It’s official: it’s a hung parliament

With the Erith and Thamesmead result we now have a definitive piece of news – it will be a hung parliament, it can’t mathematically be anything else.

The Tories’ mission overnight was to establish David Cameron’s right to govern. Now they are waiting – not for long – before demanding the keys to No. 10.

David Cameron’s preference has always been, if he ended up in these circumstances, to govern alone. He personally wouldn’t have an enormous philosophical issue with a partnership with the Lib Dems but he would not be allowed to go anywhere near the issue of electoral reform if that was a requirement from the Lib Dems.

There are lines of communication open to the Liberal Democrats from the Tories… I understand that Oliver Letwin and Ed Llewellyn are the conduits. If no alliance is sorted out we face a minority Tory government which may well not last more than a year at most. It could call an election when it felt it was having a good spell in the polls or the opposition forces could combine to vote it down and force an election when they felt their best interests were served.

Labour may have made a leap overnight into a party of full-blown electoral reform. The chorus of Labour figures pronouncing the current electoral system dead owes something to the result, to the Lib Dem surge but also to a mounting sense (brewing for a while this) that Labour cannot win England and under the logic of devolution may be compelled to face up to that in the not too distant future. The limited offer of a referendum on AV has, overnight, turned into a commitment to AV+, the very system Labour rejected when Roy Jenkins proposed it.

By the way, I make this two nights out of three in which David Cameron will have had no sleep. Is it wise to take him through the nuclear codes in that state? Maybe a weekend of reflection would be in everyone’s interests?