David Miliband is the clear favourite if it goes that route.

Clegg must insist on electoral reform--not lame promises to appoint a new commission to study the matter.

If they join a Tory coalition all that will happen is that in about 6 months to a year the Tories will feel strong enough to stage another election in which they get an outright majority and tell the LD's to sodd off.

And then at that point you wonder if they will have peaked. They'd be firmly cemented into 3rd place and out of power. Their one chance relies on sharing power with Labor for as long as possible and getting electoral reform, plus hoping the minds of voters changes.

a referendum on AV, a stunning move.   There simply aren't enough votes to make a coalition with Labour viable, so it looks like a LDP/Conservative coalition with elections in the next year.

The Telegraph

George Pascoe-Watson, the respected former political editor of the Sun, reports that the Lib Dems have six cabinet posts and Nick Clegg will become deputy prime minister. If so, the outsiders have won far more ground than anyone imagined possible and the landscape of British politics has changed - perhaps forever.

Jerome again gets it wrong so often it is like a dog chasing his tail - with each update torpedoing his previous assertions. His habit of viewing Camerons "wingers" as similar to the GOP when in fact they are more progressive than anything in the USA - well it is truely disgusting misinformation. He really should not comment on UK politics - his track record in the US field is questionable enough.

In  a prior post I pretty much proved that on all key issues Cameron is to the left of the Democrats - but this gets ignored by people who are not actually particuarly interested in UK politics - but just want to use the UK election to burnish progressive credentials in a cheap manner realising that most readers are not equipped or motivated to actually call him on it.

I have tried to enlighten Jerome on this in a constructive manner, but his retorts have been about as childish as one would get when debating someone on the Redstate blog and their ilk. I think he called me "you Tories" as if that was like being called some type of US Neocon - inspite of the fact that I was not really rooting for any individual - but I did not really want a hung Parliament leading to proportional representation, which I believe would be a long term disaster. The UK in the present ongoing economic crisis clearly needs a strong Government - and if the Libs can work with the Cons, that that is clearly potentially a stronger and simpler Government than the Libs, Lab, SNP, Clyde etc...

As an American living in London for the past 12 years, I've been following this Jerome/debeall dispute with some interest. And I have  to say that on most (if not all) points, debeall is right. Cameron has already moved the Tories to the left of where they were even five years ago--and he'll move them further now that he's in a coalition where he can safely ignore the party platform, which was still hostage to some of the far right elements of the party. Of course there are wingnuts still in the party (Stroud being a case in point)--but may have departed for the more forgiving shores of the BNP or UKIP. (It is appropriate to bring up Blue Dog Democrats here?) Davies's comment is on the real problem of forced marriages within sectors of the immigrant community, where a number of women have been killed by family members for resisiting such marriages. Davies is spot on there. And that last quote sounds like a valid criticsm of the previous US administration, and hardly seems to warrant the racist and xenophobe label Jerome wants to give it.

The fact of the matter is that many--if not most--conservatives fully support the NHS; are leery of the kind of military interventions that Bush, Blair, and Democrats like Lieberman seem so fond of; are in favor of progressive taxation, and wouldn't dream of trying to impose the level of tax rates the US currently applies (in fact, we may even see tax increases this next year--hey, Republicans, pay attention); fully support the state subsidizing of public transportation; and I could easily extend this. Conservatives are not Republicans in most respects--if the Republicans have an analogue over here, it's the outright racist BNP.

Don’t misunderstand—there’s quite a lot about the Tory platform that I object to. But this is not a normal scenario. Labour borrowing (including all the off-the-books stuff) really has created a problem, and while it doesn’t approach the scale of the disaster that is Greece, it’s sufficient to prevent the UK government from undertaking a lot of initiatives it might otherwise take. This is why I don’t worry about the differences between the Lib Dems and the Tories over things like upgrading the Trident missle defence system—the Tories want to upgrade it (just as "progressive" Labour does), the Lib Dems want to scrap it. The Lib Dems get this one by default, in all likelihood—the UK just can’t afford it. This will be true for lots of things over the next several years, and this simple fact will eliminate a lot of the policy differences between the two parties. Some of the proposed Tory tax cuts will face a similar fate—we can’t afford tax cuts right now, and most of the Tory leadership understands this (compare this to the Republicans, and you start to get the picture). This is not Margaret Thatcher’s party any more, although her ghost still lingers. Although if anyone was the successor to Thatcher, it was Blair.

