Hung parliament.

[123everton]

Would a hung parliament be a bad thing?
I'd quite like to have Vince Cable as Chancellor Of The Exchequer.

[bobjugs12]

A hung parliment would be very good. I'll fetch the rope!

[123everton]

Good idea, give me some time to buy some shares in rope and lamp post manufacturers.

[Gromit]

Not necessarily a bad thing. The Scottish and Welsh Parliament are in effect hung, and they seem to function fine. Many Councils across England are in the position of being run with no one party in overall control and they too, seem to run as well as any other council.

But the constant bleat is it would be bad because the Markets wouldn't like it. It was the Markets that got us into this mess.

[jno]

other countries round the world, such as Germany and NZ, get by with coalitions because of their proportional voting systems. It usually means a period of horse-trading follows any election while party leaders try to get themselves together and the country functions on autopilot. But they end up as well-governed as other countries.

[jake-the-peg]

It has a bad history in this country.

One major reason is (partly) because we don't have fixed term parliaments there is a temptation for the major party to engineer another general election the moment they fancy their chances and kick their heels until that happens.

Assuming a small conservative majority therefore a coilition between Labour and the Liberal would be more likely to be stable.

But I agree if that Vince Cable is coming out very well at the moment - But that's not difficult because a sitting chancellor is always unpopular and Osbourne is easy meat

[Kromovaracun]

jno: the experience of coalitions in other countries isn't quite so positive. For instance, Germany's recent Grand Coalition largely caused the government to avoid any divisive issues (like most of the important ones) lest the government fall apart. That's not good for anyone.

Also it's not just 'a period of horse-trading' - I've heard it often means that at local/provincial level government effectively stops running for weeks because forming a government becomes a struggle.

---

I think we'd all like to see Cable as chancellor, but I really can't see it happening unless the LDs get a plurality of seats, which is unlikely. Otherwise I really can't imagine any of the potential 'partners' in coalition giving up an office as powerful as the treasury with any ease - particularly at a time when its actions could make or break the coming government. It's not impossible that they could get into one of the other big departments though.

[jno]

Kromovaracun, yes, and the NZers are thinking of ditching the system. But it's swings and roundabouts. It gives people a better chance of getting the representatives they want. The downside is if you have a divided nation, the government is divided too and it's harder to push legislation through. But that happens elsewhere too - eg Obama's health reforms. The converse is what you get here - a 'strong' government pushing through dozens of kneejerk laws every week because nobody can stop them, taking us off to wars nobody wants, and ignoring parliament.

In fact the situation here after the next election, if there's no clearcut majority, should be simpler: it's really just which party can get the LibDems on board. It shouldn't take up too much time (touch wood)

[R1Geezer]

even if it is hung there's no way that either of the main parties will give the chancellors job to a Libdem. They'll have to give a couple of cabinet posts but they won't be the top jobs.

[modeller]

The problem with a hung parliament means no one has a mandate to run the country and if the Liberals or any other minority party join in a coalition they are in effect keeping a party in power that does not have the mandate to run the country. As jno said NZ wants to drop PR as they can not get essential legislation passed. Unfortunately their minority parties are also stopping them from ditching the PR system.

[modeller]

I forgot to mention Germany does not have a pure PR system. Gemany is a federal state and half the seats are first passed the post and the other half is on a type of PR system in the Federal States. the Germans have two votes one for the Government and one for the Federal List. Which also means they can vote differently for the FS than they do for the Government. Many Germans don't like their system but like NZ they may be stuck with it.

[123everton]

Vince Cable would be an excellent Chancellor, he was the only politician to see the crash coming.

[rov1200]

Judging by recent events Angela Merkel would make a good chancellor. She has solved the Greek crisis and the Euro has remained stable. She believes in a strong Euro.

Now take British politicians, all they talk about is devalueing our currency to help our exports. Why is it that Germany has one if not the best export records on the planet and yet still keep the currency high? Either we are defeatists or completely unfit to handle our economy.

[123everton]

Germany's in the Euro zone, we're not.
America has a long history of pegging down the dollar to help exports, the argument now is the Chinese Yuan Remnibi is too low and is giving China an unfair competitive advantage, there are also rumblings about protectionist trading policies in China and retaliatory measures being taken in the U.S.
This would be financial suicide, this would be an example of learning nothing from history, such an event would bring about a 1930s style depression.
America's stuck between a rock and a hard place as China's there banker and China's threatening American primacy economically, geo politically and in the quest for oil, how much longer can they allow it to go on unchallenged?
It's all very well and good for George Soros and the U.S banks to put runs on Greek bonds (the pound'll be next) it doesn't alter the fact that China's taking over from America this century.
And that maybe we'd be better off in the Euro, especially Russia's new economic policy of if pan Rubelism takes off.