Putting Prince Charles In The Line Of Fire

The police are taking a lot of flak for allowing a car carrying Prince Charles and his wife to drive straight towards a group of student protesters and allowing the Royal couple to face the brunt of the youngsters' anger.

It's been suggested that the detectives responsible for Charles's safety were on a different wavelength from those trying to quell the protests of the students. But I'm not convinced they were.

In one of my previous Blogs, I highlighted the way the police used an out-of-formation police van to draw the protesters into vandalous acts and it seems possible that the danger faced by the Prince of Wales was part of the same strategy.

Much of the police's operational decisions continue to suggest that they have two conflicting objectives when attempting to control these demonstrations. The first of these objectives is the legitimate task of ensuring the safety of the demonstrators, bystanders and property along the route. The second of these objectives is the entirely illegitimate effort to make the demonstrators behave as badly as possible.

Against this background, doesn't it seem possible that the decision to route the car carrying Charles and Camilla towards the protesters was a deliberate and calculated act?

If there was sufficient confidence that those charged with protecting the Prince could handle the situation if it got out of control, isn't it possible that Charles and Camilla were deliberately placed in harm's way to maximise the propaganda victory over the students?

It's notable that the Cenotaph was once again left unguarded and, this time, a couple of students yielded to the temptation to desecrate its sanctity. It continues to be far more notable that thousands of protesters completely respected this monument but it doesn't appear to suit anybody's purposes to draw attention to this.

We are constantly being told that the protesters are being infiltrated by anarchist groups but there has not been a single iota of evidence to support this theory and based on what I saw when I attended the second demonstration, I do not believe this to be the case.

If anarchist groups are really responsible for all this violence, why aren't they crowing about it? Why aren't they putting up their spokespeople to exploit the opportunity to talk about their aims? And why haven't the police identified a single individual from one of these groups among the protesters?

In fact, the vandalism and violence appears to be being carried out by ordinary student protesters who are being goaded by unnecessarily confrontational police tactics into committing criminal acts.

Unfortuabnelty, the students themselves have bought into the propaganda that outside agencies are infiltrating their marches in a bid to enact violence and vandalism. They seriously need to examine the likeliness of this.

At the protest I attended, the police formed a second 'kettle' just as students were starting to disperse because of the cold temperature and because of boredom. They were dribbling away at a modest rate and there was no way that the police could claim that they posed any kind of risk to public order.

Why then did the police decide to contain them using the faceless force of shields, helmets and batons? And why did they do this with unapologetic brutality? What possible legitimate purpose is served by the poolice's decision to escalate a situation that looked like it was calming down?

These are the questions that the media needs to address. And they can start by asking Clarence House who decided that Prince Charles's route should make it virtually inevitable that he and his wife would get caught up in the attack? And someone should ask Prince Charles how he feels about the possibility that he was a mere pawn in the police's effort to demonise the protests.

England Misses The Point

If you wanted to create a system designed to guarantee corruption, you couldn't do much better than FIFA's discredited method for choosing between World Cup bids.

A small collection of people representing a complex array of vested interests are wined and dined by bidding countries over a period of years with plenty of opportunities to make nefarious financial promises.

Why do it this way? Wouldn't it make more sense to generate a fixed set of criteria; send around a technical team to ensure that the countries that apply can fulfill this criteria and then put all the names in a hat?

No corruption and total transparency. Is there any serious objection to this idea that doesn't come from someone worried that they'll be unable to manipulate it to achieve their own ends?

The Sacrificial Van

Whoever was in charge of the police tactics used at yesterday's student protest in Central London must be having a satisfied chuckle this morning. Every part of their plan worked.

However they may stand on the righteousness of the students' cause, members of the media are unanimous in their depictions of the mindless violence carried out by the 'trouble-makers' who they tell us were responsible for hijacking the event.

The main focus of this attention is the police van which was vandalised on live television. Foolish as it was of the students to attack this vehicle, we really ought to recognise the extent to which this formed the backbone of the police's plan.

