JUDGING by RESULTS

Given the bad odour into which politics and politicians have fallen over recent months, inducing among swathes of the public a feeling of “a plague on all your houses”, it is neither surprising nor inappropriate that the general election results should disappoint everyone. Everyone, that is, except Naomi Long of the Alliance Party in Belfast East whose 23 percent swing kicked out of Westminster the Stormont First Minister, Peter Robinson (see my earlier posting The Woman Taken in Adultery); and except Caroline Lucas who won the first ever British parliamentary seat (Brighton Pavilion) for the party she leads, the Greens; and except Labour’s Margaret Hodge who had genuine reason to fear the challenge of the BNP leader Nick Griffin in her London East End seat of Barking but who, in the event, beat him four-to-one, kept him in third place and even reduced the vote share achieved by his predecessor by two percent.

By the same percentage, there was a swing in Barking from the Tories to Labour, on a night when the average swing from Labour to Conservative was five percent. Indeed, if Labour had done as well nationally as it did in both London and Scotland, Gordon Brown would now be handing out portfolios in a fourth successive Labour administration.

But Labour didn’t do anything like as well as that. No Cabinet ministers were unseated but two former Home Secretaries were. Few tears will be shed in Downing Street or anywhere else for Charles Clarke, a relentless critic of Brown after he wasn’t kept in the government. Jacqui Smith, somewhat unfairly over-tarnished by the parliamentary expenses scandal, was never going to hold Redditch, perilously retained in the 2005 election, but the nine percent swing away from her looked as though it contained a punitive element. Some good second-rank ministers lost – Vera Baird, Mike O’Brien, Chris Mole, Shahid Malik, Bill Rammell, Jim Knight, Angela Smith and others, including Gordon’s parliamentary private secretary Anne Snelgrove in Swindon South, the woman who said that she hugged him every day.

After all the supposed “Cleggmania”, the Lib Dems proved to be the dog that didn’t bark, increasing their vote only by one percent and taking a net loss of five seats, among them the really excellent medical specialist Evan Harris in Oxford West and that colourful character Lembit Opik on a staggering swing of thirteen percent to the Tories in Montgomeryshire. But the Liberals did take by a majority of exactly 800 the West Country seat of Wells, held since 1983 by David Heathcoat-Amory, old Etonian member of a well-known political family and tainted (literally) by manure in the expenses scandal.

Nick Clegg has announced that he believes David Cameron should be allowed the opportunity to attempt to form a government, seeing as the Tories are the largest party. Gordon Brown remains Prime Minister by convention and has graciously acknowledged that everyone should wait until Cameron and Clegg have done negotiating. Naturally enough, however, Brown has indicated why Clegg ought to throw in his lot with Labour after going through the motions with the Conservatives.

For his part, Cameron has made what he calls “a big, open and comprehensive offer” to the Lib Dems. He may, however, have thrust a broom handle through the wheels by ruling out of any negotiation the questions of Europe, defence, immigration amnesty and voting reform, offering on this last matter only “an all-party committee of enquiry”, which is to say nothing. This may be the clinching issue. Brown has proposed a referendum on the voting system and that must be more attractive to the Liberal Democrat party.

Were I Brown, I would go further. In return for a guarantee of support – which I suppose means in practice a coalition – I would offer Clegg another general election within twelve months, conducted under proportional representation. That ought to be an irresistible carrot for the Lib Dems. It gives Brown and Darling a chance to deliver what they believe they can deliver: an economic recovery this year without the cuts that the Tories intend to implement. It defines the arrangement as finite, allowing the possibility of Brown perhaps stepping aside early next year. It also seems to allow the Tories to believe that their inheritance is only postponed for a year. Twelve months is simultaneously an aeon and the bat of an eyelid. Making such an apparently tight timetable would give purpose to an exhausted Labour administration. And it would allow the opportunity for a little of the shine to rub off Clegg while he tries to make a parliamentary pact work in his party’s favour. I suggest that it is a creative, workable suggestion that has one huge advantage: everybody wins except the Tories.

A postscript about the BBC coverage: David Dimbleby’s problem with uninformative shots of cars might profitably be sorted out in the editorial office rather than on air. I had much more trouble with the continual truncating of interviews, frequently for what turned out to be no discernable reason. I also found Jeremy Paxman’s default position of vexed hectoring accompanied by a look of Martita Hunt imperiousness rather wearing. His not being able to understand that Lembit Opik might actually be quite upset about his defeat made him seem like the class bully. And he is surely experienced enough to know that politicians do not answer hypothetical questions if they can possibly help it. Putting an outrageous point does not necessarily provoke an outrageous response. In the end, I doubt that any of Paxman’s interviews furnished any memorable observations. Though I dislike him intensely and thought a lot of his interviewees were a waste of space, I found that Andrew Neill drew out many more intriguing answers. And a final suggestion for the BBC: the word "extraordinary" should be banned for five years, especially from the mouth of Fiona Bruce.