And it’s probably worth pondering what the “progressive” Labour party has achieved in the past 13 years. An illegal war in Iraq, and continued wars in both Afghanistan and Iraq, as America’s major enabler. The deliverance of prisoners to the US for purposes of torture. The near-collapse of the public pension funds from Gordon Brown’s annual £5 billion raid on them. Blather about global warming, but no consideration of carbon taxes. A relentless courtship of investment bankers and bond traders, such that the UK now depends on the City for 22% of its economy. Continued stealth taxes on incomes, but not on unearned income, clearly benefiting the rich and penalizing wage-earners. It was "progressive" Labour that wanted to raise the National Insurance tax on the poor (which the Lib Dems opposed), and it was "progressive" Labour that opposed the Lib Dem proposal to exempt the first £10,000 of income fram any tax whatsoever (which the Tories look like they will now go along with, btw).

Let's see, what else? More than 3,500 new laws with criminal penalties, and an explosion of the prison population—and, of course, that popular American export, privately-owned prisons. How about priviatized state schools being run by religious organizations? We got that too, including some that are trying to refuse the teaching of evolution. Intrusions into civil liberties that would make Bush and Cheney proud, with surveillance cameras on practically every urban street in the country. A vast privatization of government services, including within the NHS and education, that would make Halliburton blush, and the lies of the public-private partnerships and PFI’s that Brown loves so dearly, with the result that literally billions of pounds that should have gone directly into education or health services has been squandered. The attempt to require ID cards for every British citizen, which Labour is still pushing for (and which both the Lib Dems and the Tories oppose). The odious Digital Economy Bill of 2010, yet another of a long list of Labour capitulations to industry demands. The fiasco of the hoof-and-mouth crisis, where Blair for months disregarded the advice of his scientific advisors. The ongoing war on rural England. The list of mendacity, duplicity and incompetence is staggering.

Jerome, I enjoy your commentary on US politics. But in this case, you're simply wrong.

well, it was easy to misunderstand your position, frankly. Which doesn't matter. The point I was trying to make, and I can't tell if it was successful, was that your perceptions of all three parties seems a bit dated. Not a firm foundation for commentary about the politics of another country.

Hague is hard to figure, but he's definitely worrisome, more so than any of the others surrounding Cameron. He does serve the purpose of giving Cameron cover with the party right wing. He may be a neocon, but it's hard to tell, because he's also made statements about having a foreign policy more independent from the US. But he's probably the most pro-American adviser around Cameron, along with Ian Duncan-Smith, who has been given a sop cabinet post. But that's a good thing, in a way--it means that most of those around Cameron are actually more sensible than one might expect.

It's not clear, though, that anyone has any appetite for further mid-east follies--especially as long as British troops remain bogged down in an apparently interminable war in Afghanistan. Something which everyone seems to be getting more and more frustrated with.

Tory, not Torie.

Ah, Andrew Grice, whose track record is about as brilliant as everyone else around here. And whose notion of "progressive" seems to be as muddled as everyone else's. Yes, I do tend to believe Cameron, who, as I've said, appears considerably to the left of his party, has been spending the past four years trying to move it in that direction, and who is now in a position to benefit from the constraints of being in this alliance. I certainly don't expect him to become Labour or Lib Dem--that's not my benchmark. But I do expect lots of convergence. Will there be areas where we won't see that? Of course. Does that justify outright denial that this will work? Pah.

I will say that this isn't the only American blog I've come across (I read LOTS of them) were there seems to be some significant misunderstandings of what this election result means, or how it came about, or how this new coalition might work. Or straight media source, for that matter. It's like all that commentary on the Massachusetts senate election breathlessly shouting what a repudiation of Obama it was without once mentioning that Coakley ran what is probably the worst campaign in modern history, including not campaigning at all for nearly a month. I just don't like to see nuance ignored when it's drectly relevant to what's going on. What I objected to here (and I see it far too many places to try to correct them all) is the assumption that somehow the "natural" alliance was between Labour and the Lib Dems, and that any other combination somehow violated the laws of the universe in some way.

We disagree on much of this, and I'll base that on (1) my own belief that Labour has long given up the right to call themselves "progressive" (which you do seem to share some of), (2) your apparent belief that once a Tory, always a Thatcherite, and (3) your apparent belief that the Lib Dems are going to end up as helpless partners in this government, with the Tories tromping all over them. I may be misreading you, but I don't think so--although I'd be happy to be proved wrong.

