Conservative heads explode.

The Daily Mail have led with a headline calling this "a squalid day for democracy" and stating:

Gordon Brown yesterday announced his resignation in a jaw-dropping plot to keep Labour in office.

Despite his comprehensive rejection by voters, Mr Brown mounted a desperate bid to cobble together a 'coalition of the losers'.

He tried to lure the double-dealing Lib Dems into propping up his defeated government by guaranteeing to legislate for a dramatic change in the voting system - without consulting the public in a referendum.

Of course, the very thing which Brown is offering is a referendum.

The Sun speak of "the squatter PM's bombshell" and imagine that they somehow speak for the nation as they fume:

The shenanigans provoked uproar as the nation began to lose patience with the third party's dithering backbenchers in the face of an economic crisis.

It's exactly what I expected to happen. According to their script David Cameron "won" the election and Nick Clegg must now do a deal with Cameron which sees him flying into Downing Street.

There is, of course, nothing "jaw dropping" about this at all. The only real surprise is that it took Clegg this long to get around to negotiating with the other side, especially as they have always appeared to offer a much more substantive deal than their opponents.

But, to the right wing press, we are witnessing the death of democracy when the unelected Tories are not swept into power.

The Daily Express led with this:

BRITAIN was last night facing rule by a “coalition of losers” as Gordon Brown and Nick Clegg edged towards a “sordid” political stitch-up.

The Times told us this:

David Cameron told his Shadow Cabinet that he was making one final offer to the Lib Dems in an office he hoped that he would never see again.

Earlier he had briefed his most senior colleagues, in the suite of rooms he used as Leader of the Opposition, on the outline of a deal that he hoped Nick Clegg could sell to his party.

Had that deal gone through, Mr Cameron’s next desk would have been in the No 10 study.

It's all a tragic tale of how David Cameron is being denied his rightful place in Downing Street, despite the fact that everything which is happening is well within the rules of our democracy.

Clegg has given Cameron first shot at forming a government, despite the fact that our constitution states that the Prime Minister should be given first shot at doing that, and Cameron has been unable to to come up with an offer regarding PR that Clegg finds acceptable.

Clegg has now offered Labour a chance to beat the Conservatives offer. And Gordon Brown has stood down to make the return of Labour tied to the Liberal Democrats possible.

I think Brown has behaved with honour, but that's not the way the right wing newspapers are going to view this.

In time, they will turn on Cameron and the dreadful campaign which he waged. But, for the moment, they are going to rage about the way they perceive that he has been "cheated", despite the fact that - like every other political party in the UK - he failed to win the recent election.

If Clegg decides to align himself with Labour, and let's face it that makes much more sense, the Tories will eventually punish Cameron for his failure; but, for the moment, the script is going to be about how outrageous it is that the Liberal Democrats have not aligned themselves to a party with whom they have nothing in common.

Good on Clegg. He, eventually, appears as if he is going to grasp the nettle and accept the historic opportunity which an alliance with Labour offers his party.

I've said before that I think he would have been a fool not to accept this historic opportunity.

I, like everyone else, have no idea how this is going to play out. But, it does feel, to me, as if we are getting nearer and nearer to what Brown called "a progressive coalition".

That makes sense. A Tory-Lib Dem pact never did.

So, for the moment, the right wing press will fume. Eventually, they will lay the blame where it belongs: at Cameron's doorstep, for the dreadful campaign which he waged.

Tags: Cameron, Brown, Clegg, Labour, Tories, Liberal Democrats, UK election 2010