Hung, drawn and quartered

The recent political situation has left most of the UK wondering what happens next. This isn’t as some are painting it, a classic exercise in UK voter apathy. On the contrary, the public have spoken and it is as many predicted, to0 close a race to call.

There is one thing that is certain since Gordon Brown sacrificed himself in front of the nation this evening, to allow some sort of coalition hope to be fostered between the Lib Dems and the Labour Party- its less about the party and its more about the man.

On balance, I think that Gordon Brown has taken a lot of unnecessary flack in the aftermath of the “global” economic crisis. The English have run out of heroes and instead we prefer our effigies.

Whilst he might not be the most charismatic of men he is certainly about the only one of the bunch with the political pedigree and experience. But like many have said, we don’t need two chancellors, we need one clear leader. In the aftermath of what is being hailed as a “farce” of a general election, Britain is far from being led by one clear leader.

The electoral reform proposed by the Liberal Democrats seeks to put an end to the two party system and by and large the majority of the public would probably be in favour of this, if they actually understood it in the first place. The tories have been too slow in coming forward with their willingness to accept this and hastily seemed to have issued some form of “referendum based” compromise on the matter in light of increased chance of a Labourt -Lib Dem coalition.

This might not be the most straightforward situation that Britain has found itself in,  but it certainly is the most interesting General Election outcome for some time. In many ways, the stale mate between the parties has promoted further interest in the archaic voting system and revived political interest amongst sections of the public that considered the results of elections a foregone conclusion.

As David Cameron wakes up to the realisation that despite his majority win, he might yet wake up to being the leader of the opposition against a Lib Dem – Labour Coalition Government, the real winner is the British public who’s message has been clearly heard by all three parties: There is such little difference between the soundbite lead policies of the big three.