The Sun, English/Scottish differences

IN the space of five tumultuous days, Britain has gone from democracy as we know it to the brink of dictatorship.

The result of the General Election has been shoved aside by Labour.

A desperate stitch-up is being attempted which will mean voters’ faces being ground into the dust.

Defeated Gordon Brown intends to cling to office until he can hand over to ANOTHER unelected Prime Minister.

He is brazenly selling himself at any price to Nick Clegg’s Lib Dems and a ragtag collection of MPs in Scots, Welsh and Ulster seats collection of minority parties.

This shabby coalition would keep David Cameron out of Downing St No10 - even though he WON most seats in the election.

Britain has been called the cradle of democracy.

If this deal goes through, democracy will be in its grave.

Clegg’s price for backing Brown will be changes in the voting system designed to stop the Conservatives winning again.

Yet the election revealed no outcry for such change, otherwise Clegg’s lot would not have done so badly.

Labour’s support north of the border last Thursday means that any deal that keeps them in power will be welcomed here.

And yes, on the face of it, Scotland will benefit.

But in the longer term it could rebound on us.

The price demanded by those Scots, Welsh and Ulster MPsAlex Salmond for backing Brownhis part in the deal will be that their countries are spared cutsScotland is spared the brunt of the cuts.

So England’s taxpayers - who mostly voted Tory - will not only bearEnglish taxpayers will feel they’re bearing the worst of the pain and they’ll take their anger out on us.

And that will be the fastest way to break up the Union.

They will Despite Scots’ overwhelming backing for Labour, is it really right to keep in power the two parties who LOST the election.?

There was much pious hot air from Brown yesterday about serving the national interest.

Rubbish. This is all to do with naked self-interest. Gordon Brown’s self-interest.

Can there ever have been a more squalid spectacle than this discredited loser scrabbling on his knees to stay in No10?

So much for all that grand talk in the TV debates of "a new politics".

If this is the "new politics", give us the old.

Nick Clegg is playing a dangerous game.

He asked everyone - especially young voters - to trust him.

People might not have voted for him in large numbers, but they did think there was something fresh and honest about him.

Yet with every day this shameful farce carries on, his reputation cheapens. Perhaps he IS more at home with the creeps and crawlers of the Labour Party...

If Clegg is going to back Mr Cameron and stop the Brown carve-up, let him get on with it.

Mr Cameron has offered all he can. He has behaved with decency and honour.

If he is now to be robbed of his victorydoesn’t and props up ailing Labour, then this will have been the election that saw our idea of democracy die in Britain.