#ge2010: Will Labour be the winners in the end?

A bigger swing to the Tories than the one which swept Margaret Thatcher is one point the Torygraph makes, along with the fact the Labour share of the vote is almost as low as when Michael Foot was in charge in 1983 - both grim statistics taken in isolation.

But if the country hasn't given its mandate to Labour, who has it given it too? How can we see a bigger swing to the Tories than in 1979 but not have a Tory working majority? How can Labour's share of the vote still fall so low and Cameron be left to try and negotiate his way into Downing Street?

Put aside the issue of the first past the post system favouring Labour because that's not a new fact. Tory administrations have overcome that in the past, and the Tories want to keep it anyway. One fact overrides all others here: If you want to win the election, you need to take seats off Labour which you previously thought were unwinnable.

Millions more to spend on campaigning, a successful if tax avoiding sugar daddy co-ordinating campaigns in key marginals, taking on a government which is tired, has presided over MPs expenses and has so many unpopular policy decisions to its name that it makes Stan Collymore a good judge of public mood - how did the Tories not win outright?

Cameron going on the attack towards Brown is a move designed to hide his own party's failings. The strategy of simply not having policies for four years, then telling people you want an age of austerity before rewinding faster than Andy Gray's post-match video screen simply didn't work.

There are already mutterings that the Tories blame Cameron for not winning outright. To me, that's unfair. At the end of the day, he's a successful marketing man, he knows how to win people over.

His problem is that he's listened to too many others around him. His slavish devotion to George Osborne - Cameron's interview in which he said that he'd be prepared to sack Osborne if needs be was as laughable as if Tony Blair had said the same about Brown - is as frightening as it is bewildering.

Osborne is a Tory who doesn't live in the real world. With money sloshing around on all sides, and serving a constituency when length of drive has more to do with social status than the need to park the car, Osborne's concept of what wavering voters want or think can only come from focus groups. The same focus groups which told the Tories people wanted to be told that times were tough. The same focus groups which said a TV debate would be good for the Tory leader.

As it is, none of the parties are winners today. The Lib Dems failed to live up to their pre-vote billing, although Nick Clegg remains a king maker of sorts. He's done the decent thing in saying he'd talk to Cameron first. Cameron did, after all, get the most seats.

But a Tory-Lib Dem coalition of any sort would never work. And Clegg will know that unless Cameron bends on the idea of a new voting system, working with the Tories will mean waving good bye to any chance of the Lib Dems ever winning in their own right.

Supporting a Tory government which is devil-eyed in its determination to slash and burn the public sector budgets also guarantees Labour the right, when the next poll comes, to point the finger at both the Tories and Lib Dems and point out the errors they've made.

Labour didn't have a good election either, but how different it would have been had Brown found his feet in the first week, not the last. To have somehow clawed back from 26 points down to be in a position where they could yet still rule is quite remarkable - especially so as the reverse in fortunes is as much to do with Tory failings as it is Labour strategy.

Clegg will know his party would have a happier home with Labour, and the carrot of a new voting system should be too greater carrot to be ignored.

So who is the real winner? To me, it's Labour. Why? Well, rhe Lib Dems need to tread very carefully here - support or go into coalition with either party and they risk being tainted by the tough decisions which follow. Do nothing, however, and the chance to get a fairer voting system slips away.

The Tories, however, face the scenario of delivering tough cuts if they get in, and to even get it they may need to bend so much to the Lib Dem tune that open warfare is declared within the Conservatives. The old guard are just locked in the cupboard at the moment. Tough cuts a second time in 30 years would effectively make them unelectable. Yet refuse to do a deal with the Lib Dems and Cameron faces scenario where the Tories may never be the biggest party ever again. Proportional representation brings with it the likelihood of coalitions, and that suits Labour and the Lib Dems much more than it does the Tories.

So, for Labour, the options are simple: Get kicked out but have a huge chance of winning next time out after the cuts have hurt, or form a coalition and cement centre-left rule in the UK for decades to come.

Whatever happens, the main question will probably remain unanswered: How did the Tories lose a 26 point lead?