Just what's so bad about a hung parliament?

[Blouman Empire]

As for the national service thing guys... No. Simply no. No way on earth would we allow such a thing to happen. People forget, with our warped government, that Britain is in fact a rather liberal nation. Yes we could be considered rather socially conservative with our uptight tea drinking common sense nature but the fundamental roots of every Brit comes down to having your own home as your castle and having the state keeps it's nose out of your private life. Generally speaking the government could probably get away with lining every street and shopping centre with security cameras and we simply wouldn't give a dam beyond getting annoyed, provided they keep out of our house we are pretty content. Not to mention the fact that not other nation on earth spawns and embraces eccentrics like Britain.

Whenever someone mentions implementing national service for kids I have a Bioshock flashback.

"People fooled themselves into believing that they were the masters of the system, that their homes were their castles. But the State said NO! Your child will be sent to WAR to DIE for the State!"

Bah... talk about violating the most basic tenant of human liberty... I turned out fine thank you very god dam much and I went to a school so crap that it was closed down the year after I left, if I'd been sent to the army rather than doing my A Levels I swear I would have committed suicide. Conformity depresses me (clinically) and a lack of stimulus also depresses me.

You do realise its totally optional and voluntary, right?

And completely unrelated to the military.

Yes 3rd FF would never have been sent to the military and not find themselves in war zones.

[Blouman Empire]

The rest of you post relies heavily on the idea that the service is compulsory. Is that what's being proposed ?

Yes, keep up.

No it isn't, I fear your sig might be wrong.

[Blouman Empire]

The rest of you post relies heavily on the idea that the service is compulsory. Is that what's being proposed ?

Yes, keep up.

Is that's being proposed by David Cameron?

I think so, but not 100% sure.

It is however being proposed by Gordon Brown.

Compulsory civil service for 16 year olds, who haven't got in trouble ? If true, this is terrible! Source please.

Six weeks of slavery you say! Outrageous! What these young people need is guns, to resist government oppression by shooting the television !

There are sources in the thread. All say it is voluntary.

[Dinner Theatre Actors]

Anyone do a "well hung" joke yet?

[My 3rd Floor Flat]

The rest of you post relies heavily on the idea that the service is compulsory. Is that what's being proposed ?

Yes, keep up.

No it isn't, I fear your sig might be wrong.

http://www.thelondonpaper.com/thelondon ... ntary-work

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7995652.stm

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstop ... teers.html

I fear you owe me an apology Mr. Empire.

There are sources in the thread. All say it is voluntary.

I thought the first tenet on NS was that "just because I say so" is no more a valid reference than wikipedia is in a university paper.

[Blouman Empire]

The rest of you post relies heavily on the idea that the service is compulsory. Is that what's being proposed ?

Yes, keep up.

No it isn't, I fear your sig might be wrong.

http://www.thelondonpaper.com/thelondon ... ntary-work

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7995652.stm

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstop ... teers.html

I fear you owe me an apology Mr. Empire.

There are sources in the thread. All say it is voluntary.

I thought the first tenet on NS was that "just because I say so" is no more a valid reference than wikipedia is in a university paper.

That's not fair I was under the impression that we were talking about Mr. Camerons proposal.

We had been talking about that in the thread before you had posted in.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6980830.stm

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2007 ... tionpolicy

So no good Sir, I will not apologise, I will, however, concede that we had our communication lines crossed.

What I want to know is did Brown release this plan before or after Cameron did?

[My 3rd Floor Flat]

That's not fair I was under the impression that we were talking about Mr. Camerons proposal.

We had been talking about that in the thread before you had posted in.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6980830.stm

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2007 ... tionpolicy

So no good Sir, I will not apologise, I will, however, concede that we had our communication lines crossed.

What I want to know is did Brown release this plan before or after Cameron did?

Given that I made it quite clear in the first line of my second post consisting of a sizeable rant on the matter that I was expressing my horror at both the Labour and Conservatives were proposing compulsory national service (I must apologise for that statement I have been proved incorrect, the Conservatives are indeed merely making it voluntary) I would have thought that it was abundantly clear I was addressing both parties... perhaps you should remember to read peoples psychotic ramblings more closely, you may miss something important.

And my communication line certainly wasn't croseed, you were just reading from the wrong telephone directory

Anyway, I jest, as for your last point I have to say that I do not know whom proposed it first.

[Blouman Empire]

Given that I made it quite clear in the first line of my second post consisting of a sizeable rant on the matter that I was expressing my horror at both the Labour and Conservatives were proposing compulsory national service (I must apologise for that statement I have been proved incorrect, the Conservatives are indeed merely making it voluntary) I would have thought that it was abundantly clear I was addressing both parties... perhaps you should remember to read peoples psychotic ramblings more closely, you may miss something important.

And my communication line certainly wasn't croseed, you were just reading from the wrong telephone directory

Anyway, I jest, as for your last point I have to say that I do not know whom proposed it first.

Actually I just read that second post of yours you did not mention either Labour or Conservative, you stated "as for the compulsory military service thing guys" since we had been talking about Cameron's proposal you can see why I assume it was a continuation of that discussion not a tangent on to Brown.

