UK election: Recruit your lobbyist now!

The Prime Minister's been hung by the British electorate and so has the Parliament. It's starting to look more like the US democratic model by the day - with no party reliably able to govern and presenting some of the most fertile commercial territory for lobbyists in the world.

A hung Parliament means ruling through arrangements ranging from formal coalition to loose collectives of common ideology and/or special interests. The problem is, of course, that the Government has no clear mandate to do anything. It leads to the gridlock for which Capitol Hill is renowned, and special interest groups running amok lobbying individuals and parties sympathetic to their cause or, worse still, owing them political favours.

For the next 18 months, or however long the new British Parliament lasts, there's probably going to be no faster-growing business than 'Government Relations' more commonly referred to as lobbying. So if you're running a PR agency with aspirations in the UK, I reckon you'd better start recruiting a lobbyist with strong political connections.

The only problem will be selecting one who has connections on the 'winning' side. In the end, that might be the one with strongest links to the Liberal-Democrats because, as I read it now, they're the party in the driving seat.