Britain's Conservatives and Liberal Democrats will hold talks tomorrow on a possible coalition deal after an inconclusive election resulted in a hung parliament.
Conservative sources said the meeting in London tomorrow morning will not be attended by the party leaders and a deal is unlikely to be reached before Monday.
Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg met his party's leadership today to discuss a possible deal after Conservative leader David Cameron put “a big, open and comprehensive offer” to his party yesterday. Mr Cameron left open the possibilities of running a minority government or agreeing a coalition deal with Mr Clegg.
The Conservative leader was put in pole position after Mr Clegg said Mr Cameron had the most votes and seats and now needed to show whether the Conservatives were “capable of seeking to govern in the national interest”.
Arrived at the meeting of senior Lib Dems in central London to consider Mr Cameron’s overtures, Mr Clegg pledged to approach cross-party talks in a “constructive spirit”. He said the four core areas of tax, education, economic recovery and fundamental political reform were at issue. "It's precisely those four changes which will guide us in the talks ahead," he said.
Speaking after the meeting, Liberal Democrat negotiator David Laws said party members endorsed Mr Clegg's strategy and agreed to hold further talks on a possible alliance with the Conservatives.
A Conservative spokesman said Mr Cameron will meet his party MPs on Monday evening. No final agreement with the Liberal Democrats is expected over the weekend, he said.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown yesterday said he was willing to discuss a coalition with any party. Speaking in front of 10 Downing Street, the prime minister proposed a referendum on introducing proportional representation, key Liberal Democrats policy. He also pointed out that the Liberal Democrats share Labour's opposition to cutting spending this year, in contrast to the Conservatives.
Mr Cameron and Mr Clegg spoke for 30 minutes last night, after which negotiators from both parties met, including George Osborne and William Hague for the Tories and Chris Huhne and Danny Alexander for the Liberal Democrats.
After his conversation with Mr Cameron, the Lib Dems leader spoke to Mr Brown. Lib Dem sources “categorically” denied reports on the BBC today claiming that the conversation descended into an angry exchange, with Mr Clegg telling Mr Brown he should resign and the Labour leader responding with a diatribe laced with threats.
“There was a conversation yesterday, but any suggestion that it was in any way angry or hostile would be wrong,” a Lib Dems spokeswoman said. “It was perfectly amicable and both men just set out what they said in their public statements.”
The final results for the 650 constituencies show he Conservatives won 306 seats, up 97; Labour won 258, down 91; the Liberal Democrats were down five to 57; the Democratic Unionists down one to eight; and the Scottish National Party, Sinn Féin, Plaid Cymru and the SDLP were unchanged at six, five, three and three respectively.
The difficulties with the first-past-the-post system were illustrated in an analysis which showed that the Conservatives won a seat for 35,021 votes; Labour won one for every 33,338; but the Liberals secured 119,397 votes for every seat they won.
The Conservatives have ended up short of a majority, even though they won 500,000 more votes than Labour did under Tony Blair in 2005 when he enjoyed a majority of 67.
Developments in London are being watched closely by political leaders in the North in the belief they could still have a role to play in the formation of the next British government. A failure by the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats to reach agreement could open the possibility of a Labour-led government supported by the Liberal Democrats and MPs from parties in the North.
The DUP’s representation in the Commons has been reduced from nine to eight as a result of the shock defeat of its leader, Peter Robinson, in East Belfast. There was no immediate question last night over Mr Robinson’s leadership of the DUP or his role as First Minister, according to party colleagues.
Ulster Unionist leader Sir Reg Empey, however, is under pressure following his own poor showing in South Antrim and the party’s failure to win a seat. He met party officers yesterday for private talks and is due to report to his Assembly group at Stormont on Monday.
The DUP’s Ian Paisley Jnr said this morning his party’s eight MPs would be content to support any party promising to rein back “savage” spending cuts earmarked for Northern Ireland. “Broadly speaking, we would be content to support whatever government is prepared to do the best deal for Northern Ireland. We are not ideologically burdened or tied,” he told BBC Radio 4. “If there are going to be cuts, and we know there will be, we want to ensure those cuts are not going to be as savage in Northern Ireland as was previously the case before the election.”
Conservative shadow foreign secretary William Hague said last night the Liberal Democrats could be offered some ministerial posts in a possible future coalition. "David Cameron hasn't excluded that possibility," Mr Hague told Sky News when asked if the LibDems could be offered cabinet posts in a coalition.
"Clearly any negotiations would have to be very successful to get to that point of actually sitting around the cabinet table together. There are many other forms of agreement to conduct the government of the country that are well short of that could be discussed. But we haven't excluded any form of arrangement."
Former Labour deputy prime minister John Prescott said today the Conservatives would not be able to offer proportional representation. "We have introduced it in the Scotland and Wales regional governments so it seems to be on the horizon. But the Tories won't do it. We may," Mr Prescott said on the sidelines of an environment conference in Beijing. "The best possibility for proportional representation is with the Labour Party."
Additional reporting: Reuters/PA/Bloomberg