""And of course in 1978 the Liberals decided they weren't goimg to prop up the then Labour Government (because they refused to 'rubber stamp' the policies) and we ended up with 18 years of Tory rule.""

In fairness to my argument, it should be pointed out that in 1978, the Rock of Gibraltar couldn't have propped up the severely incompetent Callaghan government. With rampant inflation over 20% and interest rates approaching 15% (by 1979 when they lost the general election, they left 17.9% interest rates, and 21.9% inflation), and that AFTER Harold Wilson had devalued the pound by some 10% (by some miracle, "without affecting the pound in your pocket", according to him).

Of course we knew that devaluation wouldn't affect the pound in our pockets. But when we took it out to buy food...............

On every OTHER occasion when there was a hung parliament it was as I stated. Labour said "Jump", Liberal said "How high, and how often?", which of cours meant that only an overall majority would deprive labour of control, whereas Labour NEVER needed overall majority.

Don T.