This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
London Evening Standard Reports Gordon Brown To Resign Tuesday, To Hand Over Power To David Cameron
From BNO:
A London newspaper on Tuesday reported that Britain's Prime
Minister Gordon Brown will resign on Tuesday and hand over power to
Conservatives leader David Cameron, who won last week's elections but
failed to secure a majority.The report from the London Evening Standard comes among rising
speculation that talks between the Labour Party and the Liberal
Democrats have collapsed.
This should add to the already massive vol in cable and all other FX pairs.
»
- 2353 reads
- Printer-friendly version
- Send to friend
- advertisements -
Why does he need to step down? No runoff, or was the voting fixed a la Gore/Kerry? I am not savvy on the Parliamentary procedure.
Strickly because he got his ass handed to him in the election. His party has the majority but the conservatives won more seats so they get the first chance to form a coalition? Penny for your thoughts but I had to get my two cents in.
In order to remain as Prime Minister when the new Parliament opens in a week or two, Brown would need support (or some level of support) from a majority of MPs in the House of Commons. If the Queen's Speech at the opening of Parliament failed to pass, then the government would fall immediately and it would be back to Square One of the government-forming process. Labour is well short of a Commons majority after the election, so no Labour PM can hope to win Commons votes in this Parliament (ie. before another general election) without support from the Liberal Democrats (or notionally the Conservatives, but that won't happen). Labour's talks with the Liberal Democrats have just been abandoned, so the only other realistic show in town is for the Lib. Dems. to support the Conservatives: time for Brown to resign and for the Queen to officially invite Cameron to form a government. (Unofficially, the Tories/Lib. Dem. talks have been the most serious contender all along.) If the two somehow failed to do a deal (and assuming the Liberals won't have another change of mind about Labour) then the only remaining option would be another general election. That's what most often (but not always) results when the government loses its control of the Commons in the middle of a Parliament (by losing a vote of confidence). But it won't happen in this case, mainly because the voters would make it clear what they think about stupidly early elections. So the Tories basically have it in the bag.
Note that in principle a pretty similar process can happen in the US after a Congressional election or in the Electoral College. The major difference is that there are basically no early general elections under the US constitution.
Thanks Bullet/Drapier.
Shrewd move in order to put the pretend "austerity" label on Cameron asap?
It may also be a move to keep Gilts and GBP from collapsing, which they will anyway, but it may take a bit longer.
Agree, this is one of Brown's smarter moves.
Cameron will get the blame from the anti-Conservative media and
from citizens who don't pay close attention, as the world economy
continues to sputter.
Both Labour and the Lib. Dems. ran against Tory spending cuts as probably their leading campaign issue in the election. About half of the Labour party leadership was desperate for coalition with the Liberals, while the rest were against it. Partly for the reason you mention, but for other reasons too. For one thing, the Parliamentary maths would have been very unkind to a Lib-Lab deal this time.
First time BBC much quicker than ZH, story has been around since 3.45 London time,and was the reason the London market and GBP rallied.
Algos then take SPY, DOW, DAX higher too, which is why there is no US volume on this rally. This is how our low volume markets work these days - all together, due to news on the other side of the world.
I like trading against these moves, for example I like selling the pop up in AUD here, which is probably algo generated as UK mining stocks rallied with the market.
Small gold selloff is real as UK accounts call in GBP and start to put risk back on - I think nothing to worry about, stay long.
Gamma is good.
For frequent live updates as the kabuki continues:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/election-2010/7558554/General-Election-2...