Who won the General Election?

Well it appears that no single party managed to convince the electorate that they were the party to lead the country for the next five years. Although the Tories won more seats than the other two main parties, they fell short of the 326 seats needed for an overall majority to govern. Labour did far better than most of us suspected, but lagged behind the Tories. The Lib Dems had the most disappointing turn-out with just 56 seats, this despite a promising start by Nick Clegg in the live Prime Ministerial debate. Not since 1974 has there been a hung parliament. So now we see all three parties ditching their tribal allegiances for a period of compromise in order to get a working pact between themselves. For the last few days the Tories have been locked into coalition talks with the Lib Dems. In the meantime Lord Mandelson and David Millibrand have had secret talks with the Lib Dems too. To add to all this subtifuge  Gordon Brown has announced within the last couple of hours that he will resign as Labour party leader and therefore will no longer be Prime Minister when the coalition agreement has been reached. This is something that would meet one of the conditions the Lib Dems would want before agreeing to any form power sharing. So, Nick Clegg seems to have a hold on what happens next. Events seem to be changing by the minute, with the Tories finally agreeing that they will hold a referendum on Alternative Voting (AV) a form of Proportional Representation(RP) if the Lib Dems do agree to join them, whereas Labour has gone further by agreeing fully to RP. So despite losing seats rather than gaining them, which looked likely before the election the Lib Dems are now in a position to realise their long held dream of replacing the present "first past the post" system with at least some form of RP. In answer to the question of "Who won the General Election" it's obvious no one did. No doubt there will be a re-run later in the year, possibly in October. Let's hope the polling stations are geared up for it better than this time. Although I have little sympathy for anyone who complains about being turned away at 10pm and not being allowed to register their vote because they were too late. The stations are open from 7am until 10pm and if people cannot get there between these times then TOUGH. It is clearly your responsibility to get there in plenty of time and no one else.