Colonel Irrelevant

The one thing we all learnt from the expenses scandal was the depths to which our elected representatives would stoop too to feather their own nests. Not all, of course, but enough.

The days since Friday have seen the political parties, egged on by the media, continue to press for their own advantage despite the people not voting for a winner.

The Tories didn’t win, Labour didn’t win, no one except for the Greens and Alliance won, really. The most popular party commanding less than 40% of the cast 65% or so of available votes is hardly a win unless you are totally shit at maths and/ or a politician.

Now we’ve seen Clegg messing about trying to negotiate a deal with the Tories, based on little common ground. In case you hadn’t noticed, the Tories are aligned with a bunch of reactionary homophobes and anti-Semites in the European Parliament and they want to risk the recovery for ideology.

A little common ground on ID cards and education is hardly likely to be worth risking the Union on because a Tory Government is hardly likely to be welcomed in Scotland.

But Nick wants to be king maker and now he is getting pressure for that decision. In the short term he may have got some influence but he hasn’t got PR and he may have signed up to a nasty backlash at the next election.

The Tories have produced a neat trick of claiming a win when they didn’t. To spring an offer, publically, of a referendum on AV at the 11th hour is another example of vested interest and power winnig out over the wishes of the people.

And the Labour party have been sadly deficient in service to the country with their half hearted attempt to form a coalition.

In case it needs saying again, no one won the election. My fear is though that the people will lose again as public sector cuts bite, the Market runs things into the ground and the rich get richer while the poor are left with no support.

The winners are the politicians again. They always are. But now they can blame the people.