This was no ordinary van... it was a sacrificial van which had been placed in a vulnerable position to draw the students into an act of criminality which would ensure that the media supplied a damning verdict of the students' motives and the police themselves could justify the suspension of the civil rights of everyone caught within the enforcement zone that they created through the controversial tactic known as 'kettling'.

The police had already trapped around a thousand or so protesters at the Parliament Square end of Whitehall when, without warning, they formed a line and closed ranks to prevent any of the students from leaving the scene. This was done without any provocation from the protesters (unless good natured chanting is now seen to be beyond the pale). There was no attempt to breach the police lines and the crowd largely accepted their temporary imprisonment inside the enforcement zone without much visible anger.

Latecomers continued to drift to the protest but they were not allowed into the enforcement zone and the police appeared content to allow them to vent their anger without any heavy-handed intervention. Any fears about police brutality appeared misguided and unfair.

Then it changed. A command came through the radio and the police formed a second line behind the newcomers. The first zone had been established by police officers who appeared to recognise that not everyone was there to cause trouble. They allowed tourists to slip through their lines and their approach was, under the circumstances, admirably restrained.

Not so the second line. Responding to shouted militaristic orders, they removed their caps and normal helmets in unison and replaced them with the riot headgear that instantly transforms their appearance from that of police and into that of paramilitaries. Around half of the line pulled riot batons from holsters and began aggressively slapping them into their free hands as they advanced forward.

I witnessed two tearful students pleading to be let through the police lines. They were angrily told that they were being held for their own protection. A baffling claim as there was absolutely nothing going on behind the second police line. Another woman was told that she should make her way to the other end of the cordon where people were being allowed into Westminster Underground Station. Not remotely true... the entrances to the station were well beyond the limits of the enforcement zone.

This second front began to advance down aggressively down Whitehall driving protesters towards the other containment zone. Only the media was allowed through the line.

This occurred at a point in the afternoon when the students' frustration at not being allowed to progress beyond Whitehall was leading to a natural and peaceful dispersement of the crowd and it seemed an inexplicably counter-productive by the police.

I had already noticed the isolated police van that sat in the middle of Whitehall and it was immediately obvious that it was likely to be subjected to the protesters' frustration if the situation deteriorated. The police's action guaranteed this.

What's most worrying about this tactic is the way in which it politicises the police's actions. They have participated in a deliberate propaganda exercise designed to undermine the students' cause.

Politicians are queueing up to condemn the actions of those whose violence was so lurid on last night's news (naturally, the police ensured that their sacrificial van was placed in a position which guaranteed that it's destruction would be caught by the full glare of the national media).

It's worth noting that the police also drove the students towards the Cenotaph which was surrounded by highly flammable wreaths of paper poppies. The police made no attempt to protect this sacred monument and it seems probable that a decision was taken to allow a desecration to take place to score propaganda points rather than to ensure its sanctity. Thankfully the students didn't bite and the Cenotaph was untouched by the mayhem that surrounded it but there was no recognition of this restraint in the media.

If this event was really overrun by anarchists and other sinister elements from the extreme left, why did they forego the opportunity to attack such a potent symbol of the glorious ritualisation of warfare under such extreme provocation?

Having already spoken to a few people about what I witnessed yesterday, I already know how reluctant we can be to believe that the police would participate in such a cynical exercise but this a dangerously complacent attitude.

I Defend A Riot

There appears to be very little variation in the approach adopted by political commentators writing about last week's student demonstrations in London. While opinions vary on the legitimacy of the students' grievances, there's a remarkable level of unanimity when it comes to the invasion of the Conservative Party's Headquarters. Almost without exception, commentators have told us that an otherwise peaceful protest was undermined by hardcore activists from the extreme left.

Is this a fair description of what happened and can it really be said that the escalation of the protest was against the interests of the majority of those protesting? In fact, it's very clear that the protest received considerably more coverage than it would have done if it had all passed off peacefully. And even though almost all of the coverage was negative, viewers can have been left in doubt of the passions that have been aroused by the trebling of tuition fees.

