Well the UK 2010 election is now over…and at least it’s been an entertaining one.
As usual, the British version of “organisation” (known everywhere else as a “cluster-f*ck”) swung into play, with scores of people prevented from voting for a range of reasons including lost or insufficient ballot papers, lack of staff, resources etc.
Despite that fiasco, just under a week after the election is over, it looks like we will have a Tory / Lib Dem coalition.
This was not at all unexpected and most of the political pundits had been forecasting a hung parliament for some time. And a coalition between the Tories and the Lib Dems does represent the best democratic solution, because it collectively represents both the largest number of seats (363 out of a possible 650) and the single biggest chunk of votes (about 59% of the 29,653,638 votes cast).
But as the details of the Tory-Dem pact started to emerge, there were a few surprises in store.
Both David Cameron and Nick Clegg spent a fair bit of time during the pre-election campaigning, talking about addressing the most pressing issue of the moment; the state of the economy. And following the hung parliament coalition talks, both committed to a “significant acceleration” of efforts to reduce the budget deficit – including £6bn of spending reductions this year.
An emergency Budget will also take place within 50 days.
But why the hell have they agreed to keep Trident – a £20bn pound white elephant, which even MoD sources admit is a complete waste of money?
Trident may have had some value as a nuclear deterrent during the Cold-War years, but these days the real threat seems to be from small groups of hard-line fanatics rather than nation-state tyrants. Trident is no deterrent to a maniac with a suitcase-sized dirty nuke in his or her possession.
What’s more the cost of maintaining and then replacing trident has soared to over £100bn.
Nick Clegg, together with Menzies Campbell, personally undertook a comprehensive review on the like-for-like cost for a Trident replacement.
They concluded that it was just too damn expensive and would not do it’s job. So unless the Tories want to dispute the findings of the review, what else is there to discuss? Trident should be – at the very least – replaced with something far more cost-effective and far more fit-for-purpose.
Well…unilateral disarmament would be favorite. 
It’s a worrying sign that less than 24 hours after the official sealing of the Tory-Lib Dem coalition, we appear to already be seeing a massive Lib-Dem manifesto pledge (to abandon Trident’s like-for-like replacement), be largely chucked out the window.
It’s particularly worrying because dropping this worthless project would go a pretty long way to helping our nation through the current economic quagmire, without the need to slash as deeply at a range of key public services, including hospitals, schools, police and fire and a host of others, essential to any civilized and developed 1st-world society.
The Lib Dems are now in a position to exercise more influence at a cabinet-level than they have ever had before.
But Clegg and his team had better grow a few pairs of balls quickly, if the LD’s are to be more than a Tory rubber-stamp committee.
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