drplokta

For the first time since the 1930s, the UK government represents more than 50% of the voters.

This looks choreographed. Brown steps down now, and Clegg will probably announce this evening or tomorrow morning that no deal is possible with the Tories, because they are not prepared to act in the best interests of the UK by giving the people a referendum on a fairer voting system. This will open the way for a progressive coalition to push through a referendum, and promise a new election once the voting system has been fixed, without the LibDems being tainted by Brown's high level of unpopularity.

Victoria Tower Gardens is supposed to contain No. 192 (bird2), but instead has No. 65 (Burma). I dare say 192 is on Holland Park Avenue where 65 is meant to be.

No. 198 (Mammoth Metaphor) can't be found at Somerset House (as at 9/5).

Here, largely for my own reference, but also for other elephant hunters' information, are the problems I know of with the elephants of the Elephant Parade. One or two of them may simply be my failure to spot elephants. I've left off ones where I couldn't find elephants earlier in the week, but there are now photos on Flickr.

No. 29 (Blue Macaw) is shown in St James's Park on the first version of the map and Green Park on the second. It's in neither place -- I suspect it may be near the Strand, where number 79 (q.v.) is wrongly shown on both versions of the map.

No. 79 (The Empire Is Not Striking Back) is correctly shown on the listing as being in Green Park, but incorrectly on the map (both versions) as being near the Strand.

No. 170 (Vanishing Elephant) is incorrectly listed and shown on the map in Green Park on the first version of the map -- this is fixed in the second version.

No. 44 (Fish & Chips) is missing (as of 7/5) -- there's just an empty plinth.

Nos. 32 (Little Bird) and 131 (Sidhe) can't be found (as of 7/5), and there's one empty plinth on Mount Street (which is where they should be).

No. 30 (Vorsprung) can't be found (as of 7/5).

No. 87 (The Happy End of Nature) can't be found (as of 5/5). Which means I have to make a second trip to Heathrow Terminal 5. Bah.

The winning post is actually 323 MPs, not 326, since the five Sinn Fein MPs won't take up their seats, leaving the Commons at 644 MPs plus the Speaker. We're still waiting on Thirsk & Malton which has been delayed by three weeks due to the death of a candidate, but it's a Conservative safe seat so I shall count it for the Tories.

The only two-party coalitions that work are Conservative + LibDem (364 MPs -- pretty likely end result) or Conservative + Labour (565 MPs -- essentially a government of national unity, and not very likely).

An entirely right-wing coalition seems unlikely. The Conservatives and DUP together can only muster 315 MPs, and there aren't any likely candidates to provide the other eight votes. Maybe they could get the SNP and Plaid Cymru on board by offering pork for Scotland and Wales, but it would be very unstable.

A grand alliance of centre-left parties seems more likely, if the Conservatives and LibDems can't reach a deal. Labour + LibDem + SDLP + Independent Unionist + Green + Alliance Party -- that would be 321 MPs, and so would also need support from the SNP (or Sinn Fein, if they could be persuaded to take up their seats), but they're more likely to support a centre-left government than a Conservative minority government. I think Brown would have to go as part of the price for putting this together. I expect the smaller parties would not formally join the coalition, but simply agree to vote for the Queen's Speech and Budget.

In any case, I would give two years as the absolute maximum time before another general election, and I think another one this year is pretty likely.

One of my elephant photos has been used in a national newspaper (which is absolutely fine in itself; I Creative Commons licensed them, and the artist for that particular elephant also asked if she could give the picture to the press).

But it's the Daily Mail...

Things to do while not working (1): Go elephant hunting.

The Elephant Parade has come to London, which is now hosting around 250 painted fibreglass elephants (except that they're still setting it up, so half a dozen of the ones I went looking for today aren't there yet). I scored 34 of them today, and now my feet hurt.

Photos are on Flickr, but here are a couple of samples.

( Cut to avoid breaking anyone's friends view )

Suppose that the Tories manage to scrape together enough votes for a small majority, and form the next government, with the LibDems getting the second-highest number of votes but fewer than half as many seats as Labour (maybe 38% Conservative (327 seats), 28% LibDem (86 seats), 25% Labour (210 seats)). Who gets to be the official Opposition?

A big pat on the back to Zen Internet. My ADSL just died and failed to reconnect with an authentication error, and not only was their customer service still open at 18:45, but the phone was answered within three rings by someone who knew what he was talking about and was able to talk me through testing the connection with a different username and then re-entering my username and password, which for some reason fixed it.