Brown to quit as Prime Minister as Cameron prepares to move in to Number Ten (No Lab-Lib pact)

Daily Mail ^ | May 11, 2010 | Nicola Boden

[C19fan]

Gordon Brown looks set to resign tonight and allow David Cameron to become Britain’s new Prime Minister after Labour talks with the Liberal Democrats collapsed.

The Labour leader’s desperate bid to cling on to power fell apart after his own MPs responded with fury to the prospect of a Lib-Lab pact and there were clashes on policy with Nick Clegg.

After five days of high drama following the election ending in a hung parliament, the deadlock appears to be over with the Tories on the verge of sweeping to power.

Mr Brown is holed up back at Number Ten with wife Sarah and his closest aides and luggage has been spotted being piled into cars at the back of Downing Street.

[C19fan]

Bye bye Gordo!!!

[maddog55]

I’d feel better if it read “Obama to quit as President.”

[thefactor]

I must admit I have no idea how their system works. People can compromise after an election? Make deals? Join forces? Anyone have the quick and dirty explanation?

[C19fan]

The issue is the Tories “won” the election but did not win enough seats for an absolute majority in Parliament. That means Cameron can be kicked out at any time by a no confidence vote if all the other parties gang up on him. Cameron is trying to make a deal with the Liberal-Democrats that in return for some concessions they will not cause trouble.

[apillar]

Unfortunately for the UK. I have a feeling that whatever pact is formed whether Libdem-Conservative or Libdem-Labour, it's going to collapse in a few months, triggering new elections. The conservatives might have actually been better off letting Labour twist in the wind a few more months. As it stands now, Labour being the odd party out will have a chance to put new faces in its leadership and run as the “outside” party in the next elections, hoping after a few months of Libdem-Conservative rule that the UK forgets that Labour ran the UK for the last 13 years and is responsible for most of its current problems.

[SonOfDarkSkies]

Good News!

I think

[Burkean]

Obama’s time will come. It is becoming increasingly obvious that the screw is turning.

[agere_contra]

OTOH, Harper has run an excellent minority govt in Canada, essentially daring the liberals to call an election.

Cameron needs to do the same and distance himself from the LibLabs by going Conservative.

[Old Retired Army Guy]

They will be having another elction late this year or early next.

[apillar]

Well essentially in Britain their is no direct vote for Prime Minister. People vote for a party at the local level and the party to get a majority of the seats gets to appoint the Prime Minister. In this case no party got a majority so the two major parties are wheeling and dealing with smaller parties to create a majority.

The equivalent in the US would be if the party in charge of the House of Representatives chose the president and there was no popular vote for President. Under this system, Bill Clinton would have been kicked out of office in 1994 when Republicans took over the House and Bush would have been kicked out in 2006 when democrats took the House

[Buckeye McFrog]

Was watching Fox News coverage of this, and apparently the Tories won a bigger victory in sheer numbers than Tony Blair did back in ‘94. But Labour has had a decade and a half to essentially gerrymander them out of contention, which, it appears, they very nearly did.

[9YearLurker]

I wonder, does anyone know, did our own US senate system work more that way when state legislatures selected and sent their senators by legislative vote?

I’m thinking that the election of state legislators, in years when a particular state had q senate term opening, though of course that elective task would not be so important as a vote for PM in parliament.

[Retired Greyhound]

Good to see that some in Labour have character. Brown’s not one of them. Sounds like he had to be forced out.

At this point it doesn’t seem worth it for Cameron to negotiate too hard with Clegg. Though there was no clear majority, a plurality voted to go in a different direction.

Clinton was elected this way TWICE, and supposedly that was good enough for a mandate.

[Retired Greyhound]

It still wasn’t the same back then.

By the way, popular election of Senators was one of the many things activist liberals did in the early 1900’s that weakened the U.S.

The Founders set it up the way they did for a reason. Get ready - soon POTUS will be elected by popular vote.

[earlJam]

The big question...

Is Obama going to send the new Prime Minister DVDs of himself as a gesture of friendship?

[relictele]

This will be a very odd setup. In my mind Lib Dems are left of Labour and now the Tories and the Lib Dems will be sharing cabinet positions?

I only hope Cameron can solidify his power base, call another election and get a proper Conservative government in place.

[Gay State Conservative]

Much of what I've read recently in the British press indicates that the UK is in *very* serious financial trouble and that the coming months there are gonna be ugly.There's even talk of Athens-like riots in the streets.It's also been suggested that whoever is PM over the next year or so (Cameron,it appears) is likely to become so unpopular that he'll be tossed out of office within months.

If that's correct it might have been wiser for Cameron to cool his jets for a few months as Leader of the Opposition.

[ArmstedFragg]

Bravo David!!!

....and my sympathies.

[Niuhuru]

Doubt it. Chances are the Tories will simply have to roll up their sleeves and clean up the mess that the Labor party caused with their rampant taxation, illegal immigration, and complete irresponsibility. That’s what conservatives do after all, clean up the messes made by liberals.