This hung parliament ....

If you live in the UK, you’d literally have to have hidden away from the world in an underground bunker not to know the political rumpus that’s been going on. On 6th May the electorate spoke... and instead of telling parliament who they wanted to run the country, told them instead who they did not want.

The media frenzy that has ensued since has been enough to drive everyone to madness. Not only that, but with just about everybody digging their claws into everyone else at every opportunity, the past week hasn’t exactly been full of optimism.
I myself am quite divided on the matter. The Tories are crowing that they won more seats than any other party, which whilst true, was promptly countered by Labour quoting that a clear majority had decided they did not want a Tory government. So with no-one holding a clear majority, the parties battle it out behind closed doors to try and forge a deal. As I am writing this, it would seem a Con-Lib coalition is the favourite, albeit through gritted teeth for both parties, who are as much like each other as chalk and cheese.

The person I feel really sorry for, however, is Nick Clegg. Caught in the middle of no-man’s land, he would have been damned whichever way he turned. Swiftly gunned down by the electorate and winning just 55 seats for his party the Liberal Democrats (incidentally taking only 9% of parliamentary seats despite having 23% of the vote). Mr Clegg has immediately come under fire from non-Tories for turning to the Tories first, because in his own words, they won more than any other party. Such action, some claim, has led him to act against the principles of his party. But if he had turned to Labour first, he would have been branded as trying to mastermind a “coalition of losers”. And because he has said he would consider more than one option, he is being branded “two-faced” by much of the media.

It seems he lost the election in real terms and actual terms. If he forms a coalition with the Tories it will only be a matter of time before Cameron uses him to make a majority and then quickly spit him out before another general election is hastily called, which Cameron would probably win, citing Labour and LibDem’s incompetence as the root of all evil of this world. If he forms a coalition with Labour, he will be accused of trying to usurp the “true winner”, the Conservatives, despite the fact that the majority of the electorate voted against them, and of course he will be accused of collaborating with Labour, who according to some at the moment have the blood of an economic crisis on their hands. If Clegg does not form a coalition at all, he will have missed his chance to be in government at all, and it’s back to Square One for him.

The real winner in all this is David Cameron. His party won more than any other (which sounds good no matter what spin you put on it), and he has not had thirteen years of governing in which there was a war and an economic recession. With Gordon Brown hated as a “national traitor” and Clegg dismissed as a minority party New Kid on the Block, the shiny-as-a-new-penny Etonian comes out smelling of roses. He has nothing behind him that we could accuse him of, simply because he has no past as Prime Minister. In short, Mr Cameron has a clean slate, and represents a fresh start, which especially after this mess of an election, is what the whole country will breathe a sigh of relief at.