Friday, May 07, 2010

Hung Parliament

It's official then: Britain has its first hung parliament since 1974. Conservative commentators are already talking about their party winning a majority of seats in England and a bigger share of the vote than Labour managed in 2005, as if either formed a criteria for government. Theresa May told the BBC that Labour had "clearly lost the election", adding:

"I find it slightly strange that, at a time when we're facing such severe economic problems in this country, when there are so many other problems in our society that we need to resolve, that the one issue that seems to be the key for the Liberal Democrats is indeed electoral reform."

Most people would find it strange if the Liberal Democrats - who currently have almost six and a half million votes but only fifty-one seats - didn't want to concentrate on electoral reform. The Tories, let's not forget, have failed to win a majority of either votes or seats, currently running at only 36.1% of the popular vote. As I said earlier, Labour might have lost but Cameron hasn't won.

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