Five days

I had been looking forward to Nick Robinson's television programme about the five days between the election and the formation of the new coalition government. Television is not good at perspective generally - it far prefers drama - but it is good at direct testimony, though even then much depends on editing and commentary. But then so do books. On TV the main actors get to speak even if only in sound bites. I think how fascinating it would be - and often is - to hear archive interviews with important political figures of the past, in fact anyone in the past.

I thought it was a good, properly edited attempt at a TV essay. We learned some new things and were confirmed in our beliefs about some old things. I am not sure the numbers game aspect of the whole was as fully developed as it might have been. I am not at all sure that Nick Clegg could have cut a working deal with Labour even after Gordon Brown's resignation. How would that have worked? On the other hand how does this coalition work? It is a huge risk for the LibDems and no real risk for the Tories.

If only Gordon Brown had gone earlier, at the first major challenge, and called a snap general election! A new Labour leader might have been defeated but would have stood a better chance than Brown did. It wasn't so much Labour that was voted down, I think - it was Brown. In any case, it would have been a new honourable start. If a new leader of the party were in place he (or she, though who?) would have had a party mandate and a relatively clean sheet. In the case of a hung parliament he could more easily have formed a natural coalition with the LibDem leader. Brown should have seen this and gone.

Too late. I hope Raith Rovers have a good season. For some reason I have always had a soft spot for them, as did my father.