h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Yes, rather dignified and human.

Wow. What interesting times we do live in!

Enjoying all this

I bet, now that deals must be done, the more progressive tories will be pleased that the leadership will be able to drop the things they had in their manifesto to please certain sections of the party that now seem ludicrous (eg inheritance tax, the already priviledged families of wealthy people wouldn't be top on *anyones* priority list it straitened times) whilst blaming the Lib Dems.

A stand-out theme that I am hearing here from the senior labour people is the implication that the Lib Dems are, and have always been, ToryLite (tm). It sounds very much like laying the groundwork for the *next* election where they will solidly target potential Lib Dem voters.

Almost like they've suddenly remembered there IS a third party

The way things work in Sweden when a single party can't get a majority is that they pick out the least evil candidate (from their point of view) and sit down to discuss.

They have to agree on the main/major issues. Then one party will be allowed to push a few issues, and the other party will be allowed the same, as long as no issues are too conflictive to either party.


We have an environmental party who seems ready to team up with either side as long as they can get some of their points through.

David Cameron it is.

And to think a FinnoSwede beat all the Brits to posting it!

Why did you think there was a sudden flurry of posting Ti?

Should've been one of these at the end of that post

*rather enyoing being a bad elf for a change*

Hey, seems I was right about inheritance tax

Oh my. An AOL headline states, "Cameron's Rise From Abject Privilege"

The last few hours have been fascinating. Am reluctant to go to bed and miss any of it!

Been at work. Honestly, how dare they be entertaining in the evening? Don't they know I need a break from daytime tv?

Well! A different outcome than what I thought would happen not quite 24 hours ago.

Thoroughly enjoyed drivin north listening to rolling speculation and comment on R4 all the way, though I went through the radio-silence spot at Shap in the middle of Gordon's speech.

If he'd spoken during the election as inspiringly as he spoke to the party workers yesterday evening, I'd have bloody voted for him. He is a man who is superb in a crisis, and dire (and dour) in mundane times. He did pull the iron out of the fire with the banks, but it was a fire of his own making, and oh vey the deficit...

Ben

PS - did anyone else notice that Gordon spoke with notes outside Downing St and David Cameron didn't. (I couldn't see that on the radio). Cameron is irritatingly competent as a speaker.

One of the BIG advantages of having a constitution based on prescedent, is that you can change it when it's outdated, for example introducing fixed terms. That's going to change things in itself.

Cameron definitely didn't (and fluffed a couple of times but not in a major way), I think Gordon did but not sure - wasn't paying attention to it with him.

I am feeling more optimistic about this govt that I thought possible last wednesday but I remember the feeling on May 5th 1997 - a buoyant, almost dizzy hopefulness that things would indeed get better. Despite some of TB's more despicable acts I do honestly think that for the most part things *did* get better. Minimum wage, FOI, and Civil Partnerships are three pieces of legislation off the top of my head that we would never have got under a (small -c) conservative govt. I'm one of Thatcher's children...I remember, so now I worry.

Has anyone else been struck by the sheer number of public school boys in the cabinet? Has *any* woman been even mentioned as a junior minister yet?

*is extremely pleased that there isn't a conflation of the names that rolls off the journo's tongues a la Bennifer, or Jedward*

I found a "rising stars" thing on the telegraph or guardian sites and 2/3rds of them seemed to have been at Oxford.

This is what I wanted: a Tory hand on the financial tiller and a Lib-Dem ideology checking their excesses and supporting the vulnerable. I think Clegg's played an absolute blinder. But I worry that it will go horribly wrong, so I feel the mix of relief and doubt I felt when Obama was elected. I'd like to think I never bought Blair. I certainly never voted for him, though I did vote Labour in the local elections in 1997. I've been making a fresh decision to Lib Dem in every general election for a very long time.

I loathe landslides, though I have to admit the huge deficit has bought us an improved NHS.

Ben

If they can get something legislated for fixed term parliments, then they will have to make it work. If not you're back to prime ministers calling elections when they think they can win them or hanging on for as long as possible if they don't.