Escape to victory

Breakfast is under way on 8 May 2015, and the party leaders have already started haggling. The possibility of a loveless Labour/SNP ‘anti-austerity’ pact has sent the markets tumbling. With the largest number of seats but no overall majority, the Tories are making eyes at the least un-attractive potential bedfellows. Assorted pressure groups are trying to rekindle the same ‘Purple Protest’ movement which sought to exploit the political void immediately after the 2010 election. Having spent all night telling the television cameras that all this voting stuff is, like, rubbish, an exhausted Russell Brand urges his followers to rise up and do, er, something. But the protestors find that the streets are already full of people. Like it or not, the politicians have to curtail their horse-trading, brush their hair and join them all.

Because whichever way votes are cast on 7 May, all the party leaders will now be obliged to attend the same victory party on 8 May.