8.45pm ToryDiary update: David Cameron and Nick Clegg have had a 45-minute meeting in Parliament this evening
8pm Graeme Archer on CentreRight: "We should aim for a Cameron-led Tory-LibDem administration that can
stay in office for a reasonable length of time, for at least the next
twelve months."
6.45pm WATCH: William Hague's full statement at the end of today's negotiations
5.45pm ToryDiary: William Hague says that the talks with the Lib Dems will reconvene in the next 24 hours as David Cameron makes himself available to Tory MPs this evening
4.15pm ToryDiary: Redwood brandishes the flag of England
2.45pm Sheila Gunn on CentreRight: How will the media react to the new political environment?
2pm ToryDiary: Tory Reform Group backs a formal Lib-Con coalition as being "in the national interest"
1.45pm WATCH: Labour MP John Mann explains why it is not tenable for Gordon Brown to remain as Labour leader
1.30pm Alex Deane on CentreRight: We are about to underwrite future EU bailouts – and can do nothing to stop it
Noon ToryDiary: What David Cameron will tell the Parliamentary Party tomorrow
11.45am Parliament: The parliamentary arithmetic that shows the Conservatives to be 16 votes short of a working majority
11.15pm WATCH: Tim Montgomerie and Jill Kirby conduct a mock coalition negotiation with Lib Dems Olly Grender and Evan Harris for Channel Four News
10am ToryDiary: Michael Gove says he would give up his Cabinet seat to a Lib Dem to make a deal happen
ToryDiary: More coalition talks planned for today after Cameron and Clegg's first face-to-face meeting
ToryDiary update: Second poll shows less than a third of people think Brown should remain PM
David Alexander on Platform: The Australian experience suggests that the Conservatives should not fear electoral reform
Seats and Candidates: 38 of the original 100 A-Listers are now MPs
LeftWatch: First two Labour MPs call on Brown to quit
Stephan Shakespeare on CentreRight: How the grassroots can make a coalition work
Melanchthon on CentreRight: "The Conservatives were obviously better than their incompetent, exhausted, divided, failed alternate. The System has failed."
WATCH: Sky News' Martin Stanford analyses where the political parties share common ground
Anxiety among activists as the Tories and Lib Dems close in on deal
"As the nation waits, David Cameron and Nick Clegg are trying to thrash out a deal that would see Gordon Brown surrender the keys to 10 Downing Street. Yet the two party leaders know that the move towards a formal coalition is a gamble, and fraught with difficulties, given the gulf that exists between the right wing of the Conservative party and the left wing of the Liberal Democrats." – Sunday Telegraph
Tory-Lib Dem coalition "threatened by secret hardline memo on Europe"
"David Cameron's hopes of forming a coalition with the Liberal Democrats were dramatically undermined last night by the leaking of a top-secret letter outlining the hardline Eurosceptic stance he and William Hague planned to adopt in government. The document, obtained by the Observer, is headed "draft letter from Foreign Secretary to Prime Minister" and was written last week. It assumed an outright Tory victory and spelt out how Hague intended to adopt a tough approach to Europe at a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels tomorrow." – The Observer
Forget deals, just go it alone, says Tebbit
"Norman Tebbit made a ferocious attack on David Cameron yesterday as Right-wing Tories claimed that a deal with the Liberal Democrats could lead to the Conservatives being forced to abandon plans for spending cuts to tackle the national debt. Lord Tebbit said it would be better for Mr Cameron to lead a ‘minority government’ without any guaranteed help from Nick Clegg – because a second General Election was almost inevitable regardless." – Mail on Sunday
Fraser Nelson: The tricky art of Campromise
"Hung parliaments mean one thing in Britain: a new election. Coalitions always break down, usually within 18 months. Meanwhile, Britain is facing a fiscal emergency. We need leadership. Fast. Cam has a four-stage plan: bring stability now, then seek a proper mandate when the next election comes." – News of the World
16,000 votes cost the Conservatives a majority
"David Cameron was deprived of a Commons majority by failing to secure the votes of just 16,000 people, according to an expert analysis of election results. The findings by Colin Rallings and Michael Thrasher reveal that the Tories came tantalisingly close to securing a clean victory at the polls. “Cameron came so near and yet so far,” write the directors of the elections centre at Plymouth University. “Just 16,000 extra votes for the Tories, distributed in the 19 constituencies in which the party came closest to winning, would have spared us a weekend of negotiation and speculation.” – Sunday Times
