The Queen’s (hidden) Message
HM got it right again. There is a sombre national mood, after the Westminster Bridge attack, Manchester, London Bridge, and now the Grenfell Tower fire. Tragedies, all of them, occurring against the background of the most divisive und ultimately pointless General Election campaign in living memory.
At a time when we should be drawing together as a nation, we are being driven apart by the continuing political shambles and the petty point scoring that goes with it. That’s why this morning I find myself contemplating the unthinkable.
Nobody wants another election right now. Very few really want to see the Conservative Party doing a cheap deal with the fundamentalist wing of Northern Irish politics to retain a Commons majority. Therefore, given everything that has gone on recently and given what is to come in the near future, I wonder if the time has come to seek stability through a government of national unity, with the Tories and Labour declaring a truce and burying their differences for the period of a five year parliament, tackling the Brexit negotiations as a nation rather than a faction, and pursuing an agenda for all the people not simply for those on whatever side of the political divide comes out on top.
I don’t imagine that Mrs May would head such a government. She’s a busted flush. Neither could Jeremy Corbyn because he didn’t win the seats. But I could see him as deputy Prime Minister, behind a sensible, strong and acceptable Tory leader, for example, Michael Fallon. McDonnell as Chancellor, no. Vince Cable? Maybe. Home Secretary? Boris? Why not?
In five years normal hostilities would resume, but one would hope with the various parties showing more respect for each other than we have seen in the last two months.
Off the wall thinking, I know, but has its time come?
Quintin Jardine's blog 
I had littl notion that this mechanism were even remotely possible and given my political ambivalence was my naive and fervent wish as to how a developed first world nation and economy ought to be governed. Is it inconceivable that we should have no one in the UK living below the poverty line is no 1 priority?!!
John
Been in Oz for 12 years for context
Fair point but you could argue that a society will always have a poverty line as it evolves.
“The time has come,” said the walrus to the carpenter, “to talk of many things:
of shoes–and ships–and sealing-wax–of cabbages–and kings–
And why the sea is boiling hot–
And whether pigs have wings.”
The time HAS come and the time is now. We do need to abandon traditional and often redundant party politics and elect new people with new ideas and new directions. I think the “people” are profoundly fed up with the ongoing “cliques” and practises of the old school. Get rid of them.
I’m writing from France, where I’ve lived for more than thirty years (without the right to vote in general elections) and I think, following the recent elections, that there is a ray of hope here. The extremes are still there of course but there is a feeling that maybe this time we can forget some differences, compromise a bit, agree a bit more without being ferocious and work together to make things a bit better for everybody. We’ll see, it’s early days yet.
It happened from 1940 to 1945 with Winnie as PM and Clem as deputy so why not now. We are at war again although of a different sort.
Do you mean Atlee or Mrs Churchill?