THE British electorate has demonstrated that it could not make up its collective mind, despite having three clear choices in the elections last week among Mr Gordon Brown’s Labour Party; Mr David Cameron’s Conservatives and Mr Nick Clegg’s Liberal Democrats.

The British public showed its distrust of Labour and Conservatives by rallying to the straight talk of the earnest Mr Clegg. The photogenic Mr Cameron depended too much on Labour imploding from its internal personality conflicts. Disenchantment with Labour was not enough and the Conservatives appeared insensitive to social programmes in the midst of the worst economic recession since the Great Depression.

The implications are first, a coalition Government, and second, the new Government will be a coalition including the Liberal Democrats. The Conservatives with the most seats have had first “dibs” at the Liberals but there has been no agreement up to Observer press time and this leaves the door open for Labour, clearly now without Mr Brown.

Hung parliaments (the first since 1974), coalition governments and minority governments are anathema in the current first-past-the-post tribal political mindset in Britain, but common in Europe. There is nothing unusual about coalition governments, in fact the majority of governments in Europe are coalition governments. They have proven to be no less stable than single party governments. Only four countries in Europe have single party majority systems.

Of the last 20 governments in Britain, there have been six minority governments and four coalitions. Coalition governments were effective in the first and second World Wars. Maybe it takes a war to keep a coalition together so Britain’s economic crisis may have the same salutary effect.

The problem with coalition governments is their vulnerability to instability. This is especially so since any coalition will have a razor-thin majority and no mandate to approach economic policy with a shared philosophy.

This will make it extremely difficult to muster the political fortitude necessary to carry out drastic fiscal retrenchment which is unavoidable and to reassure financial markets. The budget deficit is forecasted to be 11-13 per cent of Gross Domestic Product larger than that which forced Jamaica and Greece to go to the International Monetary Fund. The spending cuts will be far larger than anything that any of the parties alluded to in the campaign.

Given the small majority that any coalition can command, all parties will be constantly in election mode. An inordinate amount of time will be spent in endless rounds of negotiations in pursuit of consensus.

The political parties will have to devise a new co-operative political culture and eschew tribalism and this can only be realised if they are led by the most adroit politicians. If not, it will require a general election maybe before the end of this year. In that scenario, it may be better to sit this one out because whoever is the Government will find it extremely difficult to win the next general election.

How long the tandem can stand riders wanting to go in different directions on extremely unpopular political decisions must  be left to clairvoyants and savants. Of one thing we are sure: The British people are justifiably renowned for their fortitude and fighting spirit and will support a convincing and decisive government.