A point about Hague, whatever our shared misgivings about him: he's now in an alliance--for a full term, no less--with the only party that vociferously opposed the illegal Iraq invasion, and the only party that opposes mindless inceases to the defence budget, including the major (and hugely expensive) upgrade to the current missle defence system. I'm not sure why you think Hague will be immune to concerns about Afghanistan, or your apparent certainty that he will follow America blindlessly. It's certainly possible that those are his own instincts--likely, even. But he's now in a coalition, under a Prime Minister who has been more openly doubtful about that alliance, and in a country where the resentment over Iraq is quite high, and unhappiness over the continued British presence in Afghanistan is increasing robustly--particularly among the military. Your certainty here sort of baffles me, but I'm not going to spend more time over hypotheticals.

Frankly, of all the possible coalition arrangements, I think this one has the best chance of actually working. I'd prefer it if the Libs were in charge, of course, and I'm not going to be happy with everything that comes out of this, but it is what it is, and I think will be vastly superior to more Labour incompetence in whatever form. Labour certainly wouldn't have been as generous in cabinet appointments, or in compromising over policy differences, as the Tories have been--that became very clear in the negotiations between Labour and the Lib Dems. Which is why the negotiations were over quickly. And which should tell you something. And any Cabinet with Chris Huhne, who may as well be in the Green Party, in charge of energy and climate change policy, and Teresa May, who a couple of years ago referred to her own party as "the nasty party," as the Home Secretary, will at least be highly entertaining.

And as far as your prediction that Labour will rebound in a year, this is the statement that most indicates you don't actually live here now. I would happily put money on this bet. The sad part is I'm a natural Labour Party supporter. But they lost me with Iraq, the power-madness, the corruption, the mindless slavishness to anything American, the purge of reasonable people like Robin Cook and Tam Dalyell, the fawning adulation of the rich (especially in the City), and their lack of understanding of basic arithmetic, let alone basic economics. The lack of any real depth of commitment, in other words, to anything other than relentless self-advancement. They turned into the Tories of 1997. They constantly babbled about "fairness" during this election. They don't know the meaning of the word any more. My hope is that a spell in the wilderness will result in enough soul-searching to let them get back to a place where they can start developing just those types of policies again. Given that the front runners for the leadership are now David Miliband and Ed Balls, I don't have a lot of confidence that this will happen any time soon.

I do think you're correct, btw, in your comment (on some other post somewhere) that the main problem here was a shortage of very strong Lib Dem candidates. That's a problem that Clegg needs to fix--how he'll do it will be fun to watch.

And actually, I worry about Osborne, who isn't all that smart, a lot more than I worry about Hague, who is smart and will be able to stay out of trouble.

We'll just leave Tory/Lib Dems as an emprical issue to be confirmend or disconfirmed by events.

On Coakley, my daughter, who is active in Democratic politics there, was active in that campaign, and she was furious--as was much of the party. This was a candidate who avoided the public as much as possible, pissing away the first three or four weeks of her campaign (including a holiday in the Caribbean) who then managed to alienate both Red Sox and Bruins fans when she did bother to campaign (and managing to accuse Curt Schilling of being a Yankee fan). The bottom line, as I recall, is that Brown got about the same number of votes that McCain got in 2008 (about 1 million); Coakely got 800,000 fewer votes than Obama did. Turnout was lower, in other words. Those 800,000 people just stayed home. If she had bothered to start early Brown never would have gotten an advantage. Michael Capuano would have clobbered Brown, but the Hilary voters put Coakley in on the strength of her blatant "I'm the woman candidate" campaign. Sorry, this was one of those cases where the failings of the candidate in question, and pretty much just those, were responsible for the defeat. yes, there was all sorts of other stuff going on, which probably boosted turnout for Brown--but there's a reason that people didn't vote for Coakley.

I admit to a deep loathing of Coakley as a result of her role in the Louise Woodward case back in the late 1990s. So I'm not unbiased.  It was a complete stitch-up on Coakley's part, solely to advance her career. She's a loathsome person. Actually, she'd fit right into the New Labour, as I think about it--she and Jack Straw would have lots to talk about, I bet.

Agreed that he should have been the nominee; he was certainly the netroots choice in MA.