Our right to protest is regarded by many to be proof of the healthiness of our democracy but can this really be true when marches have been neutered by an acceptance by those protesting that they must liaise with the police and follow a series of carefully constructed guidelines to stay on the right side of the law?

Protesting is, by its nature, an inherently anti-establishment act so it's counter-productive to bring it within the mainstream of political expression.

By co-operating with the police and ensuring that all the appropriate permissions are sought, it's now possible for thousands of people to march through one of our major cities without so much as a provocative shout emanating from the crowd, never mind a brick.

The broadcast media will offer the event a little bit of coverage on their news bulletins, the Government can satisfy itself that it is a properly democratic institution because it has permitted this heavily sedated dissent and then... well, nothing. The lack of passion on display will persuade no one of the righteousness of the cause no matter how many are marching because the impact is destroyed by adherence to all the regulations.

Did the government plan this? Almost certainly not but they benefit from it nonetheless. Not only do these neutered protests enable the authorities to claim that they're tolerant of dissent but they can also contrast the behaviour of those who abide by the rules with those who don't. This gives them licence to demonise the latter and question their motives.

They are aided and abetted in this by the media who, in the case of the students who broke into Tory HQ, have dusted off pejoratives such as 'Trots' to emphasise the idea that dark figures infiltrated the protest as a cloak for their sinister political agenda.

This is a far-fetched accusation. It seems much more likely that some of the students felt so frustrated by the neutered nature of the legitimate protest that they felt the need to break free of its shackles. What happened next was, in all likelihood, pretty spontaneous. And a glimpse at the footage appears to confirm this. The students attacking the building on Millbank look quite surprised that they meet such feeble resistance and this, more than anything, appeared to encourage them to push their luck.

But surely the biggest irony is the fact that it worked. A story about a student protest that would have garnered very little media interest became a major story. Even though the coverage was very negative, the audience cannot have failed to note the anger of those taking part even if they were tutting their disapproval as they watched.

So the students who disavowed the behaviour of those who smashed windows should think again. Without the vandalism, this march would barely have registered on the national consciousness.

A line needs to be drawn between those who damaged property and the actions of one individual who hurled a fire extinguisher from a roof with wonton disregard for the welfare of those on the ground below. Any action which risks injury to others cannot be seen in the same light as actions which risk injury to those taking part or damage to property. If the fire extinguisher incident happened in the way it's been described then it ought to be roundly condemned. Having said that, a charge of 'attempted murder' is several leagues over the top... something akin to 'reckless endangerment' appears far more appropriate.

The key lesson that can be drawn from all of this is that protests need to step outside the boundaries of what's permitted in order to be effective. They don't have to be violent and they don't have to involve attacks on property but they must create a point of conflict.

To draw attention to their cause, protesters have to be willing to take risks with their own liberty and their own safety. This was something that was completely understood by Gandhi and Martin Luther King who consistently put themselves in the firing line when leading peaceful protests.

How would Gandhi and King have responded to the sterility of modern protesting in the UK? Is it likely that they have been content to allow their challenge to the establishment to have been neutered by abiding to regulations designed to minimise the impact of their protest?

Of course not. Faced with the level of control exerted on political protests in Britain today, they'd have found imaginative ways of creating discomfort for the governing authorities... they absolutely understood that this is the very least that a protest must achieve.

Next time around it will be easier for the students. The police will be up for it and they're likely to over-react to the slightest provocation. And if this happens, the media tide will turn in favour of the protesters. All the students have to do is find a minor way of stepping outside what's permitted. A mass sit-in along the march route or something of that order would do the trick. Throw the ball into the authorities' court and see what they do next. It won't be pretty but sympathy for the students and their cause will rise inexorably.

Let's Hear It For The Palestinian

A little while back, my laptop stopped working. It was lifeless. Not like the hair of a woman in need of Pantene Pro-V but wholly without life. None of its little lights came on when it was connected to the mains and this didn't change no matter how hard I jabbed at the on switch.

