Hung parliament: what if the ash cloud had arrived in election week?
After a squeaky-tight election night, Britain has a hung Parliament. David Cameron's offered Clegg a deal; Gordon Brown is stil in 10 Downing Street. But the big question remains unanswered...
On the BBC's election night coverage, veteran presenter David "does he ever sleep?" Dimbleby got rightly irate about the hundreds of voters left out in the cold when the polling stations closed at 10pm. Nick Robinson joined in the outrage when Jenny "not our fault, guv" Watson from the Election Commission passed the buck on to the returning officers who, apparently, should have brought in more help when they saw the high voter turnout. For heaven's sake, it was hardly South Africa 1994 with millions of previously disenfranchised voters enjoying their first taste of democracy! This was a rainy night in Sheffield 2010, after a reasonably lively campaign, in a country where 30-35 per cent of people still can't be bothered to cast their votes.
When the dust has settled, petitions have been brought, wrists have been slapped, this one needs sorting. And, please, spare us a formal enquiry/review. DO NOT LET THE IT INDUSTRY HIJACK THIS ONE AND TELL US WE NEED BIG, EXPENSIVE DATABASES AND COMPUTER SYSTEMS TO RUN OUR DEMOCRACY. Have more people in the polling stations; more ballot papers; wider doorways; more boxes. It's not difficult.
All the time I watched the chaos, one thought kept bugging me. Cast your mind back a couple of weeks to when hundreds of thousands of Brits were stranded in all corners of the world when the Icelandic volcano spewed its mighty load and left an ash cloud hanging over Europe. What on earth would have happened to our already-creaking democratic process had all those voters been left high and dry in Dubai, Turkey, France, unable to come home to cast their votes in key marginals? Might we today be looking at an altogether different outcome than the muddled coalition that awaits us? Would the election have been postponed, allowing Gordon Brown another week to insult more voters and ushered in an overall Conservative majority?
We'll never know, of course, but in the early hours when, for the one time every five years that I know the whereabouts of Normanton and Torridge, the possibility rather intrigued me.
I know, it's been a long week...