Britain’s upcoming election may not deliver a clear victory for any one party but an inconclusive result does not have to be a disaster for economic and financial stability.
With the Conservative lead over ruling Labour shrinking ahead of an election that must take place by June, there is growing talk of a hung parliament, in which no single party has control of the House of Commons, the lower chamber.
Investors fret that this could deliver a weak government at a time of severe strain on public finances.
The deficit will hit £178bn ($279bn) this year, more than what the government spent last year on schools, health and defence put together. Markets worry that a hung parliament would delay painful but crucial spending cuts.
Memories of the last hung parliament, in February 1974, are not reassuring. Then, a Labour government pushed ahead with minority support in the Commons, but it proved so difficult that a snap election was called seven months later. Labour won, but by a razor-thin majority.
Labour stayed in power until 1979, but the period was marked by strikes, inflation and a public finances crisis that forced Britain to turn to the International Monetary Fund for support - a humiliation seared into the nation’s collective memory.
But times have changed since the 1970s and there are reasons why a break with one-party domination might not be so bad for Britain.
The need to clinch cross-party agreement, whether as a coalition or as a minority government seeking parliamentary support issue by issue, can be a useful way to focus minds and find pragmatic, non-partisan ways to solve problems.
“It will force parties to work together in a way that single-party government won’t,” said Vince Cable, Treasury spokesman for the Liberal Democrats, the party that will hold the balance of power if neither of the big two win a majority.
A cross-party arrangement would also strengthen the government’s legitimacy at a time when it will have to take on labour unions to push through painful cuts in public spending.
The majoritarian voting system in national elections has allowed two parties, the Conservatives and Labour, to alternate in power since the end of World War Two.
But the rise of the Liberal Democrats, who won over 22% of votes in the last election in 2005, and of smaller parties with strength in particular regions, means the two-party model no longer reflects the breadth of British politics.
“It’s time for people to wake up and smell the coffee. Times have changed. It’s a multi-party system,” said Patrick Dunleavy, political science professor at the London School of Economics.
via gulf-times.com
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