For many observers it’s the key question for the Liberal Democrats — who they would support in a hung parliament — Brown’s Labour or Cameron’s Tories?

But ask the people at the top of the party at their conference in Bournemouth (and I have) — Nick Clegg, Vince Cable, Chris Huhne, David Laws, even new party chief executive Chris Fox — and they all deny they are considering the issue, let alone discussing it.

“We are concentrating on maximising our vote,” is the common mantra. Why waste time speculating now on possible election scenarios, they say.

Well, even if they were, would they tell ever us? History suggests the party will be making some plans for a possible coalition at some stage before the election, expected in May, even if they aren’t right now.

Former leader Paddy Ashdown has written about “the project”, his secret and abortive talks with Tony Blair ahead of the 1997 election on a centre-left alliance between the LibDems and Labour.

David Laws spoke earlier this week about his role in preparations for coalition talks in the Scottish parliamentary election of 1999.

And this week in Bournemouth another former LibDem leader, Menzies “Ming” Campbell (pictured), revealed his own pre-election coalition planning — for the 2007 election that Gordon Brown never called.

Campbell said that during his short tenure as leader between March 2006 and October 2007 he had taken his shadow team away frequently to discuss what they would do if the expected election left them holding the balance of power.

“We used to go away quite a lot and discuss this,” Campbell said at a fringe meeting hosted by the Independent newspaper.

“I used to put two questions to my colleagues. If after a general election no one party has an overall majority, would we be right to support a Labour party and a Labour government which had failed to obtain a majority in the country, and therefore lost a vote of confidence in the country?

“Or would it be right to support a Conservative party which is wholly opposed to electoral reform and viscerally anti-European?”

But if ever asked by a journalist what the party’s plans were, he would repeat the formula: “Maximum votes, maximum seats, maximum power.” Of course, Brown never called that poll and Menzies stood down without ever fighting an election as LibDem leader.

Campbell gives more details in this short clip I recorded with him after the event.

- Col. Richard Kemp is a former commander of British Forces in Afghanistan and the author of Attack State Red, an account of British military operations in Afghanistan, to be published on September 3, 2009, by Penguin. The opinions expressed are his own. -

Disillusionment with the inability of the Kabul administration to govern fairly or to significantly reduce violence played a role in the reportedly low turnout at the polls in Helmand.

It is critical that this changes if we are to avoid another Vietnam. The South Vietnamese Army, well trained and equipped, lost heart once the U.S. withdrew, collapsing at the first push, partly because their corrupt and ineffective administration was not worth fighting for.

That an election was held at all in Afghanistan’s most violent province is an achievement. But despite a major operation to drive out the Taliban, the insurgents deterred large numbers of voters. This illustrates just how steep a mountain NATO has to climb. But it does not mean we cannot prevail against them in Helmand.

As President Obama says: "This isn’t a war of choice; it’s a war of necessity." Home grown British terrorists have only demonstrated an ability to kill our people when they have attended serious training and had face-to-face direction from war-hardened jihadists.

The Al Qaida leadership and their camps were driven into Pakistan in 2001. U.S. pursuit across the border using unmanned aerial vehicle strikes has been remarkably effective, resulting directly in the recent reduction of the UK terrorist threat level.

Al Qaida is not just a “global franchise” but also a solid organization that needs places to meet, to plan and to train terrorists. It cannot all be done on the internet.  Substantially unable to function now in Pakistan, the leadership is actively seeking a new base – perhaps in Yemen, Somalia or North Africa. In any of these they would be much more exposed. Their real desire is to return to Afghanistan. NATO forces are preventing that.

But we cannot do it forever. Success equals reducing the insurgency to a level that can be managed by a viable Afghan government backed by a capable security force which can prevent the country becoming a base for attacks on the West including Britain.

How long will this take? The answer to that is how long do we have?  The next U.S. election is at the end of 2012 and the patience of the British electorate will have no greater longevity.

Even as I have defined it, we will not achieve success fully in that time-frame. But we must be very clearly succeeding in a way that we are not now. And certainly in the British forces, we cannot continue with anything like the current rate of casualties over that period.

