Why not a Lab-Con pact?

Last Thursday, the people spoke, and what they said was this:

"We want a proper government. A strong, honest government that works for us.

"One that doesn't make stupid compromises just to keep in power. One that works for what most people want.

"A job. A better chance for our children than we had. Money to pay bills, to pay for a bit of fun, to save for when we're old. Decent education and healthcare, keep crime down, protect us from enemies domestic and foreign.

"Apart from those things, if you have a wonderful vision of the future, write a novel or make a movie. We don't want revolutionaries, Puritans of any religion or none, national separatists or the European Brotherhood of Man.

"Now, get on with it. And stop lying and fiddling the expenses."

So, why not a coalition of Conservative and Labour? Up to the 70s/80s, when the country was tearing itself into pieces because of economic crisis after Bretton-Woods collapsed, there was quite a lot of consensus between the two sides.

If Clegg can talk face to face with Brown and his back can talk to Cameron, maybe Lab and Con could discover that they have more in common with each other than they have with the LibDems. (For a start, neither of them thinks that a white flag is a robust defence in a nuclear world.)

With 424 seats, a Lab/Con government of national unity would have a majority of 198. Enough to ignore special pleading and political blackmail from Alex Salmond, Ieuan Wyn Jones and the Northern Irish factions; enough to ignore the babel of grand reformist schemes from the LibDems; and enough left over to ignore episodes of up to half a hundred backbenchers at a time temporarily crossing the floor of the House in a hissy fit about their own pet projects.

We face enough challenges to occupy a full-length Parliament, challenges that all serious politicians would wish to solve together.

So, why not? Out of 650 Members of Parliament, is is really impossible to find 326 that would cooperate for the national good?

There might even be some Liberal Democrats willing to help.