A Funny Old Day

Well, it's been a funny old day, what with one thing and another. A chilly breeze has been blowing across Sussex and snow fell in Cumbria - and forget not that it is mid-May. I did some work on heating and cooling and on pressure relief valves for my old employers, had my hair cut - the breeze became much chillier then - and I cleared out some of my old rubbish - mainly plastic bottles and paper. I ordered more tee shirts for the gym - good quality ones from a little company in Erith down on the south bank of the Thames. And I enjoyed - in a masochistic way - a cup of coffee out on the patio in the murky sunlight.

The day has also been one of great political transitions and some truly historic events. Journalists from TV companies and newspapers from around the world have been camped out in Downing Street and in Whitehall watching all the comings and goings and trying to assess what has been going on. At times, seeing individuals who were likely to be senior members of a possible new government wandering up and down Whitehall mingling with crowds of press and media people as well as police, security men and the general public was more reminiscent of earlier times when politicians could wander freely without threat of attack rather than today's more dangerous times. It was refreshing that so many senior politicians could walk so freely. It seems that early today discussions with the Labour Party came to a fairly swift end. To me its was a result that surely was capable of being predicted by the most unskilled of Mystic Megs. Just look at the negatives. The new prime minister would be the same one who had just lost 97 seats in a General Election - and a PM who would be replaced in the coming months by one selected by the Labour Party hierarchy. The arithmetic was wrong - they would not have a majority. Any stirring in the ranks would inevitably lead to House of Commons defeats. The country would reject it - see earlier posts. Now it seems that many Labour MPs right up to cabinet level regarded the whole concept as completely unacceptable and that the party should just admit that they had lost and go into opposition. I am now convinced that Gordon Brown's appearance yesterday was entirely at the instigation of the spin doctors - Mandelson and Campbell - and that the mad scheme had never been discussed with the MPs.

So discussions between Lib-Dems and Tories continued and various messages came out that things were going well. Then about 7.30 pm Gordon Brown came out of No 10 and announced that he was going to resign as PM and would advise the Queen to send for the leader of the opposition. He announced also his immediate resignation as leader of the Labour Party. Then with his family he went off in the official Jaguar to Buckingham Palace to see the Queen. He emerged after 20 minutes and soon after David Cameron arrived at the palace. Then slowly over the hours from 9.00 pm through to the early morning the news came through that David Cameron would head a coalition government of Tories and Lib-Dems. The Lib-Dems would have five cabinet posts with Nick Clegg as Deputy PM. Various cabinet ministers were named immediately and it was said that there would be at least one Lib-Dem junior minister in every department. Vince Cable would head up a department concentrating on business and the banks. What will Ken Clark do? Home Secretary again?

I feel sure that these decisions - warmly welcomed by both parties - will be well received by the markets tomorrow morning and by the public and, with luck, will result in a very positive government. There was an announcement that the two parties have agreed in principle to fixed parliaments of 5 years. We need to hear the details of how this works if a government is defeated in a no confidence vote but, in principle it is step forward and stops prime ministers fixing election dates only when things are going well.

So far David Cameron has behaved with considerable diplomacy and statesmanship. He has big problems ahead. He is leading a very unusual [fro Britain] type of government - but of a type that has worked well at times of crisis in the past. Very few ministers will have had any experience of high office. David Cameron should make very good use of those who have. Harold Macmillan's problem with "events, dear boy, events" would probably equate to Donald Rumsfeld's known unknowns and unknown unknowns. There are many difficult problems for David Cameron associated with the known unknowns. It is the unknown unknowns that will require his greatest powers of statesmanship if the coalition is to stay together.

I wish him luck.

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