To counter the Taliban’s present devastatingly effective tactics of mines, roadside bombs and booby traps we need better surveillance and better intelligence, achieved in part through greater active support from the local people. We need to control the night as well as the day. While we build the Afghan army, this can only be done with more of our own troops. A lot more.

Casting aside inter-service rivalries, every sinew of strength of the British armed forces must now go into Afghanistan.  Even that will not be enough.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown must take close personal direction of this war through a war cabinet that will drive every relevant government department to achieve real progress in the short time we have left. And crucially to communicate our war aims to the British people with far greater effect.

When it comes to climate change, the environment and other weighty issues, what could the leaders of the world’s biggest democracy possibly learn from the rural Indians who cobble together rickety cars out of scrap metal and old bits of wood?

One of India’s best known businessmen says the improvised vehicles that carry crops and passengers along dusty village roads show how local people are often the best innovators, coming up with cheap and effective answers to tough problems.

Nandan Nilekani, co-founder of the technology company Infosys, thinks politicians would do well to remember the decentralized philosophy behind the “jugaad“. Mechanics with little money and poor access to cheap parts use whatever is at hand to build them: water pumps replace normal engines; wooden blocks stand in for brakes and old planks of wood provide the floor.

“This ‘car’ is a brilliant improvisation, nailed together from whatever parts rural mechanics can get their hands on,” Nilekani writes in a new book about the future of the world’s second most populous country, “Imagining India“. “Effective, innovative policies will depend on harnessing this ability of people at the local level to take charge and innovate.

“Our environment and energy solutions will have to rope in our tribal and village communities to be truly effective. I believe such approaches are uniquely suited to India, with its untapped pool of local, entrepreneurial and innovative talent.”

Nilekani, often called the “Bill Gates of Bangalore”, says India has come a long way since the historic days of 1947 when Britain’s colonial rule ended. However, it must move further away from centralisation if it is to harness its economic potential.

While Nehru’s “paternal, socialist state” that promised public sector wealth creation made sense at the time, few Indians believe in his policies now, Nilekani argues.

It is time, he says, for the country to move even further away from the old idea of “Mother India” looking after its one billion “children”.

His book sets out a vision of a more equal and prosperous India where the state views the population as “human capital, not as a liability”.

The new India would value entrepreneurs, improve its schools and universities, embrace globalisation and technology and build new infrastructure.  It would also accept English as a “language of aspiration” rather than a colonial relic.

The markets will play a crucial role in changing society, but politicians and the public sector must also do their bit, Nilekani says. Political parties have for too long exploited class, religion, caste or regional differences to make short-term gains at the expense of long-term planning, he adds.

“If you want to go beyond the politics of division to the politics of aspiration it will take some time because you will need a larger middle class,” he told Reuters in an interview in London. “Markets and entrepreneurship are very important. They drive innovation, job creation. It is how people’s standard of living goes up.”

If India adopts the right measures it could see faster economic growth than China within a few years, helped by a huge pool of young working people, he adds.

“India is now going to have its demographic dividend in the next 30 years. China had its demographic dividend over the last 30 years,” he told Reuters. “Being the only young country in an ageing world gives India some very special opportunities.”

With polls suggesting that no party will secure an outright majority in this month’s elections, Nilekani warns that future could be rocky.

“This election is momentous because there is no clear winner, no party that has a clear advantage,” he says. “There is a risk of having instability.”

However, like the humble “jugaad”, the sheer scale of the election process and the effort that has gone into getting 700 million people to vote, is an immense source of pride for Nilekani.

“It is an extraordinarily uplifting moment,” he says.

Glasgow East has a very different feel to Crewe as it gears up for Thursday’s by-election.

In Crewe and Nantwich voters were palpably enthused by the prospect of giving Gordon Brown and Labour a good kicking. They were aware of the national significance of a Tory victory and relished the chance to send Brown a stern message. Turnout was a high 58 percent and the Conservatives achieved a massive 17.6 percent swing to win the seat in May.

A walk around the housing estates and shabby shopping complexes of Glasgow East tells a different story. Many locals frown and scurry off when asked their political views. Others who do stop and talk express indifference. The by-election may be a two-horse race between Labour and the Scottish National Party (SNP) but apathy is running a close third. Turnout here was less than 50 percent in the 2005 general election and is expected to be much lower next week, particularly because of summer school holidays.

