No room for principles

Voters who participated in the recent Welsh Assembly elections must be feeling a little confused right now. Labour have the most seats with 26, but all the rest combined have 34. Plaid Cymru, the second largest party, have emerged as the power brokers and are trying to form a coalition partnership. Talks have broken down with Labour, with Labour being accused of arrogance and having a 'luke-warm approach' to working with the Welsh Nationalists. Meanwhile a tripartite pact may be in the pipeline,with Conservatives and Liberal Democrats linking up with Plaid Cymru to take power. The problem here is that some within Plaid Cymru see working with the Conservatives as an abandonment of their principles. The big question is how desperate for power are Plaid Cymru, and do they agree with Liberal Democrat spokesman Mike German who claims: "we are all focused on a single outcome, I hope we can hammer out the remaining issues both on what we will do together, and how we will achieve it, in order to put forward a plan to each of our parties to consider... Each of us is committed to giving Wales a fresh start". More importantly will supporters of any of the parties support a coalition, and will they feel just a little betrayed if parties they perceive as diametrically opposed suddenly find they can work together in the name of seizing a place in the cabinet?