Challenging days ahead for political parties in UK

By the time you read this all the voting will be over, but I'm willing to bet that a new UK government will still be a long way off. As it looks impossible for anyone to get an outright majority, the crucial thing will be to finish as the single biggest party.

If they're sufficiently audacious that party could achieve a sort of ‘technical coup’, governing as a minority and simply just daring the others to bring them down. If a government loses a vote of no confidence there has to be a fresh election, and anyone seen as forcing people to trudge back to the ballot box again would likely be punished at the polls.

(Well strictly speaking there doesn't have to be an election; in theory the Queen has the right to refuse a dissolution of parliament and ask one of the party leaders to form a new administration. But the monarch would be reluctant to be seen as a powerbroker, and any party that benefitted by it would surely be accused of everything from being undemocratic to bothering old ladies.)

It's going to be all about such knavish tricks. To use the chess metaphor, the election is just the opening game, the part where positions are taken for the real battle. The endgame – and indeed pretty much all the middle – will be fought not at the polls but in non-smoky backrooms as parties hammer out deals. Less about popular will than personal willpower. At the moment an unstable, short-lived and basically pointless Tory minority administration actually seems the most likely outcome. Second of course is a coalition – but of whom and whom?

This really depends on the exact proportions of ingredients in the Commons cake. If neither Labour nor Tories come close, the Lib Dems look like potential partners for either side. But when you think about it, what they ask in return is a pretty tall order: Essentially, permanent power. With three major parties, an overall majority will be next to impossible under PR. And as a Labour-Tory coalition will be unthinkable for a long time to come, the Lib Dems will be transformed from the party that could never get into government to the party they can never get out.

If the seat gap is smaller, one or more of the regional parties might make up the weight. They too though will be asking a lot. Scottish and Welsh nationalists could hardly settle for anything short of a timetable for full independence; the DUP, precisely the opposite. The next PM therefore may face a choice between the dissolution of the UK and the destruction of the peace process. I think I know which would be more palatable.

But the worst-case scenario is where the gap is even smaller. There's a weird inverse power law in politics which says that the fewer people you need, the more the bastards can squeeze out of you. If one party falls only just short there will be a huge temptation to grant three wishes to some weird independent – or even worse, one of the slightly mad English nationalist parties like UKIP. And I note in passing, there's a chance this time out that the fascist BNP will win a seat or two.

Don't have nightmares.