Quintin Jardine's blog

Show how much I know about politics on my own doorstep. My prediction of a narrow Lib Dem gain from Labour turned into an increased majority for  the Bolsheviks. However, my hunch was pretty much spot on nationally, with the Tories coming out on top but without an increased majority.

Thirty-six hours later, we Brits are no nearer knowing who’s going to lead us, and all sorts of horse-trading is going on behind closed doors. However, nobody I’ve spoken to has any real belief that Barbossa can carry on in Number 10.  All the talk is of the Lib Dems, with less than a quarter of the popular vote, and fewer than 9% of the seats in the House of Commons determining who will lead us, and blackmailing the potential Prime Minister into adopting their policies, despite the fact that they were even more resoundingly rejected than were Labour’s. I don’t know whether Clegg is on an ego trip, whether he has fallen for all this kingmaker stuff, or whether he’s actually sincere: nor do I care all that much.

It has been said that our electoral system has failed. To me that is bollocks, absolute bollocks. If ever our system has worked it is now. It has shown us what the alternative would be like, a system that would almost certainly eliminate the possibility of an outright majority for any party, and condemn us to this sort of haggling every time, and to the cautious mediocrity of the centre left. First past the post has worked for a few hundred years now. It’s given us the strongest and most stable parliament in Europe. I cannot see for the life of me why it should be changed simply to appease a small minority who are frustrated because they fell out of fashion ninety years ago, and have never caught the public imagination since then. Did Lloyd George, the last great Liberal, ever espouse proportional representation? Hell no; he described it as ‘a device for defeating democracy’.

So please, let’s stop taking Nick Clegg seriously. Of the three main UK party leaders, he’s the one who’s taken the biggest stuffing.

Instead, let’s look at other, unconsidered possibilities. Does Britain need decisive action by a major political figure? Yes. Who might that be? Step forward Captain Barbossa, skipper of the Black Pearl. Step forward Gordon Brown. For maybe there is a way for the rejected leader to rise from the wreckage. What if Brown ignored Clegg and his minority faction? What if he stood up and said, ‘Yes, the people have spoken, and we will listen. We will not oppose a Conservative Queen’s Speech, we will work with them to agree a budget, and we will sit seek to extend a constructive hand from  the Opposition Benches to which we have been sent .’

If he did that, he would leave Downing Street with dignity. If he gave a minority Tory Government its head,  he would put his party on the right side of the moral argument, and even if he then withdrew quietly as its leader, he would give it the possibility of winning the next election in a couple of years time, whereas, as things stand Cameron can go to the country in October and walk it.