Election Reflection: Did Britain win?

As anyone who was unfortunate enough to be following my Twitter stream on Thursday and Friday will have realised, I have a love/hate relationship with British elections. I love politics, but I hate the right wing. Unfortunately in the UK a lot of people are ignorant enough to vote Conservative, and every time I see a smug over-privileged face winning a vote I get angry, drunk, and swear a lot [you should have seen the tweets I deleted before sending!]. I don't believe "politicians are all the same" or "there's no difference between the parties". There are the progressive parties such as Labour, Liberal Democrats, and Greens, and there are the reactionary parties of the right. We may not always agree with the progressive parties' policies, but we can identify with their ideologies. During my life I have always voted either Liberal or Labour, because whilst I recognise people do not have equal abilities (after all, there are those ignorant enough to vote Conservative), I passionately believe people should have equal opportunities. Despite a bad night for the Lib Dems and Labour, this election has provided the opportunity for the parties of the right to be locked out of politics (or at least a majority government) for the foreseeable future!

Whilst the Conservatives have the biggest number of seats, failing to get a majority can only be considered a massive failure. Three terms of a Labour government and an unpopular Prime Minister and they are still not voted in! As the results show, the British majority are progressive: 30% Labour, 24% Lib Dems despite the best efforts of a disgusting right-wing press. Maybe the daring copyright-busting Mirror front page did just enough to remind us that class politics are still there, however hard our friend Dave told us otherwise:

With the Liberals holding the balance of power there is at last a glimmer of hope for the Liberal dream of proportional representation. Whilst the Labour Party have always overly-benefited from the current first-past-the-post system, due to their strong heartlands in the North, it may be time for them to put the country before the party. Whilst the thought of a BNP or UKIP MP makes me feel physically ill, is it a price worth paying for a future of progressive governments?

The next 12 months in politics as I would like to see it:
- A Lib-Lab coalition with smaller parties for 1 year (Caroline Lucas for Environment secretary?)
- A referendum on PR
- An election on May 5th 2011 under PR

None of these stages will be easy. The coalition will probably require the loss of Gordon Brown. A shame not only because I believe he is a great and honest Prime Minister, but because he is an intellect any government would be poorer without. Ideally I would like to see him return to the Treasury, with Alan Johnson as PM, but I recognise that it'll never happen. There is a difference between Charles Kennedy and William Hague returning to the front benches of their parties, and a former PM doing it.

Then comes the referendum. The right-wing press will recognise the potential for the Conservatives to spend years in the wilderness, whilst the Murdoch empire will lose much of it's influence in government whichever party he supports. It'll be a very close run event, but I think ultimately fair-play and people's realisation that every vote will count will tip the balance in favour of PR.

Finally the election. Under a PR system we'll have even greater responsibility for engaging in the electoral process. For too many of us politics is something that happens only at election time. When the progressive population says nothing it allows the politics of hate, fear, and ignorance raise its head. More of us should be taking an active interest in the day-to-day politics of Westminster, and at a local level, and not just when a particular bill grabs our interest.

It'll be a while before we know the outcome of this election, but for now Gordon Brown is still Prime Minister, and the future is far from as bleak as it could have been.