Tag: hung parliament

Look, will you please just vote?

everyvotecounts

I’m not sure I completely buy the “there’s no need to be afraid of a hung parliament” schtick that’s been going around since Cleggmania first hit.  I don’t believe our politicians are grown-up enough to act in the nation’s interest and come together in the kind of coalition people seem to have in mind when they talk about it (interesting how “hung-parliament” elides neatly into “coalition government” in so many articles about the subject).  I’m  pessimistic enough to fear squabbling, back room deals and horse-trading on an epic scale and a re-run of the ’70s when sick MPs were carried through the lobbies on stretchers to keep the government of the day in business.  But even that is better than what we have now.   I’ve  never seen a better argument for political reform than this –  tactical voting guidance for how to vote if you’re in a Lib/Con or Con/Lab marginal,  a Lab or Lib seat with a very small majority, a new constituency created by boundary changes or one of the oddities where minority parties have a shout.  I’m lucky that my personal preference and the tactical necessity in this constituency point the same way so I can vote for what I want with a clear conscience.   But if a hung parliament is the way to get political reform so that we never have to do this again, then bring it on.  And, please vote.

Voting for a hung parliament

I find myself  praying nightly for a hung parliament. Partly because I  want to see some long overdue political reform, but mainly, I have to confess, out of  morbid curiosity to see what happens when the old system finally implodes.

On a purely personal level it will probably mean another election soon (the Tories are already tapping up their donors, apparently).  As purdah has stopped much of the work I’ve been doing in its tracks and put a serious dent in my cash flow, that won’t be good for business. (Although I suppose no one within touching distance of the public sector will be able to afford to do anything at all soon, so I’ll be forced to diversify either way!)

For once I wish I was back inside a Department just to see this unfolding from the inside.  The one general election campaign fought  when I was working in Whitehall felt like a foregone conclusion.  Lip service was paid to the possibility that things might change, but no-one really believed that it would.   I remember writing lots of pointless briefing on the state of policy for new Ministers who I knew wouldn’t be walking through the door, and doing lots of compare-and-contrast of party manifestos to prepare colleagues for change that we knew wasn’t going to happen.  It must feel very different in there now.  For fellow obsessives, here’s the BBC’s take on what happens in a hung parliament and what Gus O’Donnell has said about  the roles civil servants might play.