London, England (CNN) -- The United Kingdom's Conservatives and Liberal Democrats plan to hold more talks after conducting several hours of negotiations aimed at forging a ruling coalition, leaders from both parties said Sunday.
"We've had good discussions. We intend to meet again over the next 24 hours," William Hague, a top adviser to Conservative leader David Cameron, told reporters after the talks broke Sunday evening. "We agree the central part of any agreement will be economic stability and a reduction of the budget deficit."
Thursday's vote left none of the three largest parties with a majority in a new Parliament, leaving the Conservatives and Prime Minister Gordon Brown's ruling Labour party scrambling to woo the Liberal Democrats into a new government. While the Conservatives led the balloting, support from the Liberal Democrats could give Brown a new lease on 10 Downing Street.
Danny Alexander, the leading Liberal Democrat in Sunday's talks with the Conservatives, said the talks covered a wide range of issues, including the economy, the environment and civil liberties. And Hague said one of the issues was political reform, the major demand of the Liberal Democrats, who ran third in Thursday's vote.
Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg met with Cameron on Saturday and had an "amicable discussion" with Brown on Sunday during a meeting at the Foreign Office, the Labour Party's press office reported. Clegg told reporters earlier Sunday that "everyone's trying to be constructive for the good of the country."
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"I'm very keen that the Liberal Democrats should play a constructive role, at a time of great economic uncertainty, to provide the good government that this country deserves," he said. And he addressed a Saturday protest by hundreds of protesters in London who were demonstrating in favor of proportional representation, a system supported by the Liberal Democrats.
"I never thought I'd see Londoners protesting for proportional representation," Clegg said. "Take it from me, reforming politics is one of the reasons I went into politics. I campaigned for a better, more open, more transparent new politics every single day of this general election campaign."
The Lib Dems say the current electoral system is unfair and leaves them under-represented in Parliament. They say the number of seats they have in the House of Commons fails to reflect the number of votes they won across the country, and they believe each party's allocation of seats should reflect the percentage of the national vote they get.
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The Conservatives got 36 percent of Thursday's vote, but received 306 of the 650 seats in Parliament. Under proportional representation, they would have gotten 234 seats. Labour is expected to have 258 seats with 29 percent of the vote. But the Liberal Democrats' 23 percent of the popular vote amounted to 57 seats -- little more than a third of the roughly 150 they would have won with proportional representation.
Brown and Cameron both offered to form an alliance with the Liberal Democrats on Friday. Clegg told reporters Saturday morning he remained focused on four priorities as he discussed the idea of a deal with another party -- tax reform, education reform, a "new approach" to the economy and "fundamental political reform."
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It's unclear how far Cameron will go on electoral reform. But he said in an e-mail to party members that he is willing to compromise on some issues.
"There are ... areas where I believe we in the Conservative Party can give ground," he wrote, "both in the national interest and in the interests of forging an open and trusting partnership. For example, we want to work with the Liberal Democrats to see how we can afford to reduce taxes on the lowest paid."
And Brown, who for now remains prime minister even though Labour lost its parliamentary majority, said Friday that he would be willing to negotiate with any party leader.
The Conservatives must forge some kind of deal with a smaller party in order to reach a voting majority in Parliament, and they are most likely to turn to the Liberal Democrats, analysts have said.
Parties smaller than the Liberal Democrats hold too few seats in Parliament for them to be realistic choices for the Conservatives, analysts have said.
The last time Britain had a hung parliament was in February 1974, when Edward Heath's Conservatives gained more votes but fewer seats in Parliament than Labour. Unable to form a deal with the Liberal Party, the Conservatives stayed on in a minority government but found themselves back at the polls by October.
