Factbox: British newspapers comment on hung parliament

(Reuters) - Britain's parliamentary election resulted in no one party winning an overall majority, but with the main opposition Conservatives securing the most seats.

Below are editorial comments from British newspapers on Saturday.

FINANCIAL TIMES

In an eerie display of collective intuition, the individual choices of millions of voters contrived to align perfectly the parliamentary arithmetic with the angry ambivalence of the national mood. Mr. Cameron had done enough to secure the keys of 10 Downing Street, the voters judged, but not enough to be granted a free hand.

TELEGRAPH

As the prospect of days if not weeks, of uncertainty, of the lack of a government, dawned on investors they responded in the only way they knew and dumped anything with a UK hallmark. These were not Black-Wednesday-style collapses in sterling and gilt prices, but they were enough to send a potent reminder to policymakers: there is no patience for horse-trading in the face of the biggest budget deficit in modern history.

TIMES

Nothing will tip the electorate more finally into the Tory party's lap than the spectacle of a prime minister having to have his fingers prised from the doorframe of 10 Downing Street.

GUARDIAN

This weekend, Labour and the Liberal Democrats should strike a fixed-term deal to secure the economic recovery, assure the markets about key spending plans and hold an early referendum on electoral reform, with a general election on the new system to follow. The 2010 general election was a vote against the old politics. The Liberal Democrats and Labour must now seize the hour and finish the job."

INDEPENDENT

However this vacuum becomes filled in the short term, it is a statement of the obvious that in the longer term only a written constitution will do. With those pictures of sub-third world polling station incompetence beaming across the globe, with the planet gazing upon our paralysis as the Greek contagion spreads in our direction, the humiliation can be tolerated no longer.

MIRROR

The Tories won -- just. Spinning it any other way is an insult to democracy. Not to mention our intelligence. The Tories had two million more votes than Labour. That is the reality and the sooner we start living with it, the better.

And if Labour and the Lib Dems contrive to keep David Cameron out of Downing Street, then the next time we have a general election then I have the feeling that the British people will bury them both.

Daily Mail Clegg must be careful not to overplay his hand. If he props up a bankrupt, discredited Labour government rejected by the British people, simply to secure a self-interested deal on electoral reform, he won't be forgiven.

THE SUN

What Britain sorely needs is a decisive reaction to show the world we are serious about balancing the books and cutting our 900 billion pounds debt mountain. Instead, against the backdrop of a global financial crisis, we have a weekend of politicians locked in rooms trying to thrash out who is moving into 10 Downing Street.