Mr Simon Heffer writes provocatively, but ...

I think that Simon Heffer, who writes regularly for the Daily Telegraph, would be more at home back with the Daily Mail. Having said that, Mr Heffer writes provocatively and his piece today is headed:

"General Election 2010: The worst thing that can happen is a second general election."

Here is the link to the piece -

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/election-2010/7641034/General-Election-2010-The-worst-thing-that-can-happen-is-a-second-general-election.html

Mr Heffer goes on to worry about the likelihood of a 'hung' Parliament, particularly one with the Liberal Democrats hanging in there anywhere. I tend to agree with the latter point as the local Lib Dems do not impress. However, I can see merit in a Lab/Con alliance with a limited agenda, specifically drawn up in order to get us out of the financial crisis which was largely made in America and was exported to the rest of the civilised world.

The Daily Telegraph allows on-line comments on opinion pieces such as Mr Heffer's and I have picked up one sentence and commented on-line as follows:

"The consensus of polls at the moment seems to be the Tories winning about 290 seats, Labour about 240 and the Lib Dems about 90."

"Yes, and that means that the total seats won by Labour and the Conservatives could be 530. Curiously enough, it is within whisker of what happened in 1931 when Labour and the Conservatives won between them 525 seats. And what happened in those dire financial circumstances of 1931? Why, Mr Ramsay MacDonald (Labour) and Mr Stanley Baldwin (Conservative) formed a National Government with MacDonald continuing as Prime Minister and Baldwin effectively as deputy prime minister. The government had a limited agenda - to get the country out of the dire financial circumstances with the very large backing that only Labour and the Conservatives could command. And it worked. Let there be lessons learned today."