I understand that LibDem MPs and activists have told Nick Clegg to demand more from the deal – see this morning’s earlier posting. I also read in The Times that the man leading this is the Party’s biggest failure of recent years Ming Campbell.

It also seems (but this is all from the Labour side so far) that LibLab talks are now taking on a more detailed and formal nature. This would’ve been pure bluff had Brown still been there – but he isn’t.

Last week The Slog said:

On the other hand, two days ago I wrote, ‘Clegg has lost all interest in a deal with Labour’. But then Brown resigned, so all that changed.

Everything everyone says from here on is a hostage to fortune: if the two Party leaders can’t call it, then sure as hell nobody else can. That said, personal careers are at stake….and this is always the key factor in contemporary politics. The Tory leader has been blunt: I can’t give any more. This is the one thing which (I suspect) is not a bluff. I’m not surprised that the LibDem wonks are unable to see this – reality isn’t their thing. But reality is very much Nick Clegg’s thing.

My guess is that Clegg knows Cameron can’t deliver anything further. And I have one LibDem source who has insisted all along that Nick Clegg does not want to prop up Labour – with or without Gordon the Reluctant Charity Worker. To be honest, the (if nothing else) consistent LibDem telling me this said “In private, Nick thinks Labour will fuck up the crisis. He’s haunted by the prospect of supporting a bunch of failures whom, he knows perfectly well, the majority of voters want to see the back of”.

That makes sense to me. But it doesn’t to the fluffy folk in Nick’s Party. Which way will he jump? Nobody knows – beyond the fact that he is going to jump (I hear) before the end of the afternoon. Until he does, I’m going to stop posting about it. What we need now is analysis, not news.