A hung parliment

[Mutley]

Whoever ends up as PM (and why can't the party with the most seats be PM in a coalition?)

Would this mean that it'd be more likely an MP would vote as per his/her beliefs/constituency desires, or would they be more likely to follow the party whip?

[randlemarcus]

Realistically, it means that they will follow the whip to the letter, but that the desires of the whip will have been formed in smokey little back rooms, in a simulacrum of consensus politics.

[HereBeMonsters]

I don't get this "don't have enough to form a majority" thing. Surely if they have one more MP than the other lot, then that's a majority?

[Einion Yrth]

HereBeMonsters said:

I don't get this "don't have enough to form a majority" thing. Surely if they have one more MP than the other lot, then that's a majority?

They have to have one more vote than both of the other lots plus others.

[V8mate]

HereBeMonsters said:

I don't get this "don't have enough to form a majority" thing. Surely if they have one more MP than the other lot, then that's a majority?

Not when you add all the various 'other lots' together.

[eliot]

HereBeMonsters said:

I don't get this "don't have enough to form a majority" thing. Surely if they have one more MP than the other lot, then that's a majority?

They need more than labour and libs/others added together.

[Fittster]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

A hung parliament would find it easier to deal with the debt as no one party will be the nasty party cutting spending. Shared responsibility means no one is solely to blame.

[Don]

Fittster said:

anonymous said:

[redacted]

A hung parliament would find it easier to deal with the debt as no one party will be the nasty party cutting spending. Shared responsibility means no one is solely to blame.

Nope. This is so, so wrong and you are going to get the chance to see my words proved right by the looks of things. A hung Parliament will consist of near constant horse-trading and bickering persuading minority parties to vote with some particular block or other to get legislation through. The result will range from compromises that do not help the country as a whole right the way to outright bribes.

For example: Call Me Dave might want the DUP to vote with him to get something through. Right - that's £200 million in extra public sector spending in NI then, please, or we won't do it...

...how is that fair? It plain isn't. And it IS what will happen, believe me.

A hung parliament will mean the voices of nutters will suddenly, and for no valid reason, carry some weight.

[thinfourth2]

Fittster said:

anonymous said:

[redacted]

A hung parliament would find it easier to deal with the debt as no one party will be the nasty party cutting spending. Shared responsibility means no one is solely to blame.

Interesting idea

A Con+Lab coalition with winky as PM and the tories make HUGE cuts and winky getting the blame

[zcacogp]

And, on the world stage, the UK will look as if it isn't effectively governed. We have already seen the pound drop like a stone and gilt rates go up; it will get worse from here on in.

As has been said elsewhere, your house will be worth a LOT less, your savings (if in £) will look puny if you want to take a holiday abroad, everything will go up steeply in price and the cost of a litre of petrol will have you reaching for the 'phone to your mortgage company, asking how much they can extend by ...

It's a bad outlook folks.


Oli.

[Fittster]

Don said:

Fittster said:

anonymous said:

[redacted]

A hung parliament would find it easier to deal with the debt as no one party will be the nasty party cutting spending. Shared responsibility means no one is solely to blame.

Nope. This is so, so wrong and you are going to get the chance to see my words proved right by the looks of things. A hung Parliament will consist of near constant horse-trading and bickering persuading minority parties to vote with some particular block or other to get legislation through. The result will range from compromises that do not help the country as a whole right the way to outright bribes.

For example: Call Me Dave might want the DUP to vote with him to get something through. Right - that's £200 million in extra public sector spending in NI then, please, or we won't do it...

...how is that fair? It plain isn't. And it IS what will happen, believe me.

A hung parliament will mean the voices of nutters will suddenly, and for no valid reason, carry some weight.

There were only two hung parliaments in the 20th century. In 1929, Ramsay MacDonald had 27 more seats than the Tories, and led a minority administration fairly successfully for two years before the Labour party split over an austerity budget.

So today's fears that a hung parliament will lead to instability, spook the financial markets and result in an early second election derive from the only other example, 1974. That year saw two elections in which the term 'hung parliament' was coined by The Economist.

Back then the parties were so close (the Tories won the popular vote, just, but won four fewer seats than Labour) and had so little common ground that a rematch was all but inevitable. The same isn't necessarily true this time round.

Why not?
Both The Guardian's Larry Elliott and the FT's Martin Wolf argue that fears of what a hung parliament might do to Britain's credit rating, gilts market and currency have been much exaggerated.

Recent research by the House of Commons library shows that, of the ten largest fiscal tightenings in OECD countries since 1970, seven of them were pushed through by coalition or minority governments, all of them in Europe.

Any hint that tough decisions were being bottled – as per Harold Wilson in 1974 – would lead to a sell-off in sterling assets. But equally, cross-party support for tough measures might actually make British assets more attractive.

source

[Fittster]

In the past 100 years, as Lombard Street Research points out in a soon-to-be-published paper Sharpening The Axe, which I will comment on in detail next week, the only time Britain has successfully cut spending has been under a coalition government.

Don't be fooled into thinking Mrs Thatcher did. All she achieved was to make it rise more slowly. State spending was almost as big a proportion of national income at the end of her term as at the beginning.

The only times it fell were in the Lloyd George-led Liberal-Conservative coalition of 1921-22, the Ramsay MacDonald-led National Government of 1931 and the Lib-Lab pact after the IMF's arrival in 1976

[Jasandjules]

It's a tad worrying - we have terrible debt and need to get on with fixing the f**k ups caused by the lying scum.

[Jonny671]

eliot said:

HereBeMonsters said:

I don't get this "don't have enough to form a majority" thing. Surely if they have one more MP than the other lot, then that's a majority?

They need more than labour and libs/others added together.

What a ridiculous voting system we have.

Tories have the most seats.. They win, simple?

[Mag1calTrev0r]

thinfourth2 said:

Fittster said:

anonymous said:

[redacted]

A hung parliament would find it easier to deal with the debt as no one party will be the nasty party cutting spending. Shared responsibility means no one is solely to blame.

Interesting idea

A Con+Lab coalition with winky as PM and the tories make HUGE cuts and winky getting the blame

I said the same to my Mrs last night. If there was a Con/Lab coalition then you would have both parties working together to sort the financial mess.
Ok, it might not be that simple ...

[Yeast Lord]

Don't worry the BBC is saying as long as we have a stable government that keeps interest rates low and house prices ever rising, everything will be fine lol.

[HereBeMonsters]

Jonny671 said:

eliot said:

HereBeMonsters said:

I don't get this "don't have enough to form a majority" thing. Surely if they have one more MP than the other lot, then that's a majority?

They need more than labour and libs/others added together.

What a ridiculous voting system we have.

Tories have the most seats.. They win, simple?

Exactly. And what if your local Tory is a tt, but you want Cameron in?

[don4l]

I wish that I shared Fittster's optimism, but I don't.

Sterling is at $1.46. It was $1.52 a week ago. GILT yields are on the up. The FTSE has opened with a loss of more than 1%.

Did anyone see the scenes in Athens last night? It reminded me of the last time that we were bankrupt.


Don
--

[Manks]

I hope I am wrong but I suspect that Mr Brown will shamelessly continue to cling to power like an octopus on a glass coffee table.

Manks

[Scott330ci]

Sky news say liblab coalition if labour get rid of winky