David Cameron's lust for the office of Prime Minister seems to know no bounds. Having lost the chance of an outright majority in the general election by refusing a deal with UKIP - in which UKIP would have stood aside in return for the promise of a referendum on Britain's memership of the EU - he has now rushed to try and forge a deal with the Liberal Democrats.
And yet analysis of the results shows that with David Cameron's Conservatives needing 20 more seats to have a majority of 1 in the House of Commons, it has been revealed that in 21 seats, the UKIP vote was greater than the majority the Conservatives lost by.
This raises two questions.
Fistly, why is Cameron so frightened of allowing the British people to have a say on the nations relationship with Europe. His u-turn on the 'cast iron' guarantee he offered on the Lisbon Treaty baffled many Conservatives, particularly as, when he withdrew his worthless pledge, he could instead have stiffened Czech resolve by promising to back the stance taken by their president, Vaclav Klaus. Had he done so, the Lisbon Treaty may have remained unratified by all member states, and Klaus could have held off his critics by pointing to the British Conservatives.
The second is how he thinks he will be able to govern with the support of the Liberal Democrats, the most publicly pro-European party. With their support for the Euro and the creation of a federal state, it is not difficult to see that the problems will begin almost as soon as anything of importance occurs in Europe which, with the imminent threat to the Euro, is likely to be in fairly short order.
Cynics might suggest that Cameron's promise to 'not let matters rest there' if the Lisbon Treaty was ratified was not intended to mean that he would consider a coalition with a federalist party, effectively bringing to an end any hopes of serious Euroscepticism within the parliamentary Conservative party, and yet that would be the outcome. Unless the Conservative dog rolled over to the wagging of the Lib Dem tail, he'd be out of office again. we should not forget that Nick Clegg began his political career as a Lib Dem MEP.
The inescapable conclusion must be that Cameron and his Conservative strategists have not learned their lessons. A stiffer backbone would have seen him into 10 Downing Street unassisted: something which, as his 20 point opinion poll lead dwindled, must surely have struck even the densest policy advisor at Conservative Central Office.
I suspect that the reality in all this is that the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats will not be able to reach an agreement, and that instead we will see a Lib/Lab pact, probably with Gordon Brown remaining as Prime Minister. How long would such a pact last? According to the bookies, the hot money is on another election within the year. Whether Cameron will still be leading the Conservatives then is a matter of opinion: he has, after all, failed to return a Conservative government despite fighting a deeply unpopular Labour administration which is mired in sleaze scandals and floundering in the face of a huge global crisis. For sure, he has managed to snatch a defeat from the jaws of victory, and whether the Conservatives will stand by and allow him to have a second go at leading them into a policy cul-de-sac remains to be seen.
By then, the damage may well have been done. The fact that the Conservatives could entertain a Lib/Con pact to get into power, power which they could have got simply by trusting the people by promising a referendum, will not easily be forgotten.
The list of seats where UKIP's vote exceeded the winning majority:
Bolton West Lab 18327 Con 18235 UKIP 1901
Derby North Lab 14896 Con 14283 UKIP 829
Derbyshire NE Lab 17958 Con 15503 UKIP 2636
Dorset Mid Lib Dem 21100 Con 20831 UKIP 2109
Dudley North Lab 14923 Con 14274 UKIP 3267
Great Grimsby Lab 10777 Con 10063 UKIP 2043
Hampstead & Kilburn Lab 17332 Con 17290 UKIP 408
Middlesborough South Lab 18138 Con 16461 UKIP 1881
Morley & Outwood Lab 18365 Con 17264 UKIP 1506
Newcastle under Lyme Lab 16393 Con 14841 UKIP 3491
Plymouth Moor View Lab 15433 Con 13845 UKIP 3188
Solihull Lab 23635 Con 23460 UKIP 1200
Somerton & Frome LD 28793 Con 26976 UKIP 1932
Southampton Itchen Lab 16326 Con 16134 UKIP 1928
St Austell & Newquay LD 20189 Con 18877 UKIP 1757
St Ives LD 19619 Con 17900 UKIP 2560
Telford Lab 15977 Con 14996 UKIP 2428
Walsall North Labour 13385 Con 12395 UKIP 1737
Walsall South Labour 16211 Con 14456 UKIP 3449
Wells LD 24560 Con 23760 UKIP 1711
Wirral South Lab 16276 Con 15745 UKIP 1274
