Harringay online

Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!

Update: Brown has now resigned as Prime Minister. BBC.


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Brown offers to resign before Labour conference ... to make way for formal negotiations with LibDems.

Brown says his cabinet is now putting together formal terms for negotiations with the LibDems, similar to that taking place with the Conservatives. Brown says Clegg has requested formal negotiations with Labour, as the LibDems continue negotiations with the Conservatives.

This surely means the negotiations for a coalition have just got rather more complicated. Brown says he believes the country wants and needs a 'Progressive coalition'.

The LibDems are not happy with the lack of detail coming from the Conservatives. Clegg and his team have just turned up the pressure massively on the Tories and got Brown's qualified resignation. This is high stakes.

More here.

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No not because they were led by an ex-Liberal.. but because they had a common cause.. To win the war..

The common cause in 2010 is to acheive PR.. a minority Lab/LD government will last out until that is acheived, supported by the Green and SNP MPs and then there will be a new election under the new rules..

That is IMO what the tories are running scared of.. as there is a centre-left majority in the country.
The common cause, as seen from where I sit - in THIS country - is to rebuild the economy and repair the damage done over the last 13 years.

If the common cause were the achievement of PR, surely there would have been a landslide to LIB / Dem ?
A landslide ? You are still thinking in old fashioned terms.. 51% voted Lab/LD in this election - a majority.

That they don't have more seats is due to the unfair system.

BTW, for 11 of those 13 years, most people were very happy.. as New Labour was just moving alone the thatcherite economic road.. The system that caused the crisis is a Thatcher/Reagan built one .. so don't blame Labour for that.. In fact in the period 1999-2005 the Tories used to brag that it was their system..


Couldn't resist a little jibe eh?
Comes from media comment Stephen, from all camps. Hope they're wrong. Agree the Tories are not to be trusted on any offer to LibDems regards PR, especially as they keep the right to campaign against it.

Clegg is in a dilemma. If he goes with the Tories they will campaign against PR on any referendum. If he goes with Labour the coalition may freeze up on important decision making process because of smaller parites, which offers a negative example of PR to the public, who may then choose to vote down PR in a later referendum.

As you say this may not happen and a Progressive coalition may well work. As you rightly point out coalitions are the norm in Europe. Some of these work, some of them don't (e.g. Belgium .... 'The five-party coalition government of Belgian Prime Minister Yves Leterme has collapsed in the wake of a language dispute between Flemish and Walloons.')
Matt in my experience, what is important is not what the politicians say... but what they don't say..

Did Brown say yesterday that he's dead keen to keep the Tories out?

Did Cameron say that he's afraid that the Tories could be kept out of Government for years if not decades?

Did Clegg say that he'd prefer a centre-left coalition?
@ Stephen

I don't think most people were very happy when Gordon Brown sold gold reserves at the bottom of the market to cover the cost of his social engineering. I don't think most people were very happy when he screwed up the private pensions system for the same reason. I don't think most people were very happy when Blair reneged on the promise to hold a referendum on the "European Constitution" or when it emerged that the Brown government had urged the FSA to use a light touch when regulating the Bankers.

Plenty more jibes in the armoury :-)
Laura Kuenssberg, Chief Political Correspondent for the BBC News, put forward this morning the possiblity that if Labour and the LibDems form a coaltion it will be a 'minority' coalition because they won't want to be beholden to demands of the nationalists. The latter would be asked for support on specific votes. She noted of course that such a coalition (315 MPs) would not be very stable.

Clegg on the news today appears to suggest a decision on which way the LibDems go is due soon ... whatever that means.
Don't forget that they have also talked about Ministries and who gets what..

I bet the LDs want Chancellor of the E and Foreign Secretary so that would mean with the Tories that Osborne & Hague are out of those positions, I personally wouldn't want to see Hague representing Britain abroad as Foreign Secretary. Remember he couldn't save the pound, when there was only five days left..

Hague could become Home Secretary and Osborne Tea Lady, but would the Tories go with that..?

With Labour that's not yet sure, Balls as leader would leave space for LDs to take C of E... Milliband would want to stay as Foreign Secretary unless he becomes leader.

Interesting times
Laura Kuenssberg, (Chief Political Correspondent for the BBC News) suggests the LD/Labour coalition talks are probably going to run out of steam (today?), that there doesn't seem to be much substance to them and implies that if there's any coalition it will be Conservatives/LibDem.

Has Clegg played with Labour just to get Brown's scalp and more out of the Tories?

Interesting times indeed.
Hhm. I think Brown knew that his time was up - and he's trying save as much as possible for his party..

I heard the quote yesterday on TV from Charles Dickens..
It's a far far better thing I do now, than I've ever done before..

I actually think a Con/LD coalition will have the numbers but not the sticky tape to keep it together and the opposite is true with a Lab/LD coalition.
Looks like we'll have a Lib-Con deal by tonight.

Vince Cable has said Lib-Con partnership is the only 'deal in town'.

Editor of the Spectator magazine, Fraser Nelson, tweets: Senior Tories say most likely outcome is minority government, with Lib Dems in a confidence-and-supply deal. Of course it may very well still be a coalition that's formed.

Joint meeting of the Liberal Democrat parliamentary party and ruling federal executive at 1930 BST tonight.

Meeting of Conservative MPs will take place tonight at 2000 BST.
Brown has now resigned.

Goodbye Mr Brown.

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