deal-making seen as a Good Thing

Yeah, I couldn't figure out how it was that the election was held in Great Britain and when it was over they still didn't know who was Prime Minister.

It was not a "hanging-chad" situation, like Florida in 2000 / bush / gore.
It's a different form of government. While the United States is a constitution-based federal republic, Great Britain is a "parliamentary democracy and constitutional monarchy."

That means they have the Queen, as a "figurehead" who is the head of state and the prime minister, who is the head of government.

Who is Prime Minister is not voted on directly by the people, like where I could go to the polls and vote for Clinton, Reagan, Bush, and Obama. Parliament decides after the people vote for party candidates and they see who has majority and by how much.

New York Times said in May 11 article ("Cameron Takes over as British Premier..."),
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Britain's Conservatives returned to power on Tuesday after 13 years in opposition [they say "in opposition" as we would put it, "in the minority"] when David Cameron, who has built his future on a claim to have recast the party of Margaret Thatcher for a new century as more compassionate and less class-bound, took over as prime minister from Labour's Gordon Brown.

Five days after a general election that left the Conservatives 20 seats short of a majority, Mr. Cameron, 43, cobbled together an awkward alliance with the Liberal Democrats to form the first coalition government since World War II.
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Isn't that interesting? It's like ours, but different. Based on democratic principles -- the people vote -- but then those IN GOVERNMENT pick the head of government. It would be like if we left it up to the representatives and senators to pick between Obama and McCain.

Watching the commercials of the three P.M. candidates I had this impression:
Cameron -- Conservative
Nick Clegg -- more Liberal
Gordon Brown -- (Labour Party) in the middle. -- Also, IN Office.

So the deal was made, according to numbers of parliament-members elected, between Cameron the most conservative and Clegg the most liberal, leaving out Brown who was in the middle. Also he'd just been in office -- voters wanted something different, they figured.

And Brown OK with this -- he resigned.
The Times said, "The transfer of power took place with the swiftness characteristic of Britain's parliamentary system. Less than 75 minutes after Mr. Brown fast-forwarded events by an earlier-than-expected resignation announcement at a lectern in Downing Street, Mr. Cameron stood at the same lectern as Britain's new leader. In between, both men had met with Queen Elizabeth II to make the transfer formal."

That's apparently how it works.

One more paragraph from that same Times article tells you more of how this goes:
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But some analysts said they expected Mr. Cameron to concentrate for a year on measures to stabilize the economy, husbanding ties with the Liberal Democrats as he goes. Aides to the new prime minister said Mr. Clegg had agreed to an austerity package that would be softened by Conservative concessions on issues at the heart of the Liberal Democrats' election campaign, including relief for the poorest taxpayers and abandonment of a Conservative pledge to eliminate inheritance taxes on any estate valued at less than $1.5 million. But after that, these analysts said, Mr. Cameron might be tempted to call a new election in a bid to win a majority.
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Call a new election, hmmhh?
We don't get to do that.
It's a system like ours, but different. Sort of -- going along, issue to issue, forming alliances and compromises to get each new thing done, or to meet each challenge.

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