The Right Result

Without doubt, the strangest election in years. It took nearly a week from polling day for us to get a result, but fortunately that result turned out to be the right one. It was right, not just for the parties concerned but for the country as well and also right for politics in Britain and maybe, dare I say it, even right for the Labour Party and for Gordon Brown.

Mr Brown's resignation was dignified and swift, in the end. He didn't depart before throwing that last roll of the dice; opening talks with the Lib Dems and post dating his resignation. But in the end, when it was obvious the curtain was falling, he took his last bow and went in a becoming and decent manner. How sad that that is probably the most positive thing people will remember him for but it is a fact that nothing became him so much as the manner of his departure.

Last night, Dave and Sam - the latter looking more excited than her husband - entered Number 10 for the first time, ending 13 years of Labour government and ushering in our first peacetime coalition government in over 70 years. More later on the programme for government - which seems to be a genuinely good combination of the best from both party's standpoint - but it's hard to miss the historical importance of this change.

New Labour is dead. Labour MP's are already talking about what will amount to a lurch to the left during their leadership election. Right wing Conservative anti-Europeanism has largely been finished; it is now a matter of constructive scrutiny, hard to argue with that. Don't expect good old British political ding dong to come to an end, but we're likely to see more consensual politics for sometime; also, no bad thing. And government will be less intrusive, the era of the 'enabling government' - 90's speak for nanny state - looks over.

There are tough times ahead but there are more good auguries than bad; if it weren't a reminder of a more divisive past, it would be tempting to say 'Rejoice, rejoice, rejoice!'