[My 3rd Floor Flat]

Actually I just read that second post of yours you did not mention either Labour or Conservative, you stated "as for the compulsory military service thing guys" since we had been talking about Cameron's proposal you can see why I assume it was a continuation of that discussion not a tangent on to Brown.

Really?

*Dissapears to flick through thread*

Good grief so you're right, I forgot I made that first one. I apologise, third post it is.

My point still stands though.

[Blouman Empire]

Actually I just read that second post of yours you did not mention either Labour or Conservative, you stated "as for the compulsory military service thing guys" since we had been talking about Cameron's proposal you can see why I assume it was a continuation of that discussion not a tangent on to Brown.

Really?

*Dissapears to flick through thread*

Good grief so you're right, I forgot I made that first one. I apologise, third post it is.

My point still stands though.

Well perhaps, though I did quote your second post.

Not only that the term "and" is incorrect which you have since acknowledged.

[The Archregimancy]

There might be a thread for this already, but I haven't seen it. My apologies if it was already there.
Anyway, everyone in the UK seems afraid of a hung parliament for some reason. Those that actually cite one say it's because it'll damage the economy or because there's no strong government in a hung parliament.

This is total nonsense. Others have addressed some of the specific arguments before, but let's summarise some main points, combined with a history lesson.

First of all, the example set by many of our northern European neighbours proves that there's nothing intrinsically wrong with no party getting a majority in the legislature. To argue otherwise would necessitate arguing that Germany and most of Scandinavia have been materially and economically hampered by the consistent post-war election of coalition governments in legislatures where no party holds a majority. Since Germany is the largest economy in Europe, and post-war Germany and Scandinavia are bywords for economic, social, and political stability, we can immediately discard this notion (see bottom of post for addressing the Weimar objection).

Another objection to hung parliaments is that they're an 'un-British' phenomenon. This is something I've addressed in a previous post in a different thread. I'm quoting from that post below, but with some light editing. In the spoiler, you'll find a list of every British general election result since the Great Reform Act of 1832. Hung parliaments are in bold italics, coalitions in non-hung parliaments are in italics. Some of my original commentary on that list is also included below.

1832 - Whig majority in popular vote and seats

1835 - Whig majority in popular vote and seats

1841 - Conservative majority in popular vote and seats

1847 - Hung Parliament. Whig majority in popular vote; Conservative plurality in popular vote; no party holds overall majority - but splits in Conservatives over free trade allow Whigs to continue in office.

1852 - Quickly develops into Hung Parliament & coalition. Whig majority in popular vote and initial Conservative majority in seats. But Conservative splits over Free trade soon lead to a Whig-Peelite Tory coalition

1857 - Technically a hung parliament, but realistically a Whig/Peelite majority in popular vote and seats as Peelites move more formally from Conservatives to close affiliation with Whigs

1859 - Technically a hung parliament, but Whig/Peelites/Radical coalition now coalesces as the 'Liberal Party', so can also be considered a Liberal majority in votes and seats.

1865 - Liberal majority in votes and seats

1868 - Liberal majority in votes and seats (Gladstone - hurrah!)

1874 - Conservative majority in seats; Liberal majority in votes.

1880 - Liberal majority in votes and seats

1885 - Hung parliament; Liberal plurality in votes and seats, but government dependent on Parnell's Irish Home Rule party.

1886 - Hung parliament; Conservatives win effective majority in votes and seats as Liberal Unionists split from Gladstone and back Tories, but without joining the latter in a formal coalition.

1892 - Hung parliament; Conservatives win plurality of votes and seats, but after losing a confidence vote, minority Liberal government is formed with support of Irish Home Rule party.

1895 - Conservative majority of votes and seats thanks to formal electoral alliance between the Tories and Liberal Unionists.

1900 - Conservative majority of votes and seats

1906 - Liberal majority of votes and seats

1910a - Hung parliament; Liberal plurality of seats, Conservative plurality of votes. Liberals govern with support from Irish nationalists.

1910b - Hung parliament; Liberal plurality of seats, Conservative plurality of votes. Liberals govern with support from Irish nationalists.

<elections suspended for WWI - Britain governed by a cross-party coalition from 1915>

1918 - Complicated, but a coalition government. The Conservatives win a plurality of votes and a majority of seats, but contest the election in coalition with Lloyd-George's 'coalition liberals'. This leads to a Liberal split and a 3-way split (between coalition Liberals, Asquith's Liberals, and Labour) for the left of centre vote. Liberal wartime leader Lloyd-George remains coalition Prime Minister despite the Conservative majority in the Commons.

1922 - Conservative majority in seats, but plurality of vote (Liberals are still split in half, but Labour now surpasses combined votes and seats of both Liberal factions).

1923 - Hung parliament; Conservative plurality in votes and seats, but Labour form their first government.

1924 - Conservative majority in seats and plurality in vote.

1929 - Hung Parliament; Labour plurality in seats, Conservative plurality in votes.

