Politics is a strange business. It is a world of smoke and mirrors, sleight of hand, behind-closed-doors deals, populated by power brokers, kingmakers and those always willing to scratch your back if you'll reciprocate.

It is a realm stranger than anything you could ever find in fiction.

So perhaps we should not be too surprised to find the leader of the party that trailed in third in Britain's May 6 general election now deputy prime minister of the country.

Nick Clegg's Liberal Democrats finished 200 seats behind second-placed Labour and almost 250 behind the Conservatives. But through some astute back-scratching with Conservative Party leader David Cameron, Clegg is now just a heartbeat away from being the most powerful man in the country!