the Tories home and dry with a big majority. So then we were thinking "shit, it's 1992 again." But then things got pretty weird, with MUCH smaller swings in some of the Tory targets. In fact, in Scotland the Tories were actually losing ground, and London was - in the main - also pretty poor for them.

The most unexpected story of the night was the total failure of the Lib Dems to break through and capitalise on Clegg's performance in the leader debates. There was the odd good result for them - a few good wins off Labour, a gain from the Tories in Eastbourne - but they lost several seats to the most dreadful Tories (including the excellent Evan Harris in Oxford West).

My happiest moment of the night was Caroline Lucas winning Brighton Pavilion for the Greens. I was pleased that James Abbot polled 3% in Witham, in a very tough seat.

The most ludicrous part of the footage? Andrew Neil interviewing various C-list celebrities at some kind of election party in central London. There was the odd good bit of analysis (e.g. Armando Ianucci) but most of this lot were complete space cadets.

In the 2005 election I went to bed at 4am because the results had got so dull but it was a 6am finish this year - at which point the overall vote prediction had only just been computed by the BBC - and only 2 hours' sleep before re-entering the fray at 8am for what seemed to be about 90 minutes' footage of Nick Clegg's car winding its way from St Pancras to Westminster. And then an increasingly motley crew of pundits chewing over the result every which way but loose.

Talk turns now to coalitions and the electoral arithmetic, but I want to take a little time-out before posting on that - maybe later tonight or first thing tomorrow morning. Upfront, it seems to me that Tory minority govt is the most likely outcome of this impasse - but several other options are possible, which I'll go through in more detail tomorrow.

Love to all. It's been an emotional classic.

Talk is cheap...

Interesting comments by Nick Clegg in the Guardian today implying that he would look first to the Tories to form a coalition if, as expected, the election result produces no clear winner.

His grounds for doing so are that it's absurd that Labour would be propped up by the Lib Dems if - as the polls seem to suggest - they came 3rd in the national vote share.

That's a reasonable argument. It would be ridiculous for the 3rd place party to provide the Prime Minister - even if Labour came first in number of seats.

However, Clegg is - sensibly - insisting on proportional representation as a precondition of any deal. At first sight this seems to rule out a Lib Dem-Tory coalition as Dave Cameron has said he doesn't want PR introduced. What happens if the electoral arithmetic means that a majority Lib Dem/Tory or Lib Dem/Labour coalition is possible, and Cameron says no to PR, but Brown says yes? It would be surprising if the Lib Dems and Labour weren't able to come to some kind of agreement - even if it meant Brown stepping down as PM in favour of Clegg.

Many would say there's no way Brown would agree to do that but if the alternative is a Tory government (albeit a minority Tory government) then maybe...

Labour have been making mixed messages about PR and the Lib Dems for some time now. In the progressive corner we have Alan Johnson, who sounds very ready to countenance PR (he must be regretting he didn't carry through on the leadership bid last summer - would have made things a hell of a lot easier now, for sure). In the reactionary corner, we have the likes of Ed Balls, who claims that coalition governments are not "the British way". Well that's because of the insane electoral system Ed... but we can actually, y'know, change the electoral system?

A wolf in sheeps clothing is well known tanning salon devotee Peter Hain, who is in favour of Alternative Vote (a complete fudge which combines non-proportionality with being relatively hard to understand, thus being worse than either PR or FPTP) but who says (in the aforementioned Guardian article) that PR is bad because it breaks the link between an MP and his or her constituents "and so makes it more difficult to sack corrupt MPs". Er... been hiding under a rock for the last year, Peter? FPTP really did a good job of rooting out expenses corruption, didn't it? And the "constituency link" is the most overrated piece of bullshit argument I have ever seen. For most of my life I have lived in seats in Essex represented by the most dreadful right-wing Tories - people I have nothing in common with ideologically whatsoever. At least in multi-member constituencies like in the European elections there is a chance of having a Labour or Lib Dem MP who represents (to some extent) your views even if you live in the Tory heartland.

But basically, talk is cheap at this stage and the three party leaders can say whatever the hell they want about PR, coalitions etc... my guess is that if we do get that balanced parliament (I prefer 'balanced' to 'hung' as it sounds like no-one's died, which is in fact the case) then people will be modifying their positions pretty damn quickly. My guess is either (a) Lib Dem/Lab coalition or (b) a short-term minority Tory government followed by new elections later in the year. But we certainly can't rule out the Lib Dem/Tory deal at this stage.

Lib Dems striding effortlessly towards majority government?

Well, YouGov have results from a poll conducted just after the debate and it's pretty extraordinary stuff: Tory 33%, Lib Dems 30%, Labour 28%. Yep, if this is right, the Lib Dems are now in second place. A much bigger shift than I'd have thought, and they will probably drop back a bit, but I guess this just underlines that everyone's support is, as someone once said of Lyndon Johnson "a mile wide and an inch deep".

Just for fun, I fed the swings into the Guardian swingometer again. The Lib Dem gain - which would be up 9% on the 2005 result - was almost off the scale. Effectively an 8 or 9 percent swing from Labour to the Libs with the Tories stuck at their 2005 level of support. For the record, this produced:

Labour - 278 seats
Tories - 244
Lib Dems - 96

Once again this brings home the insanity of the electoral system - Labour with least votes but most seats?! Mental.

But the key thing is that - in contrast to the 1983 election where virtually all the votes the Lib Dems (or Lib-SDP Alliance as was) were gained from Labour, Clegg is drawing support pretty much equally from both parties. Intriguingly, a result with the Lib Dems getting 30% could mean that they could form a majority coalition with EITHER Labour or the Tories. Which way would Clegg jump? My guess is that Gordon would cave into a demand for full proportional representation with STV and we'd have a Lib Dem-Labour coalition. Only because Cameron looks least likely to compromise on voting reform - but I may be underestimating his guile.

This one really is up in the air now - I don't think the swingometers are at all reliable with swings of this magnitude, and there could be any result at all. Shit, if the Lib Dems keep trending up they could be looking at 40% support and a majority of about 300 or so. Well it would be an interesting result...

I agree with Red Two's comment on the last post that the acclaim for Clegg's performance seems to have ballooned out of proportion to how good he actually was. Maybe it's just that against the cheesiness of Cameron and the stiltedness of Brown, anyone - even the walking abomination that is Tony Blair - would have performed well. I'd love to have seen what would have happened to voting figures for UKIP or the Greens if they'd have been let into the debate.