A day after Fred Barnes offered his analysis of the fight for power in the British Parliament, Michael Barone gives Washington Examiner readers his insights:
The reason a Lab-Lib coalition is attractive to the Lib Dems is that it could give them their number one demand: proportional representation voting. This is something Labour has never been interested in before, because the current system favors Labour very much and Conservatives somewhat less, and proportional representation would leave Lib Dems choosing who governs the country and on what terms for the foreseeable future–at least so long as the voting patterns of the last 20 years prevail. My own sense is that a Lab-Lib government ultimately won’t happen, because (1) it would not have a majority in the Commons, (2) it would reward the two parties which lost seats last Thursday, (3) it would maintain an unpopular prime minister in office for at least four more months. But the situation looks more fluid than I expected when I left London Saturday.
