JAMES FORSYTH: Who'll run Britain after the Election? Er, no one really...

By James Forsyth for The Mail on Sunday

Published: 01:01 GMT, 8 February 2015 | Updated: 01:26 GMT, 8 February 2015

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Confident: David Cameron is convinced a Tory majority will come despite what the polls say

What happens if you hold an election but nobody wins? Well, Britain might just be about to find out.

With 13 weeks to go until the country heads to the polls, things remain deadlocked. We are on course for a zombie government.

In Downing Street, they’ve enjoyed a good couple of weeks – Labour in-fighting over NHS policy, the row with the boss of Boots and Ed Balls’s inability to name any business supporters of the party apart from Bill Somebody – but there is a nagging, and growing, worry that, in the words of one No 10 source: ‘The polls aren’t really moving.’ The Tories remain stuck in the low 30s and trail Labour in most surveys.

If David Cameron is worried, he’s not showing it.

He’s convinced that, as in 1992 – the campaign on which he cut his political teeth – a Tory majority will come despite what the polls say. But others are not so sure. One colleague remarks: ‘I wish I could share his confidence.’

Having crunched the numbers, a Downing Street insider calculates that the Tories will win 280-odd seats. This would be an overall loss of 20 seats or so.

My source estimates that this would still be enough to make the Tories the largest party because of Labour’s troubles in Scotland – where it looks set to take a pasting from the Scottish National Party.

But 280 seats wouldn’t give the Tories a Commons majority, even if they did deals with both the Liberal Democrats and the Northern Irish Democratic Unionist Party.

But then Labour wouldn’t be able to stitch one together either.

Those at the top of the Lib Dems are clear that they wouldn’t do a deal to put Ed Miliband in No 10 if Labour didn’t have the most votes or the most seats.

They feel that so much of the campaign will be about the Labour leader and whether he is up to the top job, that backing him would, in the words of one senior Liberal Democrat, be ‘electoral suicide’.

This means that even with an arrangement with the SNP, who would not be keen on a second UK election before the Scottish parliament elections in 2016, Labour wouldn’t be able to govern.

As it is, many Lib Dems are having second thoughts about going back into government at all. There have always been those in the party who have wanted to return to opposition to lick their coalition-inflicted wounds, and this attitude is now taking hold among some senior figures who are actually in government.

While those closest to Nick Clegg remain convinced about the merits of another coalition, a growing number of Lib Dem Ministers are increasingly sceptical. One ministerial confidant says that being offered the choice of bed-hopping between the Tories and Labour is like being asked, ‘How would you like to die? Electric chair or hangman?’

Coalition? Those at the top of the Lib Dems are clear that they wouldn’t do a deal to put Ed Miliband (right) in No 10 if Labour didn’t have the most votes or the most seats. Left, Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg

The source adds: ‘The cost of being in government another term with Labour or the Tories is total annihilation.’

The Tories hope they can turn the looming deadlock to their advantage. Their most recent Cabinet meeting focused on how they can best define ‘the chaos’ of any result other than a Tory majority. Arguing that it would mean higher mortgage rates and higher taxes is the answer they came up with.

Yet, confusion and uncertainty is what we are heading for. By the end of this year, the answer to the question of who governs Britain could be: Nobody really.

Now Cameron gives Beyoncé the booty!

Loud: Michael Gove's smart watch infamously played its ringtone by Beyoncé in a Cabinet meeting

One of David Cameron’s first acts as Prime Minister was to ban mobile phones from Cabinet meetings, but many Ministers have started smuggling them in.

Now there are concerns that the devices could be used by foreign powers or sophisticated criminal gangs to listen in to the meetings.

So, when GCHQ came to No 10 last week to brief the Cabinet on cyber-crime, Cameron announced a phone amnesty. He told the Secretaries of State and others present, that everyone had one minute to leave the room and dispense of any phones they had brought in.

I’m told that, almost instantly, a dozen Ministers guiltily rose to their feet.

One of those present says that some had to check in more than one phone.

Michael Gove, the Chief Whip whose email and text enabled-watch infamously played its ring-tone by Beyoncé in a Cabinet meeting last month, made great play of removing the watch. Once all that was done, the briefing could start.

Nigel Farage has had a quiet start to the year. His decision to give up booze for ‘Dry January’ made more news than any Ukip policy announcement.

But on Thursday, in an island in the Thames estuary, Farage will give a speech setting out Ukip’s stall for the General Election.

This will be followed by a string of policy announcements in the next few weeks as Ukip moves into full campaigning mode.

The island setting in the target seat of Castle Point is meant to show that the party is not part of the Westminster establishment. Rather than a slick metropolitan launch, it has deliberately chosen a seaside resort that has seen better days as a metaphor for the left-behind Britain that Ukip seeks to speak for.

But the challenge for Farage is to show that voting Ukip is more than just a way of giving the establishment a kick.

Why the budget WILL go with a bang

The Coalition might have one final fling. It had been assumed that the Budget on March 18 would be a limited affair, fulfilling only the statutory requirement for the Government to present a Budget to Parliament. It was thought the Coalition parties would not be able to agree on anything substantive just 12 days before the start of the General Election campaign.

But there are increasing signs that the Budget may be a bigger event than expected. One Minister involved tells me that ‘a normal Budget process is being run across Whitehall’. Although no final decisions have been made, discussions are taking place about measures to help small businesses and clamp down on tax avoidance.

The Liberal Democrats caution that the Budget will ‘not be all-singing and dancing’. They say they will not let the Tories do a classic pre-election Budget giveaway and one source is adamant that ‘it will not be Christmas’. But it seems there will be some offerings after all.

With both Coalition parties needing the political conversation to be about the economy, they can’t afford to miss the opportunity the Budget presents.

James Forsyth is political editor of The Spectator 

'The funny one': Victoria Beckham

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Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls forgets the name of Bill Thomas as he is asked on Newsnight to name a business leader who backs Labour.

‘Bill Somebody isn’t a person – bill somebody is Labour’s policy.’

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‘Harper Lee is going to publish a sequel after 55 years… and you people think I write slow.’

Game Of Thrones author George R. R. Martin as it is revealed that the To Kill A Mockingbird writer is releasing an unpublished novel later this year.

‘We didn’t even agree to disagree.’

Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis admits that talks with his German counterpart over writing off some of Athens’s debts have faltered.

‘Why should I respect a capricious, mean-minded, stupid God who creates a world so full of injustice?’

Stephen Fry on what he would say if he were confronted by God. 

‘David looks good – that’s what David does – and I’m the funny one. But looks fade, I keep telling him that.’

Victoria Beckham pokes fun at her superstar husband.

‘We suck at dealing with abuse and trolls on the platform and we’ve sucked at it for years.’

Twitter boss Dick Costolo concedes its efforts to stamp out online bullying have failed.

‘The Chilleycotte inquiry into the War of the Roses will be out soon.’

Comic Arthur Smith mocks the delay of the Chilcot Inquiry into the Iraq War.

‘Well, I wasn’t there to do the cleaning.’

Former prostitute Jade, when asked by a judge in the ‘pimping’ trial of IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn what she was paid to do at orgies.

‘For Ava’s birthday she has requested a real live unicorn.’

Myleene Klass posts a tongue-in-cheek request from her daughter after parents of schoolfriends ask for donations towards gifts such as a Kindle.

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