I had some vital work to do and I felt a rising panic that any files on the machine might be lost for ever. I needed help.

I had noticed before that there's a little computer repair shop around the corner from my flat so I slipped the laptop into its bag and carried it there like a wounded kitten. I presented it to the proprietor and asked if there was any chance he could repair it urgently.

Something in his weary expression suggested that few people came into his shop without pleading for instant resolution. Well, who would? Who'd take an injured laptop to a computer repair shop and say: "in your own time, mate... I'm not that bothered"? We're too reliant on the bloody things to be that sanguine.

He laid his hands upon it. Then he closed his eyes and murmured lightly. After thirty seconds or so, he announced that the laptop was repaired.

Any doubt on my face was swiftly removed by the appearance of the clumsy Microsoft animation emerging from the darkness of the reanimated screen.

I breathed a huge sigh of relief and asked him what payment he would like for this miracle. He told me that he hadn't yet had his breakfast and would be happy if I could provide him with a tenner so he could buy something to eat.

I offered to double it if he would explain what he had done and we shook hands on the deal. I handed over a crisp twenty pound note and he told me with a smile on his face that he had brought it back to life by reciting several verses from the Koran.

I stayed for a little while and we had a bit of a chat (during which he revealed the prosaic explanation for his 'miracle'). It was all very friendly until I asked him where he was from. With his Middle Eastern looks and accent, I expected it might be Iran.

"I'm from Palestine," he told me and I then felt him searching my face for an indication of my prejudices. I hoped he saw none and he certainly seemed satisfied with whatever he did or didn't see.

Since then, I have faithfully taken anything in need of repair to the man I call 'The Palestinian' and he has always reacted the same way. After initially saying he's far too busy, he has always taken on the job... almost always repaired whatever needs repairing and charged very little money for the work. He is, in the parlance of my hometown, a diamond geezer.

I got a shock the other day when I saw him on the television news limping his way through Glasgow Airport after being deported by Israel. It turns out that he was aboard the flotilla of boats that tried to defy the naval blockade which is keeping badly-needed humanitarian aid out of Gaza.

In the clip at the bottom of this BLOG, he describes how those on board the attacked boat fought back against fully-armed soldiers. His pride in their bravery is immense and his eyes shine with passion and good humour.

The complexity of the politics of the Middle East is beyond the remit of my modest little BLOG but I can say without hesitation that I am proud to know a man willing to stand up for his beliefs. Dr Hasan Nowaran... I salute your courage.

Carry On Jihading

So many people whose opinion I trust have heaped praise on Four Lions that I really expected to love it. The combination of our most brilliant satirist and a subject matter which needs to be approached with the same caution as an IED on a dusty Afghanistan road was an irresistible prospect... what could go wrong?

A lot, as it turns out. Chris Morris's normally impeccable radar has badly let him down and instead of producing a nuanced satire illustrating the poignant futility of suicide attacks, he's constructed an ill-judged farce.

Edgy humour can serve a film brilliantly when it's clear that a film-maker has been willing to include a scene despite knowing that many will judge it to be in poor taste. But poor taste should never be an aim in itself and that very often seems to the case with Four Lions.

The trailer provides proof that Morris's touch for absurd comedy has by no means deserted him. On the contrary, when seen in isolation the dark-humoured slapstick used to attract people to Four Lions is a hoot. But, in context, the film's attempts to find humour in the tragic consequences of the protagonists' incompetence is neither funny nor thought-provoking.

Chris Morris co-wrote this film with Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong who collaborated with Armando Iannucci on In The Loop and have written something like six series of Peep Show. While it's not necessarily fair to second guess the impact the duo may have had on this project, it's hard to ignore the similarity between In The Loop's imaginative use of profanity and Four Lion's use of unlikely Urdu cussing (helpfully subtitled for non-Urdu speakers) which peppers this film. At times, it feels that the purpose of this is to disguise a general comic paucity.