But Labour is braced for a thrashing and a drastically reduced majority. Lifelong Labour supporters said they were switching to the SNP or even to the Conservatives, who barely make it on to the political map in Scotland. Diehard Labour loyalists — people who vote for Labour because their mother, father and grandparents did — may just help Brown hold on to the seat but Labour appears to be losing the support amongst the working class that it has relied on in Scotland for decades.

Take Scottish pensioners Sarah Carlin and Catherine Matheson. They have voted for the Labour Party since they can remember but both said they plan to switch allegiances next Thursday. Carlin, 64, may vote Conservative, if she votes at all, while Matheson will plump for the SNP.

“I’ve worked all my days and I don’t get anything. I pay for my glasses, I pay for my teeth. I’m going to try the Conservatives. I’m sick of it,” said Carlin, having tea after an exercise class at the Tollcross Park Leisure Centre in Glasgow’s deprived east end.

Other “eastenders” have lost faith in politicians, worn down by what they see as a failure to tackle the crime and drug addiction that plagues the sprawling constituency.

Michael McGonigle, who owns a butcher’s shop in the east end, said the area has got worse over the years, beset by drug addicts and dealers.

“I’m not voting. I don’t believe in any of them. They’re all in it for themselves,” said McGonigle, 38, as he sliced beef in his store on Tollcross Road. “You see them day and night, druggies, methodone junkies.”

A few doors down, Stephen Mclellan, 37, who owns his own grocery store, is similar disillusioned.

“Nothing gets done. They just promise. I’d like something to be done locally,” he said, pointing at the drains outside his shop that he said flood every time it rains or the boarded up flats opposite. “There are too many people on methodone. They sell it at the bus stop, there is no support. Put police on the streets and the place would be ten times better,” added McGonigle, who is unsure who he will vote for, if anyone.

Politically-engaged locals agreed that Labour could have lost here if Margaret Curran hadn’t agreed to stand. She is a local political heavyweight and an energetic campaigner. Local taxi driver Robert Kemp, 54, thinks “a gun was put to her head. They needed a big hitter, so they said, Margaret, come and save our position.”

Others said that if the charismatic Alex Salmond had been standing, rather than the lesser-known John Mason, the SNP could have pulled it off — a result that would certainly have sent shockwaves all the way to Downing Street and could have sealed the prime minister’s fate.

(photo shows Scottish Labour Party candidate Curran campaigning in Glasgow)

Labour has lost at least 200 seats in the local elections in England and Wales — leaving it in its worst position since the days of Harold Wilson — and even before the results of the London mayoral contest are known, some political analysts are saying Gordon Brown will lose the next general election unless the economy improves.

But others say this was a vote against Labour rather than a vote for the Conservatives and that governments, especially those that have been in power for as long as Labour, always take a knock in local elections. Look at Tony Blair in 2004 just a year before he swept home again.

The next general election doesn’t have to be called until 2010 and even a week is a long time in politics, they point out.

Do you think the writing is on the wall for Brown, or can Labour win a fourth term in the next general election?

**Full coverage of the London mayor and local elections **

The election results for England and Wales at 8:00 p.m. with all 159 councils having officially declared.

Source: BBC

The three leading candidates for the post of London mayor battle it out in the “Rainbow London Mayor Debate”. Watch Boris Johnson fighting hard to convince voters he can run the show at City Hall, Ken Livingstone campaigning on key issues like the buses, while Brian Paddick is trying to get a word in edgeways…not much difference to previously televised debates….except for the outfits!

Every time Labour ministers call the Conservative candidate for London mayor by first name alone they’ll have to pay £5 into a ’swear box’.

“What we have to avoid is a situation where people think this election is a joke and that the future of London is not serious,” Olympics Minister Tessa Jowell told Sky News.

If this is all about taking the upcoming election seriously though, why has there been no similar decree regarding “Ken” (Livingstone), the equally maverick Labour candidate? And what will Labour do with all the money it makes from ministers who slip up?