The problem with the hung parliament is that any government arising from it will impose vicious public spending cuts. The Tories will just go for it more aggressively and urgently than Labour would, because of the latter's relationship to public sector trade unions and dependence on working class votes. The Liberals, I believe, are inclined to support any emergency budget that the Tories can come up with. I suspect that this close alignment over fiscal policy, not the belief that the party with the most seats should rule (an odd declaration from a believer in PR, surely?), is what motivates Clegg's preference for working with the Conservatives. The bankers and bond traders want cuts introduced as rapidly and quickly as possible, and appear to believe that a coalition of Tories and Liberals would be just the ticket in the present circumstances. That much was made clear by the sudden upsurge in share values when Clegg announced that he would prefer to deal with the Tories, duly reported by the BBC immediately after Clegg had made his statement. If the bankers want to impose cuts on the electorate as quickly as possible, and with as authoritative a mandate as possible, then the prospect of social turmoil, strikes and protests greeting a government with a weak mandate is a problem for them. This is why capital threw its weight behind the Conservatives, why the right-wing press went crazy over the Liberals' brief moment in the sun, and why Cameron warned of calamity