In Peep Show, Bain and Armstrong brilliantly portray the imagined and real dilemmas of a pair of unremarkable young men bound together by long-term friendship and little else. Much of the excellence derives from their ability to mine the comedy of mundaneness. In Four Lions, the plot could hardly be less mundane but the three writers appear keen to persuade us that the same trivial stresses which govern the lives of Mark and Jeremy in Peep Show would apply with equal vigour to young men intent on self-destruction and mass murder.

At one level, this enables the audience to consider the jihadists as ordinary human beings who are prey to the same petty motivations as the rest of us but it makes their choices all the more inexplicable. You can argue that it isn't the role of a comedy film to offer an explanation of the motives that lie the savagery of murderous terrorism but any writer stepping into this territory has a huge responsibility to offer some kind of insight. Otherwise there's a danger that they are merely laughing nihilistically at the most barbaric acts imaginable just to get a rise from those who recognise that terrorism isn't funny.

The film's most baffling and dangerous decision is its depiction of the relationship between Omar (Riz Ahmed) and his young family. Even though the film suggests Omar and his wife are free of the oppression that devout fundamentalism can bring to bear on a marriage, she is portrayed as being cheerfully supportive of his martyrdom plans. Not only does this not ring true, it panders to the most jaundiced view of Britain's Muslims peddled by the far right. It appears to confirm the paranoid view of the BNP that as much danger is posed by well-integrated, liberally-minded adherents of Islam as it is by nutty extremists.

In the past, Chris Morris has proven quite brilliant at convincing people to believe the most absurd propaganda... persuading a series of celebrities to warn about the perils of 'cake' superbly demonstrated his willingness to exploit people's credulity for comic effect. Has he finally taken that process to its logical conclusion by persuading audiences to laugh at something he knows not to be funny? Is he urging us to laugh at his film just so he can laugh at us for being stupid enough to respond to his urgings?

Great Ambiguities

From conversations I've had over the years, it's evident that most people who live on this island imagine that the 'Great' in 'Great Britain' is a reference to this country's grand history.

They're wrong of course... this island is 'Great' Britain solely because it's the largest of the islands that makes up the British Isles. Proper humility can be achieved by reminding ourselves that the Germans refer to our country as Grossbritannien... 'gross' makes it a good deal harder to fall into the self-aggrandisement trap.

All of this came to mind yesterday when I witnessed two contrasting versions of a statement put out by the Arsenal footballer Cesc Fabregas. The young Spaniard is currently the subject of a tug of war between his current club and Barcelona with most experts persuaded that he'll opt to move back to his home country this summer.

But after Fabregas described a recent conversation with Arsenal's manager as the "greatest phone call" of his life, many fans of the North London club might dare to dream that the midfielder has had a change of heart.

They shouldn't get their hopes up. It appears that by 'greatest', Fabregas merely meant 'longest'... an adjective which suggests their conversation had a quite different tenor from the one implied by 'great'. And it should be remembered that a conversation of great length with someone you're about to jilt doesn't often bring about a change of heart.

This didn't stop BBC's 5 Live from reporting that Fabregas had described the conversation as the 'best' he'd ever had. Arsenal fans buoyed by this news should feel disappointed that the broadcaster opted to ignore a linguistic nuance that makes a great difference... or should that be 'a gross difference'?

To Err Is Human... To Forgive Is Divine

An extraordinary thing happened on BBC's Question Time last night when the new Home Secretary, Theresa May, explained that she has changed her mind about several key issues related to gay rights.

This shouldn't be unusual but it is... and other politicians should pay particular attention to the absence of vituperative comment from her opponents on the panel after May confessed her change of heart on gay adoption and Section 28.

There were no cries of "u-turn" or "hypocrite" from Caroline Flint, Menzies Campbell or Shami Chakrabarti and the look on Theresa May's face suggested that repenting her illiberalism was pretty cathartic.

More importantly, both she and her political opponents were warmly applauded by the studio audience who appeared to appreciate the maturity of the discussion.

