Perhaps an outline deal today

Outside Cabinet Office. Lib Dems went in saying it was going well. They have Jim Wallace now in the team going in with them. William Hague on his way in just said they were “optimistic of making further progress very soon”.

There is a sense that we could get an outline agreement today but something short of full-scale coalition.

A senior Shadow Cabinet member just told me: “It feels like agreement today, new government tomorrow.” Something short of full-scale coalition, “not that it wasn’t offered.”

These talks are probably over within a couple of hours or so as the Lib Dems have to be at an MPs’ meeting in the Commons at 1pm. The Tory MPs meet at six.

One Tory MP, reluctant like most to be where they find themselves, just said to me, “We feel the hand of history on our gonads, squeezing very hard.” Maybe David Cameron could borrow that line when he addresses the MPs.

In Whitehall I bumped into one of the living dead – MPs who have lost their seats but remain ministers. He said he didn’t think civil servants would be giving him anything to do. He was mainly clearing his desk.

In the Commons I bumped into one of the older re-elected MPs who some of his party colleagues had suggested should be standing down. He congratulated me on my re-election and said he always knew I’d get back in. How kind.