Wings Over Scotland

The momentum behind a Lib-Lab coalition seems at the time of writing to be slipping away, as one braindead Labour MP or grandee after another comes out to argue against it in front of an eager media. If Labour's 1983 election manifesto was the longest suicide note in history, today's collected BBC News interviews could be among the shortest.

Because here's what happens if Labour retards like David Blunkett, John Reid, Tom Harris and Wee Dougie Alexander scupper this agreement.

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1. That the Tories hadn’t offered the Lib Dems anything on electoral reform. The sudden, desperate and resentful least-possible offer of a referendum on the absolutely useless AV (which does almost nothing for the Lib Dems) was a panic reaction to Brown’s game-changing resignation.

2. That Adam “Raging” Boulton is the UK’s unasked-for answer to Glenn Beck. “I just care about this country!”

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At least, it’s statistically probable that you do. The majority – 53% – of votes cast by the British electorate last Thursday were worthless, because they were cast for candidates who didn’t win, and are therefore simply thrown in the bin by the First Past The Post electoral system.

So if you were one of the thousands of people locked out of polling stations across the country on Thursday night, don’t fret too much. Your vote would probably have been completely ignored anyway.

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So did we win, or what?

Because the aim was a hung parliament, and we got just about the hung-est parliament possible. The Tories need the Lib Dems to form a majority, Labour needs nearly everyone to form a majority, and the smallest parties could yet have the crucial say. Wow, that's hung. But what now?

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I haven't been to bed yet. I may be cranky. But with over 90% of results in, it's not really possible to draw any conclusions from last night's election other than (a) almost everyone in Britain is a pathetic, brainless cretin, and (b) everything about our "democracy" is a sick black joke at our expense.

Let's take it step by step, shall we?

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The single most revolutionary step forward for democracy in the entire 303-year history of the United Kingdom, or this.

It's up to you. God help us all.

With just two days until an election that could mark either one of the greatest days in British political history or one of the blackest, we're all a bit nervous about the future. But one thing that's great for easing tension is free cash, and that's what appears to be on offer from Stan James this week.

The terrifying image above is Ladbrokes' predicted map of the UK come Friday morning. (You can find much more detail on it here.) It makes a few questionable assertions and contradicts itself in a number of places (eg Glasgow East), but where's the money?

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So the debates are over. We've heard at great length from three right-wing politicians, offering us three slightly different flavours of right-wing policies. No alternative voices were permitted.

And the really troubling thing about this election is that that means NOBODY is speaking for the majority of the British population. It almost certainly means that nobody is speaking for you. Which, you might think, is a pretty odd way to be running a supposed democracy.

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Next time, it could be your voice that's silenced. Remember, Cameron and Brown didn't want the Lib Dems to be allowed in the debates either.

One of the most striking things about the current election is the BBC's total abandonment of even a pretence at impartiality with regard to the nationalist parties in Scotland and Wales (and other smaller parties like UKIP too), which is most obviously visible in the Corporation's determined exclusion of them from the defining theatre of the campaign – the leaders' debates.

In the light of protests pointing out that excluding what Ofcom defines as "main parties" in Scotland and Wales during an election is against broadcasting regulations, the BBC (and ITV and Sky, although the latter subsequently broke ranks – see above) hastily rebranded the programmes as "Prime Ministerial debates", and insisted that they were only for the politicians contesting the keys to 10 Downing Street.

The gigantic irony, of course, is that it looks increasingly as if NONE of the participants in the debates will actually be the next Prime Minister.

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Clue: it’s not because they like having sex with children.

It’s because, along with the war in Afghanistan, they’re one of the only two major campaigning issues on which there isn’t even a manufactured illusion of disagreement between the three main parties standing in the General Election of 2010. Everyone is singing in perfect harmony from the same hymn sheet on this one: the unemployed are dangerous and despicable criminals.

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I like this:

Much like Afghanistan, none of the London parties speak for the UK electorate on this important issue. Which is, y'know, kinda strange. You'd think wars and spending scores of billions of pounds on pointless weapons in a recession would be just the sort of thing that would come up during an election as points of contention. But maybe I'm missing something.

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