Here's to a Hung Parliament

I find it's nearly a year since I posted a blog, which is extraordinary. This one will be short, but if anyone is reading - which I doubt - I would like to say that I still hold by what I said last year on the subject of the recession. It may look as though we are coming out of it, but I don't think we are - and the level of public debt is going to pull us back down again. "Double dip" may be an understatement. I think we'll be lucky if the country avoids bankruptcy on the Icelandic model, never mind the Greek one. We shall all have to tighten our belts before this is over.

So which political party is telling us the truth? Both Conservatives and Labour are hinting at the pain to come, in their different ways and with slightly different emphasis. But no one is really owning up to the swingeing cuts, tax rises, and general economic doom that is actually going to have to come if we are to avoid the bankruptcy I spoke of above. Do they think that people can't cope with reality? Add that to the public distrust of politicians in the wake of the expenses scandal and many years of shifty dishonesty over the Iraq war and other policies, and I wonder who exactly will vote in the May election. Will the parties tighten up their act when the electioneering proper begins, or will we continue to see this failure to tell us the truth? All in all, perhaps we shall be better with a hung parliament, a government of national unity. Never since the Second World War have we needed one so much. And of course there is the bonus of the Lib Dems' Vince Cable - the one man who might be able to carry our trust as Chancellor.

Roll on, May. At the very least it will be interesting.