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British centrist leader under fire over hung parliament

Posted on: Wed April 28, 2010

The leader of Britain s newly-buoyant Liberal Democrats was accused of arrogance on Tuesday as he struggled to clarify what he would do if his party holds the balance of power after elections next week.

Nick Clegg has come under growing pressure to say whether he would work with either of the two bigger parties Prime Minister Gordon Brown s ruling Labour or the Conservatives if the Lib Dems emerge as kingmakers after May 6 polls.

But opposition parties accuse him of presumptuously trying to dictate terms ahead of the general election and commentators say his stance risks confusing voters.    

Business Secretary Peter Mandelson accused Clegg of overreaching himself in comments seen as specifying who exactly he might work with if, as polls suggest, his party ends up holding the balance of power.    

 That appeared to many to be slightly arrogant, Mandelson said, warning that voters who flirted with Clegg might wake up in bed with Conservative leader David Cameron.    

 Worse still, you could find yourselves waking up with George Osborne, William Hague, or heaven forbid, Eric Pickles.

That is a life I think you would live to regret, Mandelson added, referring to other senior Conservatives.    

After years as the third party in British politics, Clegg s centrist Liberal Democrats have surged to a close second in most opinion polls after his strong showing in Britain s first-ever televised election leaders debates.    

The party could end up as power brokers in a hung parliament where no party has an overall majority, which opinion polls suggest is likely for the first time since 1974.    

A Sun newspaper/YouGov daily poll out Tuesday put David Cameron s centre-right Conservatives on 33 percent, down one point, the Liberal Democrats on 29 percent, also down one, and centre-left Labour unchanged on 28 percent.    

In a BBC radio interview Tuesday, Clegg seemed to pull back from a previous comment where he indicated he would not work with Brown.    

Asked about that, he said: No, no, no... it is not for me to decide, it is for people to decide how the government should be formed...    

 I am not the kingmaker, David Cameron is not the kingmaker, Gordon Brown is not the kingmaker, there are 45 million people who have still got to choose and I am not going to short circuit that.     

Clegg on Sunday described as preposterous the idea that if a party comes third in the number of votes, it still has somehow the right to carry on squatting in Number Ten (Downing Street) .    

On Monday, he clarified these remarks, saying he had not ruled out working with Labour after the election but that people would find it inexplicable that Gordon Brown himself could carry on as prime minister .    

This prompted reports that Labour could consider ditching Brown after the election in favour of a figure like Foreign Secretary David Miliband.    

Labour and the Conservatives attempted to move on Tuesday from hung parliament row which has dominated the last few days of the campaign.

Mandelson was helping to launch a families manifesto, while Cameron spoke of the need to fix Britain s broken society alongside an actress from popular TV soap opera East Enders whose brother was stabbed to death two years ago.

Courtesy : The News