In praise of fixed-term parliaments

The Sunday Times has joined its sister paper The Times in coming out in favour of fixed terms. In its editorial accepting that presidential-style TV debates are likely to become a permanent feature of election campaigns, the Sunday Times says: "Most of all, we should import from America fixed four-year terms, removing a key element of uncertainty from the British system. The prime minister’s prerogative of choosing the election date is an anachronism."

A fixed term is, in Charter 2010’s view, a vital component of establishing a stable, multi-party government after a hung election. Taken together with Tory commentator Matthew Parris’s admission in his Times column that, if the Tories are offered a deal by the Lib Dems and a condition attached is a fixed term, arguments against accepting such an arrangement do not "spring easily to mind", this constitutes the most significant evidence yet that the Conservatives, at long last, are coming to realise that a multi-party supported government for a fixed term of four years would be the desirable (and democratic) outcome of a hung parliament in which no one party has a workable majority.

via charter2010.co.uk

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