Presumably the Tory press can now stand down. In the immediate aftermath of last week’s inconclusive British election, the headlines were filled with dread. “Now for the Shabby Deals,” the Daily Mail prophesied. When it seemed, some days later, Gordon Brown’s resignation might yet allow Labour to strike a power-sharing agreement with the Liberal Democrats to keep the Conservatives out, the tabloids’ worst fears appeared to have been confirmed. “This Shabby Stitch-up,” the Daily Express fumed, while the Mail was forced to reach for a new adjective: “A Squalid Day for Democracy.”
But now the Lib Dems have changed partners, the Tories are in, and all is well. Still, those of a less partisan bent were left with a bad taste in their mouths. The Globe and Mail’s Jeffrey Simpson, for one. “What a miserable spectacle is unfolding in Britain,” he wrote at the height of the drama, aghast that “a party that won nine per cent of the seats” should wield such power, not only to pick the prime minister, but even to insist on reform of the electoral system as the price of their support. Yet wasn’t the past week the best advertisement against it? Should the Lib Dems get their fondest wish, he warned, and persuade the British public to switch to proportional representation, this sort of deal-making would become the norm.
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