The Lib-Lab Dream Team

Today has been quite the grimmest weather I can remember on election day since I was old enough to vote. It may be a case of rose-tinted spectacles, but in my recollection all the others dawned bright and sunny. "The sun's out, and so are the Tories," quipped Neil Kinnock in '92. They were - but not in the way he meant. They were out at the polling stations ensuring victory for John Major.

Maybe this is a good omen, however. All of those bright and sunny election days ended in disappointment for yours truly, with the election of either a Tory government (1983, 1987 and 1992) or a pseudo-Tory one (1997, 2001 and 2005.) Today, for the first time in my adult life, there is the tantalising prospect of something genuinely different.

Of course, I'm not holding my breath. I have made clear in my Saturday column that I think the likeliest outcome today is a minority Conservative government, with a second election a little way down the line.

The result I am hoping for, however, is one which paves the way for a pro-reform coalition between the Liberal Democrats and post-Brownite Labour which can put this country's bent electoral system right once and for all.

To my mind, the chances of such a coalition depend on the Lib Dems outpolling Labour in the popular vote, for two reasons. Firstly, because such a result would make such a mockery of the current system that it will be rendered even more unsustainable than at present.

Secondly, because a 2nd or even 1st place for the Lib Dems in terms of share of the vote tonight could actually facilitate the arrival of Nick Clegg as the first Liberal Prime Minister since David Lloyd George.

Of all the possible election outcomes that have been outlined by the pundits over the past four weeks, the one that made most sense to me was Will Hutton's piece in last Sunday's Observer entitled: "If Labour is wise, it will usher Nick Clegg into Downing Street."

To coin a phrase, I agree with Will. If Labour comes third tonight and the Lib Dems second, Gordon Brown should immediately fall on his sword, and a caretaker triumvirate of Harriet Harman, Alan Johnson and Alistair Darling should deliver the Labour Party into a Lib-Lab coalition led by Clegg, the undisputed winner of this campaign.

What might such a coalition look like? Well, I've sketched out a possible version below. It has nine Lib Dem members and 13 Labour members, the latter incorporating the most pro-reform elements of the current Cabinet - Alan Johnson, Ben Bradshaw, Peter Hain and Lord Adonis for example.

With No 10 going to Mr Clegg, the Lib Dems could not have the Treasury as well, so Alistair Darling would stay on, reflecting his hard-earned status as the most trustworthy of Labour's senior figures.

The new Prime Minister aside, Chris Huhne would have the toughest job - as Justice Secretary and Lord Chancellor it would be his task to pilot through the biggest set of constitutional reforms since those of the Liberal government of 1906, but the man who so narrowly missed out on the Lib Dem leadership is certainly equal to it.

As for Labour....it should take its time to elect a new leader, but my tip is Mr Bradshaw, an excellent minister who has very few enemies in the party, has an interesting personal back-story, and, unsurprisingly enough for a former TV journalist, is very good on the box.

The Great Reform Cabinet of 2010

Prime Minister: Nick Clegg
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for the Cabinet Office: Alan Johnson
Chancellor of the Exchequer: Alistair Darling
Foreign Secretary: David Miliband
Home Secretary: John Denham
Justice Secretary: Chris Huhne
Leader of the House of Commons: Harriet Harman
Business Secretary: Vince Cable
Defence Secretary: Lord Ashdown
Education Secretary: Ben Bradshaw
Health Secretary: Andy Burnham
Work and Pensions Secretary: Yvette Cooper
Climate Change Secretary: Ed Miliband
Environment Secretary: Ed Davey
Transport Secretary: Lord Adonis
Communities Secretary: Julia Goldsworthy
Culture Secretary: Tessa Jowell
Leader of the House of Lords: Baroness Williams
Scottish Secretary: Charles Kennedy
Welsh Secretary: Peter Hain
Northern Ireland Secretary: Shaun Woodward
International Development Secretary: Douglas Alexander
Chief Secretary to the Treasury: David Laws
Chief Whip: Bob Ainsworth

The Mid Derbyshire Hustings

This election is a bit of a first in our part of the world, as we're part of the brand new seat of Mid Derbyshire. In truth it's something of a weird amalgamation, bringing together the former industrial town of Belper and its surrounding villages with some of the northern suburbs of the city of Derby itself. The two areas have very little in common, Derby being culturally part of the Midlands and Belper seen by some as the first Northern town in England.

Electorally speaking, the boundary shuffle has interesting implications. By removing the solidly Tory-supporting suburb of Allestree into Mid Derbyshire, the Boundary Commissioners have turned Derby North into a three-way marginal which is being seen as one of the bellweather seats in this election. In the past fortnight, it has been visited by all three main party leaders, with Messrs Cameron and Clegg both in town on Friday.

We won't be getting that sort of attention here in Mid Derbyshire. The Tory candidate, Pauline Latham, is going to win, and having honed her political skills across 23 years in local government dating back to the days of David Bookbinder, I have no doubt that she will prove to be an excellent constituency MP.

But even though the result is something of a foregone conclusion, it was good to hear what the various candidates had to say for themselves at last Friday's hustings organised by Churches Together in Duffield, particularly in relation to their own personal values.

Joining Pauline on the platform at Duffield Methodist Church were Derby city councillor Hardial Dhindsa for the Labour Party, political virgin Sally McIntosh for the Lib Dems and businessman Tony Kay for UKIP. The British National Party candidate, Lewis Allsebrook, and the Monster Raving Loony Party's R.U. Serious gave it the swerve.

