perseus
Active member
It might have passed the rest of the world by, but there has been a general election in the UK resulting in a hung parliment, where not one party holds enough seats to command a majority. This is a problem when there are 3 or more strong parties in a country. At the moment these are horsetrading with each other to see if any can join up to form a majority.
To simplify, there is one right wing party (Conservative) with more seats and popular vote than any other and two centre-left (I would say centre) parties (Labour and Libberal Democrats) which together would command more votes and share of the votes than the right wing Conservative party alone. They could also collaborate with a few more minor centre left parties to command a majority. However what is happening at the momement is that the 3rd party the centre left Liberal Democrats has given the right wing Conservatives first chance for talks to form a government. I don't think this will come off, but it will be almost totally against the wishes of the Liberal Democrat voters if they do, who largely hate the Conservatives as do Labour.
It is suggested here that we can learn a lot from the consitution in New Zealand which have have procedures and conventions which come into effect in the event of no single party gaining a majority.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/election_2010/8665835.stm
This is the most interesting statement
To simplify, there is one right wing party (Conservative) with more seats and popular vote than any other and two centre-left (I would say centre) parties (Labour and Libberal Democrats) which together would command more votes and share of the votes than the right wing Conservative party alone. They could also collaborate with a few more minor centre left parties to command a majority. However what is happening at the momement is that the 3rd party the centre left Liberal Democrats has given the right wing Conservatives first chance for talks to form a government. I don't think this will come off, but it will be almost totally against the wishes of the Liberal Democrat voters if they do, who largely hate the Conservatives as do Labour.
It is suggested here that we can learn a lot from the consitution in New Zealand which have have procedures and conventions which come into effect in the event of no single party gaining a majority.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/election_2010/8665835.stm
This is the most interesting statement
It stresses that there should be a level playing field. That is to say, silver and bronze can band together to beat gold, and the party with the biggest number seats does not get to go first in attempting to form a government.