The 2010 election

It is obvious that no one party has total control of the House of Commons, despite a very large swing to the Conservatives and a loss for Labour of almost 100 seats. At least one commentator has called this almost as bad as the loss in the 1983 election.

Negotiations are on-going between the three main parties as to what the next step is; plenty of analysis and guess-work is available in most media, including the blogs listed on the left hand side of your screen. Minette Marrin in today's Sunday Times, and Andrew Sullivan both mention the extraordinary fact that the Conservative party would have won the election if Scotland's results were excluded, and that there is only one Tory MP north of the border. The analysis seems to suggest that a Tory administration which cut government spending severely would play into the hands of the SNP who could claim (quite legitimately) that the government had no mandate to perform these cuts north of the border. This would call into question the Union itself.

All of which is useful stuff for G&P students answering any question about why the British electoral system can be criticised. I would like to highlight the difference in result between the 2005 election where Labour won a clear majority with 66 seats on the basis of 35.3% of the vote, and the result of the 2010 election where the Conservatives won more of the vote with 36.1% but didn't win an overall majority with 307 seats.

The poor showing of the Lib Dems on 62 seats was a bit of a shock, but may reflect the fact that in the FPTP system we don't vote for the party leader but for members of their party to represent us; we make judgements about who to support based on a whole heap of local issues, rather than necessarily the national picture.

A key reason for having the FPTP system is that it tends to produce strong government, except that in this case it hasn't. Analysis from the BBC's Robert Peston suggests that coalition government would only happen in the event of a further financial crisis since there are significant obstacles to a stable government being created based on the voting done on May 6th, and more importantly further obstacles which may prevent government making the massive cuts necessary. As pointed out by him and Stephanie Flanders elsewhere there is currently little evidence that any party has got a credible plan to cut the deficit. Should the stock markets open on Monday thinking just that there will be severe problems in the city in terms of stock prices and the like.

Since economic policy is outside the scope of this blog and of the G&P course, I'll merely call attention to the events in Greece, and the potentially dire consequences to the UK, and the EU if a solution is not found. The Economist magazine's "Intelligence Unit" has suggested that a second election later this year is likely.

By way of contrast to the seriousness of the above, The Sun's front page on Saturday was very clever and funny.