This being a largely Christian audience, it did not take long for a question about abortion and euthanasia to come up. Forget sorting out the economy and cleaning up politics - for quite a few people I know in Christian circles locally, getting more people into Parliament who will defend the sanctity of human life is really the touchstone issue.

Pauline answered, very honestly, that although she did believe in the sanctity of life, "I do also believe women have the right to choose an abortion." Hardial woffled a bit while basically agreeing, and Tony sidestepped it by saying that, as he and his wife have never had children, it had never really come up as an issue.

But mother-of-three Sally struck a different note, revealing she had been offered an abortion as a first resort by her doctor at the start of her third pregnancy. "It shocked me because it wasn't something I would ever want to do." She went on to say that the balance had swung "too far in the direction of choice," and that she supported lowering the age limit for abortions from 24 weeks. "To abort children who are viable scares me very much."

If that probably won Sally a few votes from this largely pro-life audience, Pauline will have scored highly on her response to the next question, which focused on plans to build thousands of homes on greenbelt land in the new constituency - an issue which affects Belper in particular.

The town's essential character is that of a wheel with five spokes radiating from the centre - Bargate, Openwoodgate, Far Laund, Mount Pleasant and Cow Hill, each of them surrounded by a 'tongue' of green open space. Yet much of that open space will be built on over the next few years if planners have their way.

Said Pauline: "We don't want Belper to join up to Heage. We don't want Little Eaton and Breadsall to join up with the city." All the other candidates seemed to agree, although in Hardial's case, it begged the question whether he's told his own government that.

Speaking to me after the meeting, Pauline told me that her first act if elected will be to try to block a planning application for the new homes in Belper that is due to be decided later this month. With local reporter Laura Hammond also in attendance, expect to see this story in the Belper News soon.

Another issue high on the audience's agenda was 24-hour drinking, with all the candidates moreorless agreeing that Tony Blair's attempt to create a "cafe culture" in the UK had been an unmitigated disaster, although Pauline fought shy of a suggestion that Derbyshire could become a pilot zone for new, more restrictive drinking laws.

The meeting meandered somewhat towards the end. In truth the debate format was rather static, and gave no opportunity for people from the floor to ask follow-up questions.

Tony Kay at least saved his best till last. In response to the final question - "Given that MPs are so reviled, why do you want to be one" - he replied: "Well, if I did want to be an MP I wouldn't be standing for UKIP."

His party, UKIP, may well finish a distant fourth in this contest. But in the contest for laughs on Friday night, he won hands down.

It is still not clear who is going to win. It is clear, though, that Gordon is going to lose

In my Journal column today I'm calling the 2010 general election against Gordon Brown and Labour. Not an easy one for me to write for reasons I make clear in the text.

Here it is in full.

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Thirteen years ago, on John Major’s last Saturday in 10 Downing Street, I wrote in my pre-election column that the over-riding factor when people cast their votes would be the desire for change.

Politics tends to go in cycles, and so this election, too, is likely to see the curtain fall for a Prime Minister who now seems ready to leave the stage.

For all the talk of “Cleggmania” and “Duffygate” altering the dynamics of the contest over the past three weeks, the key dynamic – the desire for a new beginning - has been in place from the start.

It is still not clear who is going to win on Thursday. It is, though, becoming clear that Gordon Brown is going to lose.

It’s not easy for me to have to write that. I continue to believe that Mr Brown could have been a perfectly good Prime Minister had he got the chance to be one at a time when his party as a whole was still riding high.

I also believe that history will judge him far more kindly than his contemporaries have done, and that the actions he has taken with regard to the recession will, in time, be vindicated.

But once the country began to tire of New Labour, it was always going to be a big ask for a man who has been so close to the centre of power for so long to successfully represent change.

The party’s core campaign message – “don’t risk the recovery” – has been an essentially defensive operation in a situation which cried out instead for vision.

The Gillian Duffy incident in Rochdale this week – which could have happened to any of the three party leaders – only put the seal on Mr Brown’s already fading prospects.

The real significance of it was not that he views the voters with contempt – he doesn’t – but the fact that he thought the initial exchange had been a “disaster.”

It wasn’t - Mrs Duffy had actually promised to vote Labour. But Mr Brown thought it was a “disaster” because he has lost both his self-confidence, and his ability to judge political situations.

His inability to make any inroads in the polling that followed Thursday’s final TV debate shows the public has by and large made up its mind about him, and they won’t change it now.

So, then, Clegg or Cameron? Well, I won’t dwell at length on the potential hazards for the North-East that may result from an outright Conservative victory.

Mr Cameron’s comments last weekend, suggesting the region receives too much public money, probably tell you all you need to know, however hard he later tried to row back from them.

Irrespective of that, I have argued previously that both Britain and the North-East need a balanced Parliament, for two reasons.

Firstly because the Tories cannot be trusted to govern on their own. Secondly, because this must be the last election fought on a bent electoral system which could yet produce a result on Friday that is beyond parody.

All along, the polls have suggested it will happen, but that may yet change as minds are concentrated over the remaining few days of the campaign.

The outcome that would probably best reflect the mood of the country at the moment is a Lib-Con coalition – but that can only happen, of course, if Mr Cameron puts electoral reform on the table.

If he does not, the likeliest scenario is a minority Conservative administration and – joy of joys! – a re-run of all this in a few months’ time as Prime Minster Cameron seeks a working majority.

One thing will be different next time though. Mr Brown will not be there.