Who said we want it strong?

OK, I was wrong. I predicted a thumping Tory majority - and despite having more things (and more money) going for them than any Opposition party I can remember, they didn't get it. Phew.
And I predicted no real change in the pattern of British politics. But now change is what we might get at last.
However loving Cameron's overtures, I can't see how the LibDems can possibly accept them.
But I could see a Labour-led coalition in which LibDem, SNP, Plaid Cymru - and even Green - voices have to be taken seriously.
Which sounds a lot better to me than the "strong government" which Cameron and Brown both claim the British public wants.
If you can talk at all about the British public as if it were one organism, it seems to me that strong government is exactly what it has said it doesn't want.
Brown and Cameron, incidentally, both described this myth of strength in remarkably similar terms - but not identical.
Cameron spoke of "strong, stable and decisive" government, while Brown phrased it as "strong, stable and principled".
Personally, I'd take the principled over the decisive every time - always depending, of course, on the principles. And I'd certainly take liberal (or Liberal) principles over the Cameron-Osborne kind.