Hungover parliament

At the time of writing it looks as if David Cameron will try to lead a minority government, with (probably informal) support from the libdems. That arrangement won't last and there'll be another election within 12 months. Long term, that's probably the best result for the rest of us, because it's the worst result for the tories. They've promised to inflict huge economic pain on the country, and we can hope the effects of that will be becoming apparent by the time of the rerun. Meanwhile labour will have finally got rid of Gordon Brown and hopefully can do something to improve its image.

The tories ought to be furious with David Cameron for blowing this chance. I'm not sure, though, if he could have done better. In the end, people in sufficient numbers realised that deep down they really hate and mistrust the tories. So although labour lost of lot of seats, it was not the wipeout that would have been predicted six months ago. And I suspect this also led to the squeeze on libdems. That and Nick Clegg's shaky handling of his position.

In Lewisham East the libdems were proved correct: the conservatives can't win here, and they took third place; but libdems were a pretty poor second. I think that in some of the local polling booths there were problems, resulting in people not being able to vote. It was a relatively complicated poll with single choice for parliament, choose three for council, and choose first & second preferences for mayor. Lewisham's website is saying mayoral results will be available from 8pm tonight, and council results from 11pm. That's really rather unimpressive.