Denying the vote to thousands of electors was accomplished and brazen. Electoral rolls missing names, postal votes failing to arrive, polling stations running out of ballot papers and, worst of all, the locking of the polling stations' doors with queues waiting in the rain, for hours, with no timely attempt being made to get every voter into the polling station and issued with a ballot before the 10 o'clock deadline (that was on a democratic par with watching the retail run on Northern Rock.) Less blatant electoral fraud in the form of personation, padding the rolls, and the manipulation of lack of ballot secrecy will take a few days to emerge.
It is almost as urgent that the new government is installed before the backwash from this disgrace hits home, as that it is installed to deal with the economic disgrace in which we have been placed.
There is no 'duty' no 'responsibility' to ensure anything by the outgoing Prime Minister. He remains in office in a purely ceremonial role of continuance of government while the changeover takes place. To stand in the middle of the street bigging up this role into some kind of shadow Head of State activity is one more act of incomprehension and overclaim.
There is nothing more to do but formally advise the Queen to send for Mr Cameron, and leave.
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In the dying days of the inept authoritarian government of Labour even the election has been marred by corruption and incompetence. It is a sad fact that the UK has been brought to a situation whereby it is virtually bankrupt and in steep social decline. If the Conservatives now enter government they are going to shoulder all the blame for the meltdown to come. Labour will get off Scot free and will be back in power in a year or two to continue their policies that will further impoverish the British people economically and socially.
"There is no 'duty' no 'responsibility' to ensure anything by the outgoing Prime Minister."
This is just not correct - neither Heath in 1974 or the civil servants and constitional experts would support your position. It may not be in writing - but the constitional position is pretty clear. The incumbent PM should stay until there is a successor who is likely to command support in the House of Commons.
If that role did not exist we could have the position where Cameron could be appointed on Friday and then have to resign were the talks with the Lib Dems brak down and how would that be good for the country. I also suspect if Cameron were already in Number 10 the effect would be to strengthen the power of the LibDems in their negotiations - so my guess is that Cameron may be pretty happy with the situation.
Of course the outgoing prime minister remains until the incoming prime minister has accepted office from the Queen. Of course that is the clear constitutional position. Of course the lack of codification of our constitution does not equal hiatus or lack of clarity, at least in the current situation. Of course Brown will try it on to stay in power if he can.
But he can't because he has led Labour to such a defeat that even all the Liberal Democrats men cannot put his regime together again. He would need all the king's horses in the guise of the Scottish Nationalists, the Irish, the Welsh, and a spare greenery-yallery as - what is the narrative? - 'the permanent progressive alliance', 'the healing of the rift on the centre left of British politics" as well.
Brown has one duty - advise the Queen to send for Mr Cameron and leave. He is shameful in not having done this already.
Labour won't get off Scot anything, Antisthenes. We are seeing the building of a progressive alliance, but it is a progressive alliance of the centre right. That's why New Labour are shrieking so loudly in their defeat. After this the federal relations of the UK will be recast - just look at all those anti-tory Scottish constituency MPs, they'll want further devolution once the centre-right is in power in Westminster. And their say over English affairs will be prised loose as well. Once that is done the Labour party will shrink to a union-funded base somewhat smaller than even the fraudulently manipulated vote strength displayed on Thursday.
Mr Cameron was only stating the obvious that there is a broad agreement on progressive policies entertained by one nation Conservatism and small state, entrenched civil liberties, localist, fiscally responsible Liberal Democrats.
What if the Lib Dems reject a deal with Cameron because he will not offer a referendum on PR. I think you would find that the "rainbow" coalition - would offer the next best alternative, as it would be able to muster more votes in Parliment than Cameron. And Brown would have a duty to try and put it together - even though I suspect that he would not be at its head. However, I don't think that it will happen - past experience in local govt shows that the Lib Dems will do wahtever they can to get their hands on power.
The constitutional process in such situations has been pretty well thought out - and I suspect that those counselling Brown have already told him that he should not do what you are suggesting.
Anon. Referendums are offered too freely by Labour and that's all it is: offers. No referendum was more important than Labour's solemnly offered referendum, in it's manifesto, and subsequently, than the referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. Brown lied (as is his nature) and signed away UK sovereignty while pretending no referendum was required because the name of the Treaty had been changed.
Giuliano Amato, who led the redrafting of the Treaty, would tell you plainly: the treaties are the same.
And as for your 'rainbow coalition' it sounds more like the celtic fringe. Most of the work in the Westminster parliament is, frankly, acting as an English Parliament. It is adding insult to injury to suggest that a Brown Labour regime that is only in power because of its Scottish MPs should continue in power only by being sustained by MPs from countries with their own Parliaments. Have a heart.
PR is not just the voting system you know. It's a whole reform of our democratic system and its accountability to us, the electorate.
Do stop trolling for Brown's discredited party and regime. They lost. They lost largely because of the sheer loathing of Brown. You should try canvassing and listen to the universal, cross party rejection of everything he is and stands for.
In any advanced capitalist country the election on Thursday would be recognised as a victory for the Conservatives and total defeat for Brown Labour. Coalition is a well-recognised and often practised form of government in the UK. Believe me, European political leaders are gob-smacked Brown is still trying to pretend to call them up, 'get on with the job' etc. Mandelson was right when he told us that if we thought a little matter of losing a general election was going to stop Gordon he wasn't joking. Brown's behaviour since the results came out is a public and democratic disgrace.
I did canvass for Labour - and although Brown wasn't popular with some people the same did not apply to the Party. And if you read my comments I specifically said that I didn't see much of a future for Brown. I also believe that it is absolutely right that Cameron/Clegg should be given the first opportunity to establish a coalition/agreement as such is more likely to offer the longer term statbility that the electorate want. But if that fails you have to move onto the next best alternative. Our present constitution actually offers a decent framework for that process.
I think you should also note that the LibDems economic spokesman is clearly a Keynesian who may not agree with much "centre-right" thinking on economics - although it has been very difficult to determine where the Tories are intellectually when it comes to economics.
But at the moment Brown is sticking to his constitutional role - as he should. I note how yet again it is Tories calling for the constitution to be amended when it doesn't suit what they perceive to be as their short term advantage. I also note that there are not a few Tories who were calling to do a deal with the DUP (which would mean crossing their palms with silver) - so there is not too much distates for that part of the Celtic fringe.
Of course if we ever get PR we will very quickly come to realise, as many have in Europe, that coalitions should be discussed pre-election rather than post election, when they become throughly undemocratic.
We wouldn't have this hung parliament nonsense if Labour hadn't retained 59 seats against the trend. There is strong suspicion that this was achieved by electoral fraud. See
http://aangirfan.blogspot.com/2010/05/they-won-59-seats-they-were-not.html
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