Hung Parliament

[anastaisia]

Good or bad thing?

Genuine question, not just a debate starter. It wasn't really something I was aware of until recently, although I had a vague awareness that with a slim minority you might need to court other parties for support.

See, I understand the argument that it could cause 'political gridlock' and make it difficult to force legislation through.

But I don't get why that is a bad thing? Because surely a democracy means that legislation is debated, amended and only passed when a majority of the MPs voted in to represent their constituents have agreed the legislation is appropriate. If a party needs to force through legislation then it is not government by a majority with the permission of the minority.

So what else makes a hung parliament a bad idea?

[longfingernails]

Depends on whether you think consensual or adversarial systems produce better outcomes.

It is easy to say "consensual" without thinking about it - but you often end up with a fudge.

Policies tend to be better tested before introduced into legislation under adversarial systems. Despite what people say, it is also much easier to interest people in politics under adversarial systems. In the 80s, when there were huge ideological differences between Tory and Labour, turnout was much higher because the choices were genuine.

The backroom dealmaking is part of the reason no-one ever cares about the European Parliament!

We also get even less correlation between manifestos and policy than we currently do.

Of course PMQs is a joke, but most of Parliament isn't like that at all and works very effectively. And PMQs, for all its idiocy, serves a purpose: it forces all of Whitehall to get its act together once a week in case a question is asked in the showpiece event.

The problem with Parliament is much more timetabling, scrutiny of the executive by the legislature, overpowerful whips, and the power of Select Committees - a lot of which has been fixed by the Wright reforms.

There are a couple of coalition-run countries which work relatively well (Germany being the obvious example) but most have awful political systems (for example, Italy and Israel).

At the end of the day, I don't want my politicians to be managers of big government departments. I want them to be leaders. An adversarial system favours that.

[Lycraphobe]

hung parliament = bad thing.

In hung parliaments no one can take any decision without prolonged horsetrading first and the 3rd party has enormous, disproportionate influence.

If we end up with a hung parliament, there will be no major decisions made and stuck with, it will all be short term politics, and there will be another general election as soon as the PM thinks he has a chance of winning one.

[Ninjacat]

A hung parliament means no single party has the majority so have to rely on collaboration with minor parties to get policies through. This means that the minority parties are left with the deciding vote. This could be BNP, Green etc..

The IMF drops the credit rating of any country with a hung parliament because the indecision is bad for the economy. This will see our payments on the national debt go up and the pound will drop.

It would be unlikely for any radical policies to get through a hung parliament and radical policies may be what we need for the economy.

A hung parliament might give MPs a kick up the backside though and prove to them just how out of touch with the people they are.