Blog 2023 Malcolm Blair-Robinson

Set in the mid nineteen nineties, this fast moving thriller lifts the curtain on sex, sleaze and corruption in high places as the long reign of the government totters to an end, following the ousting of the iconic Margaret Thatcher. Downfall catches the mood of those times with a host of fictional characters who engage in political intrigue, sex, money laundering and murder, pursued by an Irish investigative journalist and his girlfriend, the daughter of a cabinet minister found dead in a hotel room after bondage sex.

KINDLE OR PAPERBACK     UK    US

In this never ending election campaign one can only say for sure that in two weeks time it will all be over. However we may be none the wiser about who is going to govern us. At present, although very close, it begins to look as if the Tories have a slight advantage. This will not give them a majority but it is likely to make them the largest party.

The Lib Dems have already said they will talk to the largest party in terms of seats, so we could be back to the same partnership. The problem is that this projection shows that together the two coalition parties will have lost enough seats between them to be unable this time to provide a majority by joining up. Labour will be very close in seat numbers to the Tories and if added to the Scot Nats on some kind of deal they may be able just to form a majority government, but it will be tight and they may not have enough.

This leaves two obvious possibilities. A Tory Lib Dem minority coalition where all the anti-austerity pro EU parties voting together can block any cuts or bring it down, or a Labour minority government with fewer seats than the Tories but kept in power by the Scot Nats, Plaid Cymru and the DUP. It is very difficult to see how either of these kinds of set ups can provide strong coherent government over a fixed five year term.

There is one other possibility that nobody dares even think about. A Grand coalition between Labour and the Tories to sort out the voting system, the House of Lords, how power can be devolved to the regions and the workings of an English element of a UK parliament. Having done that, dissolve parliament and have a fresh election with new rules, updated structures and a voting system which can produce a winner. That is the one option which is truly in the national interest, but it is fair to make the cynical observation that while in democratic politics political parties always proclaim subservience to the national interest, it is always the interests of their own party which come first.