Heres what a hung Parliament will do

[lincstash]

WE have been there before, with both Wilson and Heath.

No one can rule with a minority government. Its an abortion. Nothing radical, nothing decisive can get passed into law. Nothing gets decided, no real advancement can be made, everything is fudge and a compromise.

IF we get a hung parliament, Labour will retain power (as the incumbent governments right to), completely unable to do anything decisive about the economy, and eventually, after being defeated in multiple votes government will collapse with a year, and another election will ensue. You only need a major bill such as the Finance Bill to get destroyed by the opposition, and thats thats.

Meanwhile, the militant left wing unions (UNITE and GMB) will set about ejecting Labours Blairites and Brownites from the party , (as they have promised they can and will), and whilst labour struggles along in the minority in westminster, civil war will rip the party apart as the unions seize control and force the party back to socialist far left. Policy making and decision making will cease within the government

Meanwhile, the worlds financial markets will see the political chaos, pull the plug on our credit rating and that will be it, game set an match. The economy will collapse, and the World Bank will be forced to step in, as it did with the Wilson Government. We will then be a prime target for the EU vultures to take further control of us.

THis is not speculation, this is based on previous times in our history when we have been in this position. We are the 5th largest economy because we always have had majority governments. If you want examples of what happens to countries with minority rules, look at places like Italy, Argentina, Brazil. 3rd rate counties because they cant be ruled decisively.

Oh yes, I'd rather have a Tory government than a hung parliament and that's saying something!

Yep.

Which is the main reason why I won't be voting Lib Dem.

The fifth largest economy in the world is Germany (UK is the seventh). Oh. Oh, look at that. Germany has had coalition governments for most of the last 50 years. As have many countries in Europe that are doing just fine, thank you.

Scaremongering nonsense IMO. Tories are terrified of snatching defeat from the jaws of victoy and so will spend the next three weeks talking rubbish about coalition governments.

Oh and the fourth-biggest economy in the world is China, so I look forward to the posts advocating a Stalinist one-party police state in the interests of market stability.

But policywonk, if it works in Germany, it works in Germany. That doesn't mean it will work here. It never has in the past, has it?

I really want to see the Green agenda in government. For that reason, I want PR. I'm thinking hung parliament may be best option for that.

(I'd love to hear your views on that, Policywonk.)

My worry about a hung parliament is that it would lead to another GE soon, and that would be bad for the less well-funded parties.

Again, I'd love to hear other people's views on that.

"bad for the well-funded parties"

D'oh.

I think I mean it would be grim for the less well-funded parties.

And surely if Labour get defeated there is going to be "civil war"?

Japan's the third-largest economy and it's got a long history of coalition governments.

Moreover, given that there is precious little substantial difference between the major UK parties, a coalition government may well work. After all, didn't David Cameron make a point of agreeing with some/many of Gordon Brown's policies? Since when is compromise a bad thing?

That being said I truely believe that even if a coalition government ends up being largely paralysed then that wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing. We've had decades of poorly thought-out legislation (from both the conservative and labour governments) that are very distant from both common sense and useful prioritisation. Anything that slows the volumes of crap laws being pumped out is likely to be A Good Thing.

You're right, Policywonk, Germany has had a number of coalition governments over the last fifty years - however our current situation is very different to theirs.

Right now we're on the verge of bankruptcy with credit rating agencies waiting to review our credit status after the general election. If they think that a hung parliament won't get our deficit down fast enough they'll downgrade our credit rating. They did it to Portugal a couple of weeks ago and their deficit is actually smaller than ours. Sorry but I simply don't agree with you that the tories are simply "scaremongering" us into voting for them - I'm fully able to comprehend what would happen if our credit status was downgraded.

Oh, hello again lincstash.

From your point of view, is it a good thing that Labour has had the power to 'rule decisively' for 13 years?

Or would it have been better if they had had to negotiate and adjust their policies with the input of, ooh, say, the only party who actually took any notice of the impending sub-prime crisis?

it's about time we came into the real political world and looked to some sort of PR. The Tories definitely don't want it. Labour has it on it's manifesto to deliver in a first term. If we have a hung parliament - no bad thing at the moment, it'll bring the day forward when politics in this country is fairer as it is in many other places in the world and whatever the problems with PR it means that your vote counts, in a first-past-the post system it certainly doesn't count for many people in this country.
Let's revitalise politics, let's move towards PR. The Tories are just about wetting themselves worrying that if we get a hung parliemtn and PR ensues, they'll never have full power again. Who wants to go back to 18 years of Thatcher-type government. absolute devastation for the majority of the people in this country. She said she only had to keep 43% of the people happy to stay in powerand she didn't even do that

Linctash wrote
"Meanwhile, the worlds financial markets will see the political chaos, pull the plug on our credit rating and that will be it, game set an match. The economy will collapse, and the World Bank will be forced to step in, as it did with the Wilson Government. We will then be a prime target for the EU vultures to take further control of us."

From the Times today

?If no single party secures outright victory next month, that would be bad news for sterling. That is because there may not be an immediate chance for a new government to tackle the record budget deficit. Negotiations would take place, creating uncertainty in the markets. And if there?s one thing markets hate, it is uncertainty.? Clegg victory hits pound on hung parliament fears
The currency market speculators are waiting...

So, naughty people, you just jolly well go and vote for The Right Party otherwise market forces will come over and flay the corpse of what's left of our economy.

Yay for capitalism!

The OP is talking much sense here.

A few questions:

1. What does PR stand for in this context please?

2. How can any current 'minority' party have a chance of coming to power without a term or two of hung parliament? Is it a choice of Labour or (In your opinion) crappy parliament?

3. Can someone explain to me why, if the Lib Dems, for example, get the most votes, they wouldn't have the most members of parliament?

"...look at places like Italy, Argentina, Brazil. 3rd rate counties" [sic]

Nice .

Lincstash is a fairly new poster who never seems to come back and argue (his) her case.

They also have views, for want of a better word...

v v strange.

Our financial reputation arond the world is bad enough.The state of the economy is far worse than labour have let on and we are little bettr than greece!This fantasy recovery that has been mooted about is simply a pre election fantasy.A hung parliamnet will make us look even more unstable internationally and as someone else said the £ could collapse.As it is post election we ar elikely to see the real recession kick in whoever gets elected as it never recovered merely paused due to a set of unprecedented labour policies of unrealistic IRs and QE.

Not sure international comparisons help the argument against coalition governments. As Policy and others have stated there are some very strong economies run by coalition governments and it's interesting to note that one other European country with a strong majority government is Greece...

A hung parliament might reduce the amount of legislation affecting education, health and police etc. And you know what? Such a period of stability and reflection would be great for those sectors. They are drowning under reforms that both the main Parties have bulldozed through for decades. No one reform is ever given time to bed down before a completely new approach is announced. Talk to most teachers, policemen or doctors and they will beg to be left alone for a while.

eleanorrigby- re: your quote from the times about the danger of a hung parliament: the times is a murdoch paper, and murdoch is committed to the tory cause.

you would read something very different in the guardian. it doesn't mean either is right, but there is no such thing as an objective source of news in this election.

I have always been very pro PR but not in a country where the economy is so unstable atm