Do our political leaders think about the reality of the difficulties we face as they haggle over the results of the election?

The policies of Gordon Brown as trumpeted by Blair/Mandelson/Miliband/Polly for more than a decade have been ruinous beyond any calculation.

The very fact that senior Lib Dems are not bent on wiping out the Labour Party completely almost disqualifies them from being taken seriously. Such are the siren blandishments of being lured away from liberalism into the collectivist ‘progressive’ camp.

I agree with Iain Dale. There is nothing else to discuss, Lib Dems. Grow up. Take responsibility. Decide.

Or get your vain little party over and done with, splitting once more into Liberal and Socialist factions, and let the Liberals get on with joining the Conservatives to put the UK back on course.

I have a notorious but trustworthy Chinese Alarm Clock handy in case David Cameron wants to set a very early deadline.

While the clock starts ticking and the Lib Dems break out in a clammy sweat, everyone else should go and shed nervous tears over Robert Samuelson on the Welfare State’s death spiral:

What we’re seeing in Greece is the death spiral of the welfare state… Aging populations have been promised huge health and retirement benefits, which countries haven’t fully covered with taxes. The reckoning has arrived in Greece, but it awaits most wealthy societies

The welfare state’s death spiral is this: Almost anything governments might do with their budgets threatens to make matters worse by slowing the economy or triggering a recession.

By allowing deficits to balloon, they risk a financial crisis as investors one day — no one knows when — doubt governments’ ability to service their debts and, as with Greece, refuse to lend except at exorbitant rates. Cutting welfare benefits or raising taxes all would, at least temporarily, weaken the economy. Perversely, that would make paying the remaining benefits harder.

Greece illustrates the bind. To gain loans from other European countries and the International Monetary Fund, it embraced budget austerity. Average pension benefits will be cut 11 percent; wages for government workers will be cut 14 percent; the basic rate for the value added tax will rise from 21 percent to 23 percent.

These measures will plunge Greece into a deep recession. In 2009, unemployment was about 9 percent; some economists expect it to peak near 19 percent.

If only a few countries faced these problems, the solution would be easy. Unlucky countries would trim budgets and resume growth by exporting to healthier nations.

But developed countries represent about half the world economy; most have overcommitted welfare states. They might defuse the dangers by gradually trimming future benefits in a way that reassured financial markets. In practice, they haven’t done that; indeed, President Obama’s health program expands benefits.

What happens if all these countries are thrust into Greece’s situation? One answer — another worldwide economic collapse — explains why dawdling is so risky.

[Presses button on alarm clock. Silence. Broken only by loud ticking…]