05 May 2008

Fingers crossed for no clear result

Four days after the catastrophic collapse of UK Labour party voting support at the local elections last Thursday, I'm gloomy about the political weather.

Everyone is looking ahead to the next General Election, and everyone is seeing something different. The spectrum extends from a Labour party which, learning the lessons of local defeat, rises resurgent and wins a triumphant national victory, to a Conservative party which emerges from ten years in the wilderness crush completely.

Me, I'm praying that we will at last find ourselves in the middle of that spectrum. Landslide victories (in either direction) are not good for democracy. I'm hoping for a lack of overall majorities. I'm hoping for enough Labour resurgence to prevent a Conservative victory, but not enough to give a Labour one. I'm hoping for a period of real politics, for a change. I'm hoping, above all, for a period in which the Liberal Democrats will be able to finally demand electoral reform and proportional representation in return for support of whoever will deliver it. This is not support of the LDP; it's just yearning for electoral reform.

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