Lesley Riddoch: Parliament's lost boys must fly together for the good of us all

THE 150th anniversary of JM Barrie's birth was celebrated in his home town of Kirriemuir yesterday as Britain continued to hold its collective breath over the inconclusive result of the General Election – a perfect coincidence in many ways.

Barrie's greatest work was Peter Pan, the story of a boy who wouldn't grow up and lived in a fantasy world accessible only to those who shared his own blind faith in an ability to fly.

On the face of it, any one of the party leaders could currently audition for that leading role – the youthful but naive Nick Clegg, the reality-denying Gordon Brown, the confident but insubstantial David Cameron, or indeed, the faltering master of suspended disbelief, Alex Salmond.

Certainly the Lib Dem leader looked every inch the Lost Boy when he squared up to the cameras on Friday morning, visibly gutted by his party's failure to convert rave ratings into actual votes or seats. But within minutes Clegg created vital post-election momentum by decisively rejecting a pact with Labour as the first valid negotiating scenario. It was an impressive act of leadership that demonstrated maturity, not self pitying teenage escapism.

Gordon Brown also started Friday hesitantly, turning the deaf ear to public rejection that's clearly served him well during the last year of vicious, internal Labour Party dissent. But by the afternoon he had wisened up, loosened his grip on the reins of power and accepted a role of Caretaker and Second Choice with something resembling humility.

Brown is clearly a man who still believes he can fly – but accepts a political ash cloud has imposed limitations.

David Cameron faced real pressure. Although his party won most seats, it squandered a pre-campaign 14 per cent opinion poll lead and his own TV performances somehow split Britain, North versus South. On Friday, afternoon though, he responded to Nick Clegg with sufficient speed and policy detail to keep negotiations open and markets, supporters and voters tolerably buoyant.

As for Alex Salmond, events may indeed have contrived to turn the SNP's six seats into a "lucky hand". Not as lucky, though, as the 20 seats we have all heard the First Minister predicting for the past three months. The SNP's unprecedented breakthrough at Holyrood in 2007 should have transformed the political landscape. It didn't. In the heat of battle, the Scots electorate went home to Labour as surely as Wendy, John and Michael quit Neverland for the reassuring familiarity of life with Mother.

And yet, Alex Salmond and Nick Clegg were right. By loyally voting Labour, Scots across the country gathered behind the only party with probably no role in UK governance for the next five years. A vote for the SNP or Lib Dems in a winnable seat was actually the only vote unlikely to be wasted in the first negotiating scenario of this hung parliament. Instead the Scottish people opted to elect copious numbers of a party probably destined to become Her Majesty's Opposition.

Despite all the temptations to reconsider traditional allegiance in light of changing circumstances, Scots in 2010 delivered the same result as we did in 2005. The outcome couldn't be more different, though, because Scottish and English voters headed in diametrically opposed political directions – and Scotland backed the UK losers not the winners. Wha's like us? Absolutely no-one in the whole of the United Kingdom UK.

The Scottish Parliament, of course, may appear to act as a bulwark or buffer against the harshest consequences of Westminster policy. But since taxation, block grants and macro-economic policy are decided in Whitehall not St Andrews House, the illusion of protection may fade more quickly than Tinkerbell's light.

Scots may think we live in an (almost) Tory-free Neverland but in truth, Scotland's clout in the UK is now weaker than ever before because we couldn't bring ourselves to fall in with Tory UK voting trends, or vote Lib Dem tactically, or vote SNP to separate completely from politically "alien" neighbours. The Scots united to drive a large red wedge into the rising blue tide down south, handing power to the tactical voters of England. The Lib Dems now have a joker's card, powerful out of all proportion to the size of their puny parliamentary Commons cohort.

It's a tremendous irony that the Lib Dems – who want proportionality in politics – now have massively disproportionate power because of the rotten first past the post system. Almost as ironic as the Scottish Tories opposition to proportional voting at Holyrood even though it's the only reason they have MSPs at all.

Governing Britain is an imperfect science and now voters truly understand that.

There's no point flailing and flapping – insisting the current ambiguous situation is intolerable. We have lost our innocence and our naivety. Our political leaders must do the same.

Until now UK politicians have behaved like the parents in Outnumbered – marginalised and infantilised by their determination to pretend that unbending, inviolable rules can be applied like the Ten Commandments to each and every situation. Time and again the perfectly normal Outnumbered children expose the double standards, inconsistency, weakness and hypocrisy of the "Do as I say, not as I do" adult world.

The answer – in parenthood and in politics – is not just to demand adult compliance with those high standards. If political leaders want to encourage voter maturity, they must continue to admit home truths, not conceal them, show respect for opposing points of view and aim to contain difference constructively, not exploit it hysterically.

Actually, it's been a good start. So far Brown, Clegg, Cameron and Salmond have behaved like people using every ounce of their native intelligence to solve problems, not sleep-deprived parents functioning on autopilot.

They must keep it up – there is no completed script for them to find. No perfect scenario. No Neverland. But no prospect of minority dictatorship either. Above all, no timeto waste by acting like the Lost Boys.