DEM not gonna CON dis NATION: Rolling UK politics in the short-lived Cleggeron era

callaghan wouldn't have lost if that one labour mp who died a few days later would have been allowed to go to the commons to vote. to think, if callaghan had cared slightly less about this guys health & safety thatcher might not have got in.

Mind you, he'd already survived one vote by bribing the Ulster Unionists through breaking up their constituencies into smaller ones to give them more seats. (Or more correctly promising to, which he then did. They didn't then all support him in the second vote.)

Full cabinet list

Tory Broken Promises

m. white dropping knowledge all over this thread

word

Philip Davies, the Tory MP for Shipley

Dude gets his own MP?????????????

[lame gag involving the word 'represent']

Does that mean that the Con-Lib coalition will now be in power for the next five years come what may?

No. The legislation will provide for a general election to be called if 55% or more of the Commons votes in favour. The convention since 1782 has been that a significant defeat on a major issue can lead to a vote of no confidence in the government. If they lose that vote then they are obliged to resign or call a general election. This happened twice in the last century – in 1923 and 1979.

The fixed-term parliament legislation will take away the power of a prime minister to call an election in these circumstances. But it will also mean that if the government falls the sitting prime minister can try to form a new coalition government from among the opposition parties. If that fails in other fixed-term parliaments, such as in Germany, the head of state can call an election, but in Britain there is no wish to involve the Queen in such decisions.

So they have settled on a threshold of 55% of MPs to force a general election. The 55% figure is significant because the Conservatives have 47% of MPs and it ensures that the Lib Dems cannot simply walk out of the coalition and vote with the opposition to call a general election as they can only muster 53% of the vote.

That doesn't really answer the key question that we've been asking on here: if the coalition falls apart and the Lib Dems no longer support the Tories, but the opposition can only muster 53% in a vote of no confidence, and Cameron can't actually call an election, and nobody is willing to form a new coalition, are we basically left with a minority Tory government that cannot pass ANYTHING because no majority of MPs will vote for it, dragging on for months or years until the five-year term is finally up? Because that's really fucking stupid.

that's really fucking stupid

^^^ otm

sounds like a constitutional crisis.

And seems somewhat contradictory to the 'right to recall mps' policy.

The right to recall MPs smells like bs to me, the bar will be raised so high that in practice it'll never happen.

That doesn't really answer the key question that we've been asking on here: if the coalition falls apart and the Lib Dems no longer support the Tories, but the opposition can only muster 53% in a vote of no confidence, and Cameron can't actually call an election, and nobody is willing to form a new coalition, are we basically left with a minority Tory government that cannot pass ANYTHING because no majority of MPs will vote for it, dragging on for months or years until the five-year term is finally up? Because that's really fucking stupid.

― Home Taping Is Killing Muzak (Nasty, Brutish & Short), Wednesday, 12 May 2010 21:13 (8 minutes ago) Bookmark

under those circumstances, they'll just call another no confidence vote and more mps will support it if the sitting govt really can't govern. it's still stupid and breathtakingly unprincipled imo but they'll make it work. mind you, if the lords are any use at all, they'll block this.

xpost

It's 5 percent of the electorate I thought? That's not insane if somebody wanted to get organised and hilarious, but the "wrongdoing" caveat cd be fucked with to mean anything or nothing I guess.

I just mean the principle that if an MP can no longer rely on the support of his constituents (say, via a scandal) he can be recalled for an election, but if a government can no longer command support of the commons (say, via a scandal), we're stuck with them until the end of the term.

under those circumstances, they'll just call another no confidence vote and more mps will support it if the sitting govt really can't govern. it's still stupid and breathtakingly unprincipled imo but they'll make it work. mind you, if the lords are any use at all, they'll block this.

But with a three-line whip Tory MPs couldn't vote for it.

Getting 5% shouldn't be difficult nowadays, just needs a facebook page to get started. As NV says its how they decide on 'wrongdoing', and if something's serious enough for say criminal investigation to take place then it's likely to be construed as prejudicial to any investigation.

under those circumstances, they'll just call another no confidence vote and more mps will support it if the sitting govt really can't govern. .

