Three years ago today our house was flooded as a result of a major storm which hit Berkshire and flooded thousands of properties in West Berkshire alone.  The nearby Glade Festival was flooded and children from the local school had to be evacuated by boat. 

You would hope that by now our property would have been completely fixed and returned to normal.  That would of course assume that the loss adjuster, the insurance company, their various sub contractors and the four sets of builders who have so far departed the job without succeeding in completing the job could organise a proverbial in a brewery. 

 Instead we have had a long litany of problems from loss adjusters and builders who refused to remove the wet plaster and so delayed the drying process to builders for whom the term “cowboys” would have been polite and who seemed to think that laying wet wood as a floor would solve the problem that was caused by oh yes the wooden floor getting wet!  Then there were the packers from the removal company who thought packing priceless pots in with books and labelling the box “books” so it could be stacked neatly in their storage facility was a bright idea.  The problem was of course that the boxes of books crushed the ones underneath full of pots and destroyed the pottery in the process.

The latest in a long line of contractors is arriving on Thursday to assess how best to begin the process of yet again attempting to get us a floor that is not either non existent, wet, warped or full of holes.  Fingers crossed.

A hard-fought campaign during which I felt that the Liberal Democrats by and large put our best foot forward.  The innovation of the TV debates certainly turned things on their head for a while and Nick Cleggs great performances meant that the Liberal Democrats were suddenly polling above 30% and in many polls were actually running second ahead of Labour.  Even though this seemed to drift away gradually towards the end of election it looked like we were headed for a great result.  Even on polling day the atmosphere and vibe was really good.  The exit poll at 10pm was shockingly negative (and at the time it seemed it could not be right) but within a few hours as the ballots came pouring out of the boxes (certainly in Liverpool where I was ) it became all too clear that the Liberal Democrat surge had largely been squeezed.

So we were left with a hung parliament that has led to a Liberal Democrat / Conservative coalition government

How do I feel about this?

On the one hand it is hard to stomach being in bed with the Conservatives

On the other hand it is probably the only logical conclusion given the precise verdict of the electorate. 

The proposed coalition with the Labour Party was clearly not a runner given

•  The attitude of those sent to negotiate with the Liberal Democrats
•  The attitude of many senior Labour figures commenting in public whilst those discussions were taking place
• The likelihood of such a  coalition falling with only 315 votes in the House of Commons.
• The likelihood of a subsequent General Election leading to a further squeeze on Labour and the Liberal Democrats so leading to a majority Conservative Government

 The other main option would have been a Conservative Minority Government.  This too would probably not have lasted very long and again would have led to a subsequent General Election and a majority Conservative Government.

So coalition it is and an opportunity to put some of our policies into practice and at the same time hopefully demonstrate that a hung parliament is not necessarily a bad thing in that it forces politicians to work together and hopefully eliminates some of the worst excesses that occur when one party with maybe as little as 25% of the population supporting them takes all the power.

 According to the UK Polling report calculator a result along the lines of 33% Tory, 32% Liberal Democrat and 27% Labour with 8% others would lead to the following result (assuming a uniform swing).

• Labour - 255 seats (for the party in third place)
• Conservative  – 246 seats (for the party in first place)
• Liberal Democrat – 118 seats (for the party in second place)
• Others – 31 seats

Aside from the obvious inequities of the first past the post system on such a result there is interesting news from YouGov.

According to Peter Kellner YouGov asked “How would you vote on May 6 if you thought the Liberal Democrats had a significant chance of winning the election”.

The response they got was staggering as follows :

•  Liberal Democrat 49%
• Conservative 25%
• Labour 19%
• Others 7%

Let us assume for a minute that half of the people who need to be persuaded that the Liberal Democrats can win the election can actually be persuaded that this is so.  Not all of them just half of them.

This might leave us with the following percentage votes assuming slightly more gain from Labour than the Tories

•  Liberal Democrat 40.5%
• Conservative 29.5%
• Labour 23%
• Others 7%

On the same basis of a uniform swing this would achieve the following result

• Labour - 155 seats (for the party in third place)
• Conservative  - 178 seats (for the party in second place)
• Liberal Democrat - 288 seats (for the party in first place)
• Others - 29 seats

At least a result which is more representative of the actual votes……and on a non uniform swing who know what might happen.

If people voted as per the YouGov poll then the figures (again on a uniform swing) would be as follows.

• Labour - 19 seats (for the party in third place)
• Conservative  - 25 seats (for the party in second place)
• Liberal Democrat - 548 seats (for the party in first place)
• Others - 15 seats

Again this would show up the madness of first past the post – still at least it would put the Liberal Democrat Members of Parliament into the position where they would be the turkeys voting for an early Christmas as we moved to a proportional system!

Party sources told the Observer that a decision had been taken to focus on Osborne as the prime target throughout the campaign, because the future stewardship of the economy is the issue that most concerns voters.

They said there was “strong evidence” from their own focus groups that people regard Osborne as “shrill, immature and lightweight”, and that the Tories are already being harmed in the polls because of doubts about their economic policies.

This seems fine to me as far as it goes and I will be happy to see Vince take him on tomorrow night on Channel 4 and throughout the campaign.

However, I think the Liberal Democrats should be concentrating their fire power (at least as far as the Conservatives are concerned) on Cameron.  This is the man who claims to have made the Conservative Party electable again.  Supposedly they are no longer the nasty party of british politics but that statement hides a multitude of sins that Cameron needs to be brought to account for.

Two that come to mind are as follows:

1) The decision to withdraw the Conservative MEPs from the European Peoples Party and the even worse decision to join the new European Conservatives and Reformists grouping consisting of some far right characters who would not elicit much sympathy from the british public and headed by a Michal Kaminski who has made some seriously offensive remarks in the past.  Does Mr Cameron wonder why the former Tory leader in Brussels, Edward McMillan-Scott, has decided to join the Liberal Democrats?

2) David Cameron’s recent performance in an interview with Gay Times.  If you click here you can see the interview itself and Cameron’s bumbling, stumbling performance.

I am really looking forward to tonight’s game against Millwall as we will be there in person.  The Yorkshire Evening Post says that “Grayson will give his players licence to “express themselves” on a crucial evening at Elland Road”

Six pointers are traditionally thought of as for those that are battling it out at the other end of the table.  However, in terms of the race for automatic promotion this game looks like a six pointe just the same.  Leeds are four points clear of third with a game in hand (the game against Millwall tonight).  A win tonight and they are seven points clear, lose and Millwall themselves will be a mere three points behind.  Heres hoping that the players manage to express themselves in a positive way and I will happily settle for a repeat of the last time I saw these two teams meet live when Leeds won 4-2..

It is interesting to see that the Pracharaj Party leader Sanoh Thienthong has suggested that a national government should be set up.  I have previously blogged to the effect that some form of national unity government may be the only practicable way forward and at least this option now seems to be on the table.  The government has said that such a national government could not include UDD core leaders but notably did not state that a national government could not happen and did not rule out other potential Thaksin supporters from forming part of such a government.  This may be a significant step forward if there is to be any hope of ending the current impasse.  There was also mention of such a government attempting to resolve the dispute over the constitution and that would be a significant step forward if all parties are engaged in that process and sign up to the final version.