End of two-party dominance in U.K.?

[FarCenter]

In Britain, the idea of a hung parliament is a bit of a novelty. In its parliamentary history, there have been only a few occasions when one of the two main parties has been forced to turn to the smaller third party for support.

Is Britain’s famous two-party system, which has served the country so well but also made British politics somewhat dull and predictable, about to be shaken up ushering in an era of Indian-style coalition governments at Westminster?

Until recently, if anyone had suggested this they would have been dismissed as fantasists. For so dominant was the Tories’ lead in opinion polls that they were seen as dead certain to win the coming general election comfortably. The conventional wisdom was that Labour had already “lost” it and the elections would be simply a formality with voters going through the motions of performing its “last rites.” And the Liberal Democrats, the third party, were dismissed as a bit of a “nuisance.”

But since then, polls have tightened and for the first time Labour believes that it may yet be in with a chance. While, short of a miracle, it still looks impossible for Labour to win an outright majority hopes have been raised that it might be able to gain enough seats to spoil the party for the Tories. The talk, increasingly, is of a “hung” parliament with neither of the two main parties winning a majority and the Lib. Dems — hitherto derided as irrelevant — emerging as kingmakers.

<SNIP>http://beta.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/article95232.ece?homepage=true

[muriel_volestrangler]

1. It's possible; it's not that long since it last happened

In February 1974, neither Labour nor the Tories got a majority; after a few days of the Tories trying and failing to persuade the Liberals (forerunners of the Lib Dems) to join them, Labour became a minority government, and after a few months of increased popularity, they called another election, they got a very small overall majority. After a few by-elections, that disappeared too, and they had a 'Lib-Lab' pact in which the Liberals generally supported Labour for some time. Eventually that fell apart, and Labour lost a vote of confidence (only a few months before they'd have had to call an election anyway) in 1979. And right at the end of John Major's term up to 1997, the Tories were a theoretical minority government, though they could usually get votes from like-kinded right-wingers from Northern Ireland to win any vote.

If people want to read more, I reccomend this blog: http://hungparliament2010.blogspot.com/ which looks into all the possibilities. You can also read fivethirtyeight's take on it: http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2010/01/hung-parliament-from-gallows-perhaps.html

Notice there are a few other parties to take into account - the various Northern Ireland parties (note that Sinn Fein never take their seats in parliament, because it involves an oath or affirmation of loyalty to the Queen and her successors, which they won't take; so the seats they win should be subtracted from the total votes that can be cast in a parliamentary vote), the Scottish and Welsh nationalist parties, one or two independents with local popularity for various reasons, and one seat that the Green Party has a genuine chance of winning. So it won't necessarily be the Lib Dems involved in coalitions (though since Labour and the Scotttish/Welsh nationalists are the biggest parties in those nations, it's hard to see them working formally together at Westminster).

[leftstreet]

2. Thanks for posting those links

Looks interesting!