Shortly after 4pm yesterday, a holdall could be seen at the rear of 10 Downing Street, prompting a flurry of speculation that the brutal transfer of power that epitomises the British electoral system was under way at last. It turned out to belong to a police officer; but in the frenetic, round-the-clock news coverage of the most turbulent period in recent British politics, anything and everything was seen as significant.
As the comings and goings continued around Westminster, one thing was clear: five days after losing the general election last Thursday, Gordon Brown's desperate rearguard effort to stay in power was drawing to a close. By 7.30pm, he was gone – and Britain was heading for its first peacetime coalition government since the 1930s.
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