Angel wrote:
Cameron has NOT won the election north of the Border. You can have him!

I know the feeling Angel. I have never ever voted Tory in my life nor has anyone in my family..but I couldn't stomach voting for them this time. It was Lib Dems.

Apropos the battle for Government: you could make an Ealing comedy out of this, because there's nothing formally constitutional in this situation to prevent a Lib-Lab pact AND the Tories from setting off independently to ask the Queen to pick them to form a Government. By convention, obviously, it won't happen because the Monarchy wouldn't survive being put in such an embarrassing position, but it's an entertaining image to picture Brown, Clegg and Cameron turning up shouting 'Ma'am! Please, Ma'am! Pick me!'

[quote]
But they didn't "win the election". They won more seats than either of the other two main parties. But polled short of the overall majority that would constitute a "win".
[/unquote]

Of course he won the election !
To "win" with a majority (that no one else can defeat) is a dictatorship - not a democracy !

If any "minority" government proposes laws which are reasonable and fair then other parties will support those Bills and they will become law. That's what democracy is all about.

In The Know wrote:
[quote]
But they didn't "win the election". They won more seats than either of the other two main parties. But polled short of the overall majority that would constitute a "win".
[/unquote]

Of course he won the election !
To "win" with a majority (that no one else can defeat) is a dictatorship - not a democracy !

If any "minority" government proposes laws which are reasonable and fair then other parties will support those Bills and they will become law. That's what democracy is all about.

I don't quite understand the majority = dictatorship argument. Governments with clear majorities usually claim they have a 'mandate'. I hate that phrase, but it's quite a jump the other way to style such governemnts as dictatorships. Even JS Mill, with the optimism of Enlightenment rationalism fully behind him, suggested that, as education improves, the majority judgement will be so common a minority might even have to be sustained as a discipline. And plenty of strong majority Governments have accepted and overseen legislation that originated with the opposition (including David Steel's Abortion Act) or on the backbenches (such as Leo Abse's admirable efforts that helped lead to the Sexual Offences Act). So I don't get where this either/or thing comes from.