Newcomer's View Of The Coalition
Hooray!! Hung Parliament - we did it! Oh hang on, what happens now? The Lib Dems trapped between a rock and a very hard place.
Nick Clegg had always told us that whoever won the most seats deserved first chance to form a government, and that was the Conservatives. Of course, the more obvious direction appeared to be Labour, but they couldn't even get their own back-benchers to agree so stood little chance of creating a stable multi-party coalition government.
Instead, we now have a fixed-term Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition forming a majority government. Many of the key Lib Dem manifesto priorities achieved, including electoral reform, whilst getting some of the Conservative manifesto priorities shelved. The Lib Dems can now moderate from within and curtail the more right-wing Conservatives. Proportional Representation will be brought in for electing the House of Lords giving further reassurance against potentially contentious legislation whilst also trialling PR.
Despite coming third in the general election, Lib Dems now have 20 posts in the government including Deputy Prime Minister and 4 other cabinet posts and are proving their philosophy that coalition governments CAN be achieved.
So who REALLY won this election?? The United Kingdom electorate did!