Tuesday

Today (well, this evening) David Cameron becomes the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. After five days of talks and dealmaking, a coalition government is formed between the Conservative Party and the Liberal Democrats, triggering Gordon Brown's resignation as Prime Minister and David Cameron's almost instant arrival at number 10.

I flick the TV on when I get home from work just as a podium is being wheeled out of 10 Downing Street in front of the massed waiting media. At around 7.10, BBC1 is taken over by the BBC News Channel (shame, One Show fans) and the irrepressible David Dimbleby introduces Gordon Brown's resignation speech. The speech is genuine, heartfelt and I actually feel a lump in my throat when he turns to look at his wife in his inimitably awkward way and announces his intention to focus on being a husband and a father. Both husband and wife, unsurprisingly, look like they could do with a long lie down.

The rest of the evening's coverage is compelling - from watching Brown being driven the short distance to Buckingham Palace to tender his resignation to the Queen, then losing his police escorts on the way out and running straight into rush hour traffic, then Cameron arriving so quickly after and giving his first speech before being applauded into number 10. As Dimbleby says, it's an incredibly British transition of power - so understated, yet steeped in the history of this country's unwritten constitution. It's just how things are done. And watching it feels momentous.

Despite not getting the election result I hoped for (and voted for), we are certainly entering interesting times - and if we must have Cameron as PM then this is probably the best way to have him; tempered by the Lib Dems and unable to force through any nasty, divisive Tory ideas. I'm a bit concerned by talk of a 5-year fixed term and a 55% majority requirement for a vote of no confidence in the house (Labour and all the other parties combined couldn't achieve this against a minority Tory government, for example) but then maybe this won't happen.

Either way, for someone who was 12 when Blair and New Labour swept to power, it's an exciting thing to witness - Labour have been in power for as long as I can really remember what politics was (though I do remember doing John Major impressions to make my parents laugh when I was younger - precocious, Have I Got News For You-watching idiot that I was). It will, if nothing else, be interesting to support the opposition for few years.