UK Elections (2): hung parliaments

While on the subject of the LibDems I think a word has to be said about the possibility of a hung parliament. Many of the opinion polls seem to suggest this as a serious possibility, with the LibDems holding the balance of power, although my own belief is that the Conservatives will win an outright majority, as long as Mr Cameron looks as if he wants to win it (which is not how he has behaved all this year).

There is an instinctive opposition to a hung parliament in Britain but there seems to be an increasing number of voices to the effect that it wouldn’t be such a bad thing at all. Not least among these is the distinguished economist Samuel Brittan, who has observed that many European governments have coalitions and the two which don’t, Greece and the UK, are in the worst economic shape.

The case against hung parliaments, pacts and coalitions is not an economic but a democratic one. You vote for one party because it is promising X but promising not to change Y. They need another party to form a government, and that party agrees to lend its support as long as your party drops its passion for X and goes some way towards supporting change to Y. You might have thought that British politicians are a sufficiently principled lot that they wouldn’t agree to such betrayal of the electorate just to cling to power. You might have thought that.

So in the end the voters get a package that nobody voted for. And this, I have to say, is nothing other than a betrayal of democracy. It happens with hung parliaments and it happens more often than not with proportional representation. Secret, dirty little deals done after you have voted.

Let’s hope we never see it again.