So Britain has a hung parliament. The last time this happened with in 1974. We are in an interesting and important time. I'll post more about the what happens in the coming days but I want to focus on the election.

Why didn't the Liberal Democrats do well?

The Liberal Democrats lost seats even though they get 1% more votes. It's a great shame. I really wanted the Lib Dems to come through in close third or second but it wasn't the case. It was looking like they were going to do that right up untill the exit polls. I think that a lot of people who were going to vote Lib Dems chickened out in the end for two reasons.

Fear - In the last week the Conservatives and Labour parties were both warning people about a hung parliament. They both made it sound like a hung parliament is a terrible thing where it really isn't. Even though we still ended up with the hung parliament I think that fear did discourage people from voting the way they wanted and more tactical.

Wasted Vote - The old saying "Voting Lib Dems is a wasted vote" must have played a part. There are people in the country who didn't want the Tories or Labour and then voted against them. To me it seems like it would have been probably been the normal Labour support who were initially drawn to the Lib Dems as an alternative to Labour probably went back to Labour in hope of stopping the Conservatives getting in power. I think that was bad because it took power from the Lib Dems who now have power to decide the fate now in the hung parliament. Their power could have been so much greater with more seats.

Proportional Represention

The fact that the Lib Dems increased their vote share but lost seats really shines light on how unfair the political system is. Proportional represention is a buzz word at the moment and is something I support. With PR liberal democrats would have 23% of MPs in parliament (they only get less than 10% now) and that would reflect what people voted for. Which is good! If we changed to PR we would definately have hung parliament in future and that'll make sure policies are only passed with much more support rather than one party just pushing them though.

So right now the news is all about Clegg meeting with Cameron, Clegg meeting with Brown, Clegg meeting with the Diberal Democrats... it looks like the power is in the hands of Clegg and Lib Dems. I think they'll do the right thing and if they a deal with the Tories (which seems very likely) it might even work! I like to think if parliament gets a ConDem'd (hehe I came up with condemed) parliament Clegg will be Cameron's conscience making sure the Conservatives don't do really bad things.