The astonishing success of the Liberal Democrats' Nick Clegg in the Leaders' Debate has renewed speculation of a hung parliament.
In the Nixon / JFK debate of which I posted a clip, it was said that people who heard it on the radio thought Nixon had won, whereas people who watched it on the television thought JFK had won. Being abroad, I was only abe to hear the UK debate on the radio and I thought it was fairly even, though a lot more argumentative than we had been led to believe. I was quite surprised to hear that Nick Clegg had emerged the winner.
Incidentally I think a bit of scrapping is good for democracy, and this will presumably continue in the next debate, on Thursday, which is on Foreign Policy.
Many people think a hung parliament would be a good thing. I do not, for two reasons. The first is that difficult decisions are going to have to be made on public spending cuts and that will be almost impossible with a number of vested interests having to be placated. The second reason is epitomised by Alex Salmond's recent speech.
The leader of the Scottish Nationalists says that in the event of a hung parliament (now that he thinks it a good idea he calls it a 'balanced parliament') he would press for the best possible deal for Scotland.
What this means is that whoever is trying to cling on in power may find themselves buying block votes from minority parties.
Using our money.
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