Author Archives: Mark Pack

So much for all the Labour rhetoric about how only a vote for Labour could keep the Tories out of power. Turns out Labour was quite willing to see David Cameron become Prime Minister as you can see from tonight’s statement from ‘a Liberal Democrat spokesperson’:

It is clear that the Labour Party never took seriously the prospects of forming a progressive, reforming government with the Liberal Democrats. Key members of Labour’s negotiating team gave every impression of wanting the process to fail and Labour made no attempt at all to agree a common approach with the Liberal Democrats on issues

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Here’s a selection of what Liberal Democrat bloggers have been saying this afternoon and evening about the prospects for this coming Parliament:

All Four of Our Cast-Iron Priorities: Deal. Anything Less: No Deal. (Alex Wilcock) – ” If we do a deal, it has to be for a formal coalition, for a fixed term, published out in the open. Otherwise the Prime Minister can just cut and run with a new election for party advantage, and we’re stuffed.”

Selling STV in multi member constituencies to tribal Tories (Jennie Rigg) – “Multi member constituencies are the traditional British way of doing …

From David Laws:

“We have had a very positive discussion. The Parliamentary party and shadow cabinet have fully endorsed the position set out by Nick Clegg.

“We will continue to put the national interest first and play a constructive role in providing the stable and good government people deserve.

“We have heard what the Labour Party and Gordon Brown are saying but in line with the position Nick Clegg outlined yesterday we are continuing discussions with the Conservative Party as the party with the most seats and votes..

“We want to complete this process as soon as possible but people will recognise that …

By the looks of it over a thousand demonstrators have gathered in Smith Square, outside the building being used today for party talks, demanding the party sticks to its guns on PR:

Photo via Will Straw.

Meanwhile, the latest news on the inter-party talks is that Liberal Democrat and Conservative teams will meet at 11am on Sunday morning in the Cabinet Office. The Liberal Democrat team includes a broad cross-section of political views from the Parliamentary party along with deep experience of similar negotiations at other levels of government: …

On Saturday afternoon the party’s Federal Executive is meeting to discuss how the party should handle the Parliamentary situation. There’s no pre-set, universally supported answer to this so the FE’s discussion is going to be meaningful and important. It’s only one part of the party’s consultative process, which also includes – for example – a meeting of the Parliamentary Party. But it does mean that now is an excellent time to let the FE know your views.

Because many members of the Federal Executive are scattered around the country – sleeping, travelling back from election counts, making their way to …

Update: the party’s Federal Executive and Parliamentary Party are both meeting on Saturday to discuss what the party should do next. As I understand it there’s no intention of the party leadership publicly proposing a position until before then.

David Cameron has just made his pitch to the TV cameras outlining the approach he wants to take to forming a government and reasons the Liberal Democrats should have for supporting it.

He outlined several areas of possible policy agreement. Some are ones where the parties clearly already agrees, such as in opposing ID cards. Some are one where although the parties have …

The Times has the story:

Naturally, when every conversation you hear in the real world seems to have something to do with the General Election, Microsoft are getting in on the act online too.

Their far from rigorous voting preference poll is open to gamers of any age, and as far as we can tell in any country.

Nevertheless, as these screengrabs show, it’s clear that Cleggmania is intensely powerful among the young web-literate demographic that populates the virtual worlds of Twitter, Facebook and Xbox Live.

You can read the full story here.