11 May 2010: Endgame

And there it is. I was working and so missed the dramatic moments on live TV, but Gordon's gone to the Queen and said "I'm off", and as I write this David Cameron has gone to Buckingham Palace to be asked by the Queen "Are you in a position to form a government?" Presumably he'll say "yes", otherwise the Queen will have to respond like a disappointed teacher: "well, go back and do it again". The exact deal hasn't been finalised yet, let alone ratified by the Lid Dems, but presumably Dave will now take over as PM straight away and will have until the Queen's Speech to put the actual team together in time for the first vote.

Earlier, the Rainbow Alliance plan seemed to finally have fallen by the wayside - Lib Dems and Labour just far enough apart and the minority government that would be formed just too much of a minority to work. Also, Labour seem to be taking a slightly longer-term strategy of letting their two rival parties tackle the economic deficit, and however successful they are it still will be painful, and Labour will be in a position to come in and come right back at the next election, whenever that may be. (Sounds weird, but don't forget Winston Churchill won the Second World War and immediately lost the next General Election.)

And that's that, change of Executive branch of government in less than an hour. Cameron's still in there, incidentally - twenty minutes now, rather like Gordon Brown going to visit the house of the non-bigoted woman. He's the youngest PM since 1812. There's a rumour of Clegg becoming Deputy PM, but I can see problems with that (standing in a PMQ's for a start)... we probably won't know for sure for a while. There's no rush now - it's clearly a LibCon of some type that we'll get and the Queen's Speech isn't until May 25.

Oh, there he goes, off to work!

Edit: Clegg as Deputy Prime Minister is confirmed. Partly this means he has no particular portfolio and therefore can be kept out of mischief, but I reiterate my earlier question about PMQs and also, let's not forget the UK (well, Europe) has laws about Paternity Leave (notably lacking in the USA), which could be interesting come the autumn. (Yes, Mrs C is expecting.)