Timely advice on making minority government work
I went the grand offices of the Institute of Government, a new independent think tank, on Thursday evening for a fascinating seminar to launch a report entitled .
It's a hot political topic at the moment, with the very real prospect that no single party will get a majority of seats in the forthcoming general election.
We haven't had much minority government since World War II - just a few years in the mid-70s and at the very end of the Major government.
But I predict that over the next 50 years it could become more common than majority government - partly because of the growth of support for minor parties, but also because of the likely move to a more proportional election system.
The report's editor Robert Hazell of the Constitution Unit at UCL hopes the media will stop depicting minority government as inevitably "nasty, disputatious and short".
It's not just the media which assumes that however, but perhaps more important, the City of London, where the markets are already very anxious at the thought that no party might win outright in May.
But the report draws on experience from New Zealand, Canada, and Scotland to show that minority (or coalition) government can work effectively, and that the sky doesn't always fall in.
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I'm Michael Crick, and I'm Newsnight's political editor. My guiding rule is that in any story there's usually something the politicians would prefer the world not to know. My job is to find that out. Follow me on
Comment number 1.
At 4th Dec 2009, barriesingleton wrote:NOT JUST MINORITY GOVERNMENT - WESTMINSTER - MINORITY GOVERNMENT
Rigged election date, massive party war chests, cult of the leader, soulless party 'morality'; in fact all the old evils of party politics.
Westminster turkeys might flock differentially, but they all gobble to the Westminster tune, and will continue to do so until we
SPOIL PARTY GAMES.
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Comment number 2.
At 4th Dec 2009, barry white wrote:lets all vote by text and go the whole hog!
The parliament voted in by a strictly come dancing/x factor style.
They, the politicians , want to be seen a popular so why not?
A tv debate, maybe tasks to do, maybe writing?
A point I am sorry to bring up but at least mr Brown does write to families, and why does the Sun need to Know?
Back to mr murdock winning/supporting for its readers......
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Comment number 3.
At 17th Dec 2009, jonathanbw wrote:The really interesting point seems to me to be that if Labour has a very small majority, or forms a minority government, it will almost inevitably owe its position to its Welsh and Scottish MPs. It's quite conceivable that the Conservatives could win an absolute majority of parliamentary seats in England, but be unable to form a government because of Scots and Welsh support for Labour.
In the context of devolution, that will mean that English people are effectively governed by a Party that owes its position to non-English votes, and the people who cast those votes did so knowing that they would not be affected by many of the decisions that their chosen representatives took; the famous 'West Lothian question' would cease to be an academic nicety and instead highlight a fundamental breach of democratic principles.
What will be really fascinating is whether that will lead the Tories to abandon Unionism and recognise that devolution without English regional government is indefensible, and that the only fair outcome is for the constituent nations of the UK to go their separate ways!
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