Right, so, there’s no obvious result. Tories have most seats and most votes, but not really enough to form the sort of “strong, decisive” Government that Cameron says Britain needs.

The Lib Dems and Labour, together, would be just as precariously placed – however Brown has first dibs by virtue of the fact he’s still Prime Minister. Old Barnacle Brown remains Prime Minister until he resigns and tells the Queen who should take over. That’s not a conversation Brown’s going to want to make.

So, Tory minority Government is going to be weak and demand a General Election before the end of the year. A Lib/Lab Pact would be the same. The only means of getting a strong Government out of the current arrangement is a Lib/Con pact or coalition, but somehow I suspect the original Tory plan of ignoring the Lib Dems and carrying on without them, no matter what, will now hold true.

My feeling is that any partnership with Labour will mean the demise of the Liberal Democrats at the next election. The backlash for propping up Brown will be unstoppable. The narrative around the Lib Dems could be that they peaked in 2005, and they’re now on the decline (presumably as attitudes to the EU harden, attitudes to Immigration swerve Right and the electorate becomes increasingly reactionary). They need to take radical action now to stop this.

Many Lib Dem activists are saying that, if they got Proportional Representation (by doing a deal with Labour), the subsequent demise of the Lib Dems would be a sacrifice they’d be willing to make. I mean, literally that: I asked specifically if they’d be happy with the Lib Dems losing 20-30 seats as a consequence and the answer was “absolutely”.

I shudder to think. What Clegg does next is going to be absolutely crucial, and if he’s got any brains at all, if he wants the Lib Dems to survive, he WON’T do a deal with Labour and he’ll concentrate on giving Lib Dem help in sorting out the deficit and not much else. He needs to look like he’s putting the country ahead of the party, although ironically seeking PR as a condition of coalition (in effect ruling out the Tories) would, in fact, really be putting the country ahead of the party… well if you assume that PR is good for the country that is. If you don’t, the Lib Dems could be about to sacrifice themselves for absolutely nothing.

My feeling is that Nick Clegg is smarter than that, but he needs the consent of his MPs before he can do any deal. They’re going to want PR, and he may have little power to resist after such disastrous results.