Clarke admits he got it wrong...

Before the election Ken Clarke claimed a Hung Parliament would be a disaster for the UK.

But confronted with the current situation, he admitted to Lobbydog that he had been wrong.

I suppose he has to given his position in the coalition Government, but it’s always nice to hear a politician admit they were mistaken.

“During the election I was very hostile to the idea of a Hung Parliament and warned against it. I believed that British politicians would not be able to handle it.

“I feared we would have a weak minority Government doing populist things until we had a second election which is what’s happened in the past.”

He said, naturally, that it had been down to the way Cameron and Clegg had performed that the coalition was working, but had a little warning about things getting worse further down the line.

“I’m prepared to say my fears were not justified. I hope it will last, but so far it turns out that my fears were unworthy.

“The test is can it deliver and can it last for the necessary period of time. The answer to both questions I think is yes. But the test will really come when we start doing really difficult things.

“At the moment I find myself in a team of people who are going through a political honey moon period with a great sense of excitement and no signs of any tension inside Government and I tell myself ‘well I hope it’s like this in a couple of years time’.”