Yes – the UK government is like a Rolf Harris picture.

I find everything that is going on right now absolutely fascinating – and I think anybody who decided against voting for the Liberal Democrats based on the fact that they were not capable of shouldering responsibility (a phrase I’ve heard is that they don’t have the ‘ministerial experience’) then pay very close attention to what’s going on right now.

The fact is that the UKs future is in the hands of the Liberals, and if we prosper over the next year or two, then a lot of us will have them to thank for having made the right choice now.  Who’d have thought it - a party that manages to get over a fifth of the vote, but because of a completely unfair voting system gets less than 10% of seats in parliament.  Now they are courting both the Conservatives and Labour, and are extracting from both of them concessions toward a fairer country. 

However, the choice is a very delicate one.  Chose to go with Labour, then you get the referendum on Proportional Representation (yes – I completely support this), but you end up in a complex coalition that involves practically every other minor party; with all the pulling and pushing associated with that.  Chances are that the coalition might just make it through to referendum, but it will be tainted, in the public’s eyes, by the fact that it has been pushed in front of them by a bunch of losers; and therefore will be rejected out of hand.

Go with the Tories, and (as it turned out today, with a surprise announcement by William Hague, along with Gordon Brown’s announcement that he will be stepping down) you also get a referendum, but with the full knowledge that their partners in the coalition will actively campaign against it.  On the face of it, the Tories seems like the logical choice (despite the fact they are further away from the Lib Dems politically), but there is absolutely no guarantee that another election couldn’t be called before the referendum comes along.  If it is, then you could kiss goodbye to the referendum, and the Tories would win that election.

My personal view is that the lib dems should go with Labour.  Get the referendum out there as soon as possible.  In the meantime, they need to fight (whoever they go with) to get Vince Cable installed as chancellor; as he’s about the best man for the job; and a definite vote-winner.  Start the process of tax reform and scrap the ID cards.  Leave Trident for now.  Get the referendum over and done with after all this - I believe this country would go for PR if they could see that under a so-called ‘coalition of the losers’ good things were still happening (Lib Dems tax policy is a definite vote-winner if it comes in, for example; and nobody wants the ID cards – except some Labour ministers) since the tories’ main message against it will be that the country will be ‘forever doomed to hung-parliament territory’.  A lot of people find this sort of language scary, but if they see evidence that such a thing isn’t so bad, then they might just get the balls to try something new (if it’s good enough for nearly every european country, then it should be good enough for us).

Once the referendum is over (let’s face it, it’s going to take a year) – call another election; hopefully under the PR model.  If so, and voting goes a similar way to now, then there’ll be more Lib Dem seats, and fewer Conservative and Labour seats – but the parliament will much more reflect the will of the people.  With the same share of the votes as now, yes, you might get a BNP MP or two – but that doesn’t matter.  The fact is that there is a sizable minority of people who have a problem with ‘those bloody foreigners’ (stress – not my view – just illustrating the point) and they should be heard in parliament, even if the majority of people disagree.  If the IRA can be tamed by politics – so can the fascists.

Either way – this is great fun.  I really hope this means that this country is changing for the better – because it really needs to.