Bloasis

All this talk of coalitions, especially what I think is the outrageous idea of Lib-Con pact - it's dishonest, stupid and is starting to annoy me. The Tories must aim for outright victory in the general election and nothing else. Entertaining speculation of hung parliaments can lead to a self-fulfilling prophesy. They should leave all that nonsense to the desperate, collapsing Labourists, the fantasist Cleggians and the media, for whom this trope maintains audience interest and nowt else.

On the subject, I thought this Sunday Times leader was rather witty, and pretty telling too, in its own way:

What would coalition government be like in Britain? We’ve had no real experience of so-called unity government since the second world war, so it might help to consider how coalition would work in other areas of British life.
Take Arsenal, facing yet another trophy-free season in the Premier League. Wouldn’t they be so much more successful in coalition with Tottenham, their deadly rivals? Footballers are professionals, or so they always insist. Somehow they’d make Arsenal Hotspur work on the pitch.
As in politics, it’s the grassroots support that’s the problem: like expecting Richard Dawkins and the Pope to collaborate on a revision of the Gospels. Would a merger between Oasis and Blur have produced anything other than a punch-up? Would you watch French & Pace, or would you prefer Hale & Saunders? Get used to it, because this is what we can look forward to in the coming months: the politics of Ant & Stacey. Or Gavin & Dec. Marks & Q, B & Spencer, Morecambe and Fry ...

Do any other unlikely, bizarre or unnatural coalitions spring to anyone's mind? How about cats and dogs. What would that produce? A dot? A dat? A cog??

Point being, Britain can well do without a government of Conservative Democrats, or whatever other mutant, non-viable political organism that might emerge from a split vote and deadlock. If there is no decision on May 6th, the answer is not a coaltion with small parties with small shares of the vote and a small number of seats wielding disproportionate amounts of influence. The answer is another election. We believe in strong, decisive government in this country, not the kind of stitch-up, back room compromises of 1974, that led to stagflation, union militancy, the collapse of the pound, bankruptcy and a humiliating bailout by the IMF.

There's a simple way to skip that false step and miss out those lost years of drifting and decay this time around.

Vote Conservative on May 6th. Simples!