1931 - Conservative majority in votes and seats - this is the only election since the introduction of more or less universal suffrage (1918) to have returned a party with a majority of the vote. However, despite the Conservative majority, this is technically a coalition government, as small numbers of 'National Liberals' and 'National Labour' join the government to give it a cross-party gloss.

1934 - Conservative majority in seats and plurality in votes; from this stage the remaining 'National Liberal' and 'National Labour' MPs can be considered Tories in all but polite fiction.

<elections suspended for WWII - Britain governed by cross-party coalition from 1940>

1945 - Labour majority in seats and plurality in votes

1950 - Labour majority in seats and plurality in votes

1951 - Traditionally counted as a Conservative majority in seats and Labour plurality in votes. However, from 1951-1959, the Conservative governments would include a number (c.20) remnant National Liberals, some of whom served in the government. While by this date the National Liberals (who had more MPs than the Liberal Party at this point!) are almost always considered Conservatives in all but name, technically 1951 is a hung parliament resulting in a Conservative - National Liberal coalition.

1955 - Conservative majority in seats and plurality in vote

1959 - Conservative majority in seats and plurality in vote

1964 - Labour majority in seats and plurality in vote

1966 - Labour majority in seats and plurality in vote

1970 - Conservative majority in seats and plurality in vote

1974a - Hung parliament; Labour plurality in seats, Conservative plurality in vote

1974b - Initially Labour majority in seats and plurality in vote; however, by-election losses eventually lead to a Labour minority government propped up by Liberal support in the 'Lib-Lab' pact, which allows for the Liberals to be consulted on major legislation without forming an official coalition.

1979 - Conservative majority in seats and plurality in vote

1983 - Conservative majority in seats and plurality in vote

1987 - Conservative majority in seats and plurality in vote

1992 - Conservative majority in seats and plurality in vote

1997 - Labour majority in seats and plurality in vote

2001 - Labour majority in seats and plurality in vote

2005 - Labour majority in seats and plurality in vote - but no party wins more than 36% of the vote.

The upshot of which is that Britain has enjoyed unusually stable governments since the 1945 election, with the exception of the blip of 1974a and the end of the period after 1974b (best not to get too fussy about 1951), but that before 1945 hung parliaments were a fairly common feature of the British parliamentary system.

Would you care to claim that Britain was poorly governed from 1847-1859, 1885-1895, and 1910-1931? The British Empire doesn't seem to have been the poorer for the phenomenon.

Correct me if I'm mistaken, but was a hung parliament not what contributed strongly to the downfall of the Weimar?
That plus the 'Leader makes his own emergency laws' thing.

You're mistaken, so I'm correcting you. Weimar's central problem was neither hung parliaments nor proportional representation, but rather the reluctance of most of the body politic to recognise the legitimacy of the post-Imperial liberal democratic state. The declaration of a German republic in 1918 was controversial even among constitutionalist social democrats, and it's doubtful whether the majority of the German body politic ever accepted its legitimacy. The non-legitimists (prominently, but by no means exclusively, the communists and Nazis) actively sought to undermine the constitutionalists and overthrow the state, often - though not always - by adopting a cynical veneer of constitutionality. The process was later exacerbated by the global crisis of the Great Depression, which the Weimar government was ill-equipped to handle given the large number of Germans who failed to recognise its legitimate right to carry out economic reforms. In so far as the Weimar government's problems stemmed from a 'hung parliament' it was that the constitutionalist minority were increasingly unable to muster a majority over the non-legitimists who wanted to overthrow the state.

The argument that Weimar fell because of hung parliaments and/or proportional representation is therefore nonsense, despite a specific minority of British alarmists like to hold it up as an example of the failure of both; but they are a distraction from the core issue. Weimar fell because it was inherently unstable and undermined from the beginning due to the refusal of most of the body politic to ever fully accept its legitimacy. Since virtually every UK-based political party accepts the legitimate constitutional existence of the British state (even where they want to leave it), neither a hung parliament nor proportional representation are likely to lead us to Adolf Hitler, or the total collapse of the British constitutional order, even if we are, globally, facing the worst economic crisis since the one that destroyed Weimar.

[Blouman Empire]

And once again The Arch, comes in and settles the matter.

[Crabulonia]

Just thought of another thing that's bad about a hung parliament:



Hung parliament = less confidence in bond markets about UK government bonds = higher yields = more money the UK government has to pay to borrow = bigger bill for the British taxpayer.

Hurrah for democracy in action.

Yeah, because the decrease in pirates has led to global warming.

Christ on a stick! We'd better subsidize those Somalians!

[Tomland Union]

The main problem would be that legislations and laws will not go through parliment or take a extremly long time to do so. Therefore hardly any desicions will be made.

[Nadkor]

The main problem would be that legislations and laws will not go through parliment or take a extremly long time to do so. Therefore hardly any desicions will be made.

a) Legislation actually getting proper scrutiny would make for a nice change after the last 13 years
b) The majority of Government decisions are made via the Royal Prerogative, not by Parliament.

[Crabulonia]

Just what's so bad about a hung parliament?

---

Nothing, has worked in almost every country around the world. That includes Britain during the glory days of the Empire.