Are we doing anything Thursday? — Page 4

And the Conservatives offer a referendum on Alternative Vote.

I'm not sure whether this is the system the Lib Dems want, or that it will make my vote count as much as everyone else's, but the Conservatives are at last beginning to bend over like good public schoolboys waiting to be caned.

This is all getting very interesting. And have you noticed that half of the UK has suddenly become experts in UK politics? I had a very surreal chat with someone today who before the election was all 'I don't care', today she was talking all about hung parliaments, Con Lib (I rather ConDem personally) and Rainbow Coalitions and Proportional Representation. I thought I'd stepped into an alternative reality there for a few minutes.

The best thing to come out of this so far in my opinion though has to be the Have I Got Election News for You special, as it has been a long time since HIGNFY has been that funny.

As for Brown - I feel pretty sorry for him actually. He stepped up at a horrible time and into a disaster - the attempted terrorist attack in Scotland, then the terrible flooding and it just went on and on. I know everyone mocks him and yes some of the jokes are funny at the time, but I think Brown is just a slightly socially challenged man who shouldn't have been put in the job. That part isn't his fault - he isn't a people person. As I've seen others say - he's probably more of a behind the scenes policy maker than the front of a party.

Updated On: 5/10/10 at 05:38 PM

Shall we just try it all again?

One the British public (and a fair few "professionals") don't seem to have grasped is this issue of so-called "unelected" prime ministers. Sorry, but that's just how the system works! Winston Churchill was "unelected" and so were five more PMs after him and before Brown - and four of those five were Tories.

The best thing to come out of this so far in my opinion though has to be the Have I Got Election News for You special, as it has been a long time since HIGNFY has been that funny.

Agreed, it was brilliant. Though I do sometimes wonder if they'd get away with those kind of gay jokes about anyone other than Mandelson. Lembit did very well (even caught out Hislop at one point!) and Jon Richardson is very cute, isn't he?

So, we're now basically under Tory rule and the Lib Dems are no more. Too pessimistic?

George Osborne may be chancellor-lite but David Laws and Vince Cable are much more substantial. Making this work will be tough but the price of failure for everyone (Conservative Party included) will be too great to allow all this to fail.

And try imaging how Cameron and Hague must have choked on Monday when they saw Cleggy with Gordon Brown's scalp on his head. They announced the referendum on constitutional reform - if they go back on that they will have no credibility whatsoever.

The problems of this being allowed to fail too great to allow it to happen.

I'm optimistic.

Arts in line for £66 million worth of cuts: http://www.whatsonstage.com/news/theatre/london/E8831273744150/Arts+Faces+%A366m+Cuts+Under+Lib-Con+Coalition.html


and a Prime Minister who was in power despite having never been voted in!

Sorry, but that's how the system works and always has - Winston Churchill, Anthony Eden, Harold Macmillan, Alec Douglas-Home... all took over mid-term. And John Major of course. I don't understand why people are suddenly surprised that we don't get to choose our PM! We choose the party, they choose the leader - that's always been the way.

Neither - Thursday in five years time.

Who would have thought that one day this country would have a government in power called the Condems.

The garden of Downing st makes such a venue for a civil partnership don't you think?

the guardian have a very amusing take on the 'courtship' in the G2 section today

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