The fact is people don’t like the idea of a hung Parliament.

They like the notion of leadership. Clear leadership. The sort they get from Angela Merkel, for example – in a coalition. But the fact is if you vote for the FDP you pretty much know that you will have a Government that is led by the CDU. If you vote Green you know that your chance of power depends on the success or otherwise of the SPD. The German multi-party system is pretty much a two party system in practice. You choose between democrats because that’s what the constitution has produced. Others have similar patterns, others more distributed and devolved power, but the same rules apply – where it is proportional there is coalition. Ditto Ireland and lots of other places – Scotland, Wales, even.

They assume that, where there is no history of coalition government, that we might not be very good at it. Given the performance of some of our Parliamentarians over the past few years in losing public confidence you could hardly blame them. I prefer to be optimistic – we perhaps need to have a bit of faith in ourselves as politicians. For the past 5 years our Government has lacked democratic (moral if you prefer) authority because it polled less than 40% of the popular vote – how much worse can it get!

Electoral change does not, necessarily, mean unstable Government – it just means different government. It also means a realignment of the party system as it currently stands. And it is THIS that the electorate certainly seem to want. They regard the system as broken, the party system as corrupt. In some respects they are right and they deserve to have their say.

If their say results in a hung or balanced Parliament (and I am by no means convinced it will, despite what the polls may say three days before the poll) there is a necessity that politicians seek to make things work. The detail of the results determines who can work with who. So what will the parties do in each possible scenario. Here’s how it goes (however unlikely each may seem):

If Labour is the largest party: Gordon Brown, if he shows wisdom, will try to form a Government. He will approach the Liberal Democrats and possibly various nationalists for support. He will be prepared to concede on electoral reform and cabinet posts as long as the Liberals are prepared to concede on the detail. This is simply because it is most likely that they would be largest party with fewer votes than the Tories. This makes it near on impossible to form a minority Labour Government as it would lack any moral authority. A wise leader would quit at this point, an ego driven monster would take it to the Commons.

If the Conservatives are the largest party they will almost certainly have a larger share of the vote. Whether they get an overall majority is not down to national swing. It is down to how many seats they can pull in above and beyond the national swing. Ashcroft money may well have a say in this, voter awareness of where they are and how they can vote is also part of the picture. The key factor is how marginal seats behave. If the Conservative ‘Ground War’ can produce an average additional 3% swing in the marginals over and above the national position could bring in 50 more seats from Labour. Were the Tories the current polls correct that would be enough to bring home an overall majority of 8, but in reality it could extend to 20. On the current polls that is entirely plausible. For David Cameron in a hung Parliament it has to be minority government – anything else is political failure and his party would not allow him to move on electoral reform. Either way, a Conservative minority government on less that 40% of the vote lacks democratic authority.

There is a misconception about hung Parliaments is that the Liberals would hold the ‘balance of power’. In fact they rarely could. The Liberal Democrats, power depends upon amassing enough seats and hoping they can broker power between the two main parties. Their price for positive support depends upon Liberal Policies or who offers the best deal. Given the desperate state of the party it is hard not to see Mr Brown conceding more.

But this is unlikely and Mr Clegg would have a problem – he said he wouldn’t prop up Gordon Brown if Labour, as looks probable, lost on the popular vote. I don’t know what was going through Mr Clegg’s mind. Gordon Brown is the PM. He gets first go at forming a Government. If he thinks he can he can take it to the House. If he doesn’t he resigns. If he goes to the House and loses he must resign. If he resigns the leader of the next largest or of the largest party gets invited to have a go. If that happens David Cameron gets to have a go at forming a minority Government. Were he to press ahead with Labour and the Liberals indicating opposition they would have to vote down the Conservatives in the Commons. Mr Cameron would have to resign and would then go back to the Sovereign and either ask for dissolution or not. Would the public forgive a politician who inflicted another election on the nation? These waters remain uncharted.

None of this would happen overnight.

What it would also mean is that Labour could not pull a stroke like attempting to back a Clegg-led Government – at least not without a new departure. Gordon Brown, be he second or third in the popular vote, first or second in seats would have to go to the Sovereign with a proposal for a Government based on an alliance with a majority of votes in the House of Commons. This alliance could elect its own leader allowing Mr Brown to bow out. How likely is any of this? Not very – that why the leaders will not think it through till it happens. That’s why Clegg got it wrong.

As I write this Ed Balls has more or less called for a tactical vote by Labour supporters. He is effectively saying to Nick Clegg – you do the same, if you are serious. If they are serious they will each name seats. My better would be on the Liberal Democrats ducking the issue. Either way this is Ed Balls first really significant move to stake his claim to the Labour leadership post election by assuming some leadrship before polling day. I refer to the last paragraph of my Reading Post column on 5 March 2009. We may just have had the moment – time will tell.