Well it happened today. After months of speculation the UK now has a hung parliament with the Conservatives coming out with the most seats but not enough to have a majority. They are now looking to form a coalition with the Liberal Democrats but this could be difficult due to the fact that the Lib Dems are more closely aligned to Labour (as pointed out today by an ex Liberal Democrat MP).
David Cameron has indicated that he is willing to make some concessions to gain this coalition but commentators say it does not seem to be enough. Leading into the 2010 election the conservatives stood their ground on distancing themselves from the European Union, something that the Liberal Democrats do not want and have been very vocal about. The Liberal Democrats also want to scrap plans for the Trident Submarine but the conservatives will not hav any part of this.
Meanwhile Gordon Brown still remains as the Prime Minister until some arrangement can be made to bring the government out of the current political crisis and has indicated that Labour are also willing to talk with the Liberal Democrats about forming a coalition. To some commentators this seems likely although Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat leader has vowed not to support a government run by Gordon Brown.
The Scottish National Party is positioning itself to use it’s power for the best deal for Scotland. There was only one Conservative Party member voted into a seat last night in Scotland. The Scottish National Party will do all they can to stop a Conservative government being in power.
I do not really understand how all of this works in the UK but from my experience watching Australian politics it does not look good for the current economic position of the United Kingdom. The deficit is now the largest that the UK has ever known and economic forecasts are that it will be larger than Greece’s within the next 12 months.
Gordon Brown said he would resign once a decision had been made on who would be the government of the UK. There were many comments regarding the fact that he had left it too late for his party and if had resigned 6 months ago there would be no hung parliament in the UK today.
Gordon Brown resigns as Prime Minister of the UK after pressure was put on him from his own party members. He probably should have done this 6 to 12 months before the election. This isonly my personal opinion and as I am not a politician I could be very wrong. He or his party may have has reasons for him not resigning before the election.
During his time in Downing Street he was described as: ignorant, the worst Prime Minister of the UK, big-headed, our of touch and many other derogatory terms.
What will happen under a Tory administration? Only time will tell but already some of the election ‘promises’ are being put on hold and huge budget cuts are to be announced. This is not surprising. Under any administration this would have been essential to put the UK back on track financially.
The UK now has a Conservative/Liberal Democrats coalition. Stranger bed partners you could not find. It will be interesting to see how long it is before there is a call to go to the polls again.
The new coalition government in the UK has moved quickly to lower spending and borrowing by cutting bonuses for senior public servants and reviewing the pay levels of all public servants.
Economic commentators say that there could still be trouble on the horizon for the UK economy if more cuts are not implemented quickly. UK citizens will be hit hard in the near future wth more cuts to public spending and increases in taxation.