There's been a lot of talk about the 'new politics' since the formation of the Coalition Government and most of it has been meaningless but a willingness to accept that a politician can change their mind without the sky collapsing is a genuine advancement and we should all welcome it.

Even Those Who Oppose the BA Strike Should Feel Dismay Tonight

Tonight's Six O'Clock bulletin on Radio 4 broke the news that British Airways had succeeded in bringing a halt to a cabin crew strike which was due to begin at midnight.

This wasn't achieved through discussion with representatives of Unite or by capitulating to the demands of the disgruntled employees. It was achieved by persuading Lord Justice McCombe that the union had failed to meet its obligations under section 231 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992.

The Union's transgression was a failure to inform its members that, in addition to the legitimate votes cast in last month's strike ballot, there were eleven spoiled ballot papers.

You don't have to be in favour of the proposed strike to recognise that this highly technical and utterly trivial oversight is being used by the judiciary to prevent legitimate industrial action which was favoured by an overwhelming number of those balloted.

In giving his judgement, McCombe said he was taking the "balance of convenience" into account. It's a strike. It's supposed to create inconvenience... that's how strikes achieve their goal. By admitting that potential inconvenience to travellers informed his thinking, McCombe is making it abundantly clear that this was a political decision.

And the judiciary has form in this area. When the first BA strike was ruled out on an equally spurious basis, Mrs Justice Cox told the court that, "a strike of this kind over the twelve days of Christmas is fundamentally more damaging to BA and the wider public than a strike taking place at almost any other time of the year."

In each case, the presiding judge's candour has inadvertently lifted the lid on an establishment conspiracy to prevent cabin crew from striking. The obstacles now being put in the path of legitimate industrial action are an affront to democracy and it's staggering that more isn't being made of this in the mainstream press.

Clustershag To 10 Downing Street

The Daily News's Jon Stewart offered his take on the political machinations that put David Cameron into 10 Downing Street using his usual mixture of insight, satire and feigned bemusement.

The programme doesn't get everything right... the American tendency to use 'England' as though it's a synonym for the United Kingdom will grate with some and the closing gag suggests that The Daily News finds it hard to distinguish posh English politicians from one another... that's George Osborne inside the cannon, not David Cameron as they appear to think.

But Stewart brilliantly picks up an odd bit of phrasing in Gordon Brown's resignation statement and it's worth watching just to see his impersonation of the Queen. And although John Oliver's contribution is a bit patchy, his lampooning of Cameron's claim that Britain's "best days still lie ahead" is priceless.

There But For The Ingrates Of The Electorate

It would be interesting to know the thoughts of Tony Blair and Paddy Ashdown as they watched David Cameron and Nick Clegg at the joint press conference in the rose garden at 10 Downing Street yesterday. Were they ruefully thinking of what might have been?

Talks between Tony Blair and Paddy Ashdown before the 1997 election on the possibility of creating a progressive alliance were effectively scuppered by the huge majority won by Labour at that election. A development that Blair would have struggled to sell to his party even if it had been necessary became untenable because there was patently no need to do it.

The unexpected enthusiasm displayed by Cameron and Clegg for an arrangement which appears entirely pragmatic has provoked a sense that we might be witnessing 'a new politics' after all and the non-tribal members of the commentariat have expressed extremely hopeful sentiments about the prospects of its success.

If Cameron and Clegg manage to build a constructive arrangement despite their obvious political differences then imagine what might have been achieved by Blair and Ashdown who had such similarly shaped political antennae?

Can This Arranged Marriage Work?

One of the most infuriating things about the coverage of the election result has been the perpetual tendency to muddle the outcome of the vote with the intentions of the voters. We were constantly told by politicians and commentators that we had decided to withhold an overall majority and that we had determined that there should be a hung parliament.

Did we? Because I must have missed the meeting where we all agreed to do that. I naively thought that we all voted for the party that we wanted to win the election and the outcome came about because we lacked sufficient unanimity about which party that should be.

