The coming battle for legitimacy

Jonathan Freedland has written a compelling column on the challenge that Ed Miliband will face to establish his legitimacy if he becomes Prime Minister despite Labour not having won the most seats or votes.

But I suspect that whoever becomes the government after May the 8^th will have difficulty in persuading everyone that they have a right to govern. The Tory-Liberal Democrat coalition could claim that 59 per cent of voters had backed its constituent parts. It also had a comfortable majority in the House of Commons with 364 out of 650 seats.

Now, unless something dramatic happens, no governing combination is likely to have anything like that kind of support this time round. The latest forecast from the respected Oxford academic Stephen Fisher has the Tories, Lib Dems and DUP having precisely 323 seats which would be just enough to pass a Queen’s Speech if every one of their MPs voted for it because Sinn Fein don’t take their seats in the Commons.