But, fear not dear readers as your dedicated blog writer is still working hard to ensure that the Bridging & Commercial deadline is still met (well, sort of met as I am ten minutes late as of now).
Luckily there is really only one topic to discuss and that is the election. The opinion polls are still pointing to the two main parties being very close and the chances of another coalition Government are looking good right now unless there is a late push by either Conservatives or Labour.
Given our ‘first past the post’ system coalitions have been uncommon in the UK, but despite a few contentious issues the current coalition has stood up pretty well in what has been a period of some turmoil. An indication of this was today’s editorial in the FT – I am paraphrasing, but it was along the lines of regardless of political preferences, the continuity of the current Government will give the best outcome for the financial markets and the economy. I am sure there will be many that disagree with this, but the ‘steady as she goes’ message gives an indication of the uncertainty over the many permutations that are possible depending on the voting patterns on Thursday.
Depending on your political leanings you may well have a desire to see certain coalition pairings for the forthcoming Government, but what realistic partners can we foresee?
Starting on the left I think we can discount the Greens as their potential MP count is very low. No doubt Labour supporters are hoping for a majority Government, but if they need to look at coalition partners the likely candidate is the SNP. We have an interesting scenario here with the SNP playing up the influence that they hope to exert by supporting a minority Labour Government while the Labour Party are desperately trying to downplay the very same fact. The reasons for this are clear – in Scotland the polls are pointing towards a potential clean sweep by the SNP and the tail could very much be wagging the dog as far as the English parties are concerned if the SNP are exerting a strong influence over the Labour Party Government.
The Tories have been pushing this issue in an effort to scare voters and the tactic can be seen by way of The Sun supporting the Conservatives in England while the Scottish Sun is supporting the SNP – a pincer movement against Labour.
For the Tories a tie-in with UKIP may be problematic given some of the more extreme views that some of their party members hold, so we could again see the Lib-Dems as the king makers.
Will it be ‘steady as she goes’ or will the Lib-Dems look for a ‘progressive’ coalition with Labour?
Last night Nick Clegg made the point that the voters give the mandate to join the party with the most seats – so, watch this space next Friday as the ‘horse trading ‘ begins!
Attributed to Robert Collins, Director of Commercial Finance at Brightstar
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