UK election

The UK election results are nearly in. The Conservatives have the most seats, but not a majority. The Labour Party is pretty much knackered and looking for a deal with the Liberal Democrats. Although the LibDems seemed well placed, due to Vince Cable's strong performance during the economic crisis and Nick Clegg's 'victory' in the TV debates, they failed to make significant gains in the election.

As for me, I was trying not to weep into my breakfast cereal when I saw the Tory gains against Labour. When their lead was only in opinion polls it seemed so much more remote. I was at university the last time the Tories got kicked out, and it is terrible to see them on the brink of power, especially since objective external circumstances (ie. the economic crisis caused by laissez-faire economic policies) have ripped the guts out of their free market nonsense. The pro-Cameron, Murdoch owned tabloids will start shrieking that Cameron should be PM despite being unable to win a majority.

I hope a Lab/Lib pact screws them all over royally and radicalises a Labour Party that abandoned it's grassroot members and supporters more than a decade ago. I think the reason Labour squandered it's political and economic opportunities and capital so horribly is that the entryist liberal leadership thought they were just too smart to listen to trade unionists, doctors, nurses, teachers and all the other ordinary people who believed Labour would offer something better than discredited Thatcherite bullshit. After all, these people were working at the point of delivery as the government wasted millions on layer upon layer of managers who served no useful purpose except to inspect, observe and harrass their staff in the name of accountability. It was also the core labour supporters who warned them most insistently to go with Europe rather than the US over Iraq. These two basic mistakes, along with a misplaced faith in the City of London, ultimately destroyed New Labour.

After all this, we are faced with the dread prospect of Tories in charge of aggressive cuts in the public sector, letting unemployment soar whilst cutting benefits for the poor and taxes for the better off. Their proposals for electoral reform could help to keep them in power for a decade or more. I just hope what remains of the liberal left can, in effect, snatch victory from the jaws of defeat in the next 24 hours or so.

Update:
Or not. As you please.