But the media knows best so it stands to reason that we also 'decided' that the Conservatives should do a deal with the Liberal Democrats. And that makes us the biggest bunch of matchmakers in the world and means we share responsibility for the most unlikely of arranged marriages.

The funny thing about arranged marriages is that they often work. Perhaps it's because the happy couple can't fret about whether they made the right choice... because they didn't make one. And maybe the same will prove true of Cameron and Clegg. Having been pushed together by a crafty electorate, perhaps they will learn to love one another and forge one of the most constructive relationships in political history.

I still wish I'd been at that meeting where we decided all of this though.

Harangue Utan

Amidst the ongoing chaos of the post-election negotiations, one man rises above it all to explain to the media that they are to blame for most of what's going on. And that man is John Prescott. Interviewed outside the House of Commons on News 24, Prescott delivered a typically pugilistic performance as he accused the BBC of filling airtime with endless speculation before going on to suggest that Gordon Brown's decision to stand down as leader of the Labour Party was mainly because of pressure from the newspapers and broadcast journalists who've continually told the public that the Liberal Democrats cannot work with him.



Fast forward to 00:41 for a virtuoso lesson from Prescott on dealing with a noisy heckler.

Even A Blind Man Can See That It's Time For The Left To Grow Up

It's been left to David Blunkett to confront the "don't do it, Nick" lobby with the truths they're assiduously trying to avoid. The maths simply does not work and, even if it did, the resulting 'rainbow coalition' would lack legitimacy.

Whenever a Labour supporter or a left-leaning Liberal Democrat points out that 64% of the electorate voted against David Cameron's Conservatives, they appear oblivious to the fact that 71% of voters opted not to vote for Gordon Brown's government.

Since the introduction of universal suffrage, only once has the winning party at a British election secured more than half the votes of the electorate... so the 'more people were against them' argument could have been used to question the legitimacy of every Government apart from Stanley Baldwin's 1931 administration.

David Blunkett is sensible enough to be honest about how he would have felt if Jeremy Thorpe's Liberals had propped up Edward Heath's government in 1974. He felt then and feels now that the most clearly-stated intent of the electorate at the first of the two elections that year was to get rid of the Government. And it's worth bearing in mind that last week's election was downright decisive compared with the February 1974 poll. At that election, the Conservatives won 226,564 more votes than the Labour Party but it was the latter who won the most seats... just 4 more than the Tories.

Had Jeremy Thorpe decided to form a coalition with the Conservatives he would have been supporting the party that won the most votes in a House of Commons so evenly balanced that the election could legitimately have been called a draw. By contrast, last week the Conservatives gained 2,079,429 more votes than the Labour Party and this helped to secure 48 more seats than Labour.

In 1974, Thorpe and the Liberals recognised that the electorate had willed a change of government and that this couldn't be achieved by allowing a damaged government to limp on. The same is true now.

Instead of pretending that the Conservatives' failure to win an overall majority provides sufficient grounds to keep David Cameron out of Downing Street, the left should be grateful that the combination of factors which led to a Hung Parliament will enable the Liberal Democrats to temper the worst instincts of the Tories while allowing the Labour Party to regroup and win the next election under a new leader.

It's worth noting that there's one part of the United Kingdom that is genuinely entitled to question the legitimacy of the Conservative government... and that is Scotland. The Tories have only one MP north of the border and Cameron's party only managed to win 17% of the vote. This dismal showing puts them in fourth place in Scotland behind Labour, the SNP and the Liberal Democrats. Alex Salmond may be feeling a little bruised after winning precisely none of the additional 14 seats he targeted but he should recognise that a Tory in Downing Street is one of the key ingredients required to win an independence referendum in Scotland.

These are turbulent times and there is a great need for stability. While none of the available options is capable of providing a truly robust government, a coalition dependent on four or more political parties and the absolute loyalty of every MP elected under their banners will be almost absurdly flimsy. A Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition will have a working majority and will, therefore, be able to govern. It's the only sensible option.