British ballot security ‘worse than Kenya’
"Official election monitors from the developing world have warned that the British voting system is less secure than their own and possibly the most vulnerable to corruption in the world. Observers from Kenya and war-torn Sierra Leone, who spent the past week in Britain, said the integrity of the general election was at risk because it was based on trust rather than proper identity checks." – Sunday Times
Brown vents rage in furious call to Clegg
"Gordon
Brown exploded with rage at Nick Clegg when the Liberal Democrat leader
suggested that the Prime Minister had no right to cling on to power
after losing the Election. The prospects of a Lib-Lab pact suffered a
major setback after Mr Brown’s bad-tempered phone call, described as a
‘diatribe laced with threats’." – Mail on Sunday
Remember who deserves the last dance, Dave
"Cameron must now take steps to avoid unhappiness emerging. For most of the past three years the grassroots expected to win the General Election outright. For the same period they disapproved of the Tory leader’s Election strategy but stayed quiet because the polls suggested it was a winning one. They now wonder if they should have trusted their own instincts and been bolder in arguing for a different approach" – Tim Montgomerie writing in the Mail on Sunday
So, David Cameron, why did you fail to seal the deal?
"The Tory operation during the four-week campaign was slick, but there were missed opportunities and strategic problems. The most obvious tactical error was Mr Cameron's agreement, struck weeks ago, to give Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat leader, an equal platform in the three televised leaders' debates." – Independent on Sunday
"David Cameron was facing a growing backlash from his own MPs and party grandees today
over the conduct of an election campaign that left him short of an
overall majority and trying to make a deal with the Lib Dems. The Observer
can reveal that Lord Ashcroft, who pumped £5m into marginal seats, is
furious with the Tory leader for having agreed to take part in
television debates that he believes undid much of his work for the
party." – The Observer
Cameron faces struggle to keep backbench rebels in line
"Whips have been put on notice that a series of veteran Tory MPs, plus several from the new intake, are liable to rebel in Parliament if the leadership does not take their views into account. The electoral arithmetic, even if the Liberal Democrats agree to prop up a Tory administration, means that the potential impact of any rebels could be catastrophic if Mr Cameron faces knife-edge votes in the coming months." – Independent on Sunday
Labour MPs feared they would be 'crucified' at ballot box after lacklustre campaign – Sunday Telegraph
Brown is sure to go, but who will take the reins?
"If David Cameron becomes prime minister during the week, it is assumed that Mr Brown will resign the leadership of the Labour Party as well as the premiership. It would trigger a leadership contest in which the 44-year-old Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, will run as the party moderniser in the Tony Blair tradition, backed by the Business Secretary, Lord Mandelson. The Schools Secretary, Ed Balls, 43, may offer what counts in current Labour politics as a more traditional programme." – Andy McSmith in the Independent on Sunday
Janet Daley: Did anyone else notice that the Lib Dems lost?
"When I predicted last week that a “good proportion” of the Liberal Democrat support so marvelled at by the media would evaporate on election day, I had no idea what a staggering understatement that would turn out to be. It cannot be repeated too often: the Lib Dems have actually lost seats. Their really significant contribution to the democratic process seems to have been to galvanise the loyal followers of the two main parties (especially the Labour ones) into turning up at polling stations in stupendous numbers." – Sunday Telegraph
Matthew d'Ancona: Even if talks fail, Cameron has read the public mood correctly
"It is right to try, not out of desperation but in a spirit of humility and enthusiasm. In so doing, even if the talks fail, he has shown that the Conservatives are not a closed sect of the self-seeking and the dogmatic, but an open-minded party both rediscovering and reinventing the skill of governing." – Sunday Telegraph
Tories to halt hacker’s extradition – Sunday Times
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