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FEW people even in Conservative HQ thought that their party could possibly come out of Britain’s general election with a clearer mandate than it had going in. Governing parties tend to lose votes as gripes are laid at their door. And Britain has been through a grinding economic slump, which has crushed real wages. Yet the impossible seems to have happened.As went to press, with most of the votes counted, it seemed that the Conservative Party would win more seats than it had done in 2010. It will certainly be much the largest party. Labour fell even further behind, mostly because the Scottish National Party (SNP) bulldozed it north of the border. The Liberal Democrats, who entered government with the Tories in 2010, looked set to lose most of their MPs, an even worse outcome than had been expected.