Last week's election was the voters' opportunity to pass judgment on a politcal class badly damaged by expenses-gate, and there were many constituencies where an an individual MP's expenses record clealry affected the outcome. But the election also provided Westminster with the opportunity for a fresh start.
Depressingly, the last few days have done little to inspire confidence in politics and yesterday's events provided a new low. Whatever kind of deal is stitched together today (or tomorrow, or this week), it is hard to see how any of the parties involved can rebuild public trust - or inspire confidence in their ability to restore Britain's battered economy.
The 'phantom' Labour government remains in denial, ignoring the electorate's decision and the advice of its more principled old hands, refusing to relinquish the perks of office whilst neglecting to run the country - all the while clothing itself in pieties about the 'Consitution' which it has shown itself so ready to rewrite. The Conservatives, who might have been expected to defend the constitution and at least to hold true to the modest electoral changes pleged in their own manifesto, are apparently so desperate for power that they will found themselves in a Dutch auction of electoral reform, continuing to negotiate with a party despite finding that it has been two-timing them all along. And the Liberal Democrats deserve only contempt - whether they are entirely duplicitous or merely ill-disciplined matters little, they are clearly unsuited for government. If either of the main parties makes an accommodation with them now, it cannot be built on trust and is unlikely to last much beyond teatime - let alone through the stormy economic waters ahead.
I do not see how anything palatable can be retrieved from this. Maybe the best hope is that the whole fragile edifice collapses sooner rather than later and we have another election. May the least-worst party win.
