From hung parliament to age of uncertainty

After Gordon Brown's resignation and with all three main parties in coalition talks, has the hung parliament ushered in an era of profound social and environmental turmoil?

Six days ago, in another political era, I was in Montgomeryshire in Wales waiting for David Cameron. It was the last day of the campaign, mild and still, and outside a photogenic primary school in a soft valley, a cluster of Conservative volunteers had assembled with "Vote For Change" placards. I got talking to one of them, a middle-aged businessman who seemed unusually frank for a party worker.

He began by predicting that his party would win the election with a tiny, weak majority. Then his ruddy open face turned even graver. "We're living in a public sector bubble in Britain," he said, "and someone's got to prick it. Unfortunately it's the Conservatives. There's a real danger that we'll be very unpopular. Out canvassing, I've just had someone on the doorstep shouting at me about what Maggie Thatcher did to the country in 1980."

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