But Tories can vote it down on their own. What Tory is going to reject the whip to vote the Tories out of power? Bar is unjustifiably high

i'm not defending the system, because it's stupid and unjustifiable, but in practice i wouldn't expect the whips to keep alive a govt which can't pass any legislation or even make a budget because the long term damage would be catastrophic. also, aren't whips some of the biggest schemers among mps? maybe i'm just thinking francis urquhart here, but i reckon a lot of them would see their chance and be quite happy to stick the knife in.

So, to get the party in power out, they have to start knifing amongst themselves - that's great for stability.

Yeah, tho to get to that point not only does the coalition have to crumble the Tories themselves have to implode well beyond the point they ever have -- this allows them to keep power while they elect a new leader and have him reform a coalition. Xp

m. white, my point is only that the worst case scenario of having effectively no govt for months or years because the coalition has broken down but a no confidence vote can't be passed isn't very realistic. this deal is good for stability - just like a real majority government, it will have to implode to be removed before its time is up - but the mistake is thinking stability is the only virtue. the system should allow for the fact that people haven't given anyone much of a mandate and we may want to rethink things in a short while. that's why the fixed term is a disgusting power grab.

xp stet, that's prob true.

That's basically it -- it gives a minority govt the same privileges as a majority one, which the public hasn't given it.

this allows them to keep power while they elect a new leader and have him reform a coalition But how long would we have to wait for the party to choose a new leader in the first place and what government would we have in the mean time? And what if this new leader can't reform a coalition? There doesn't seem to be any mechanism to bring things to an end: it relies on the MPs that form the government voting out their own government without obliging them to do so.

Yes, exactly. Is ludicrous. No mention on BBC yet, either.

im just amazed how little the media has picked up on this. five-year parliaments are comparatively rare, aren't they?

1959–64
1992–97
2005–10

see a pattern?

oh and the glorious 1974–79 of course, which also fits the pattern

I'm amazed how little the media which was so fair and balanced during its coverage of the election and negotiations has picked up on this

Hold on, it's even more stupid than I thought. Presumably a future majority government could call an election whenever it wanted (as long as it had at least 55% of the seats) by calling and winning a motion of no confidence in itself, whereas a minority government would be obliged to continue to the end of the five years even if it didn't want to. What a load of shit.

lol yes I considered this earlier

ha, ha, ha

i guess the LDs are counting on no more majority governments. instead you can just come last and still get cabinet seats!

At what point does "short-lived" in this thread title become an unbearable mockery btw?

As soon as the Parliament Reform Act gets through the Lords, I guess!

Still, looking forward to DUP having to think up questions every week for PMQs...

"if there is hope, it lies in the lords."

Every time I think about this 55% thing it makes me angry. I'm sort of hoping the BBC, Guardian, Independent etc haven't picked up properly on this because there's been so much else going on and it'll become a bigger issue later. This government has a reasonable mandate to govern, the Tories got more votes than anyone else, but changing the entire system just to keep it propped up for five years is against all logic.

Finally some traction on this on Newsnight - Kirsty Wark grilling Jeremy Hunt on it.

lil bit in the times:

http://timesonline.typepad.com/law/2010/05/plans-for-fixedterm-parliaments-not-credible-and-dangerous-says-law-expert.html

"momentous moment" - good start d-mil.

the guardian and independent must be deep in shock atm

Yeah - Kirsty Wark asked Jeremy Hunt, Tory shitebag ESQ, about it and his response was "Fixed terms have been discussed many times" and she said no, it's not about fixed terms it's about the change from 51 to 55, that's a significant change and feels like you and the Lib Dems have just hustled this up to help yourselves. His response was "It's a small change, and necessary for a strong, stable government". Then she moved on. I think there is such a huge number of bullet points that interviewers and columnists have to get through - having been told by their editors to address them - that nothing is really getting a hard look at this point.

Also Crick did an interview a constitutional expert on Newsnight and he was saying this was basically up to no good.

I think there is still an assumption that the 55% will not stop a breakdown, should it happen - hence the lack of queries on it and/or anger. xps

people seem to be more concerned about equality minister theresa may not being all that into equality, which i guess is...easier to fit into 140 characters, or something. actually massively shocked this hasn't been picked up on to a greater extent.

struggle to find a Tory MP who was that into equality tho

Tracer, there is of course the issue of the newscaster varying her question and getting six stonewalling/similar answers.

kirsty wark informs our cabinet is now 65% oxbridge, 61% privately schooled

I think that if the coalition collapsed then a sufficient number of Tories would have to end up voting against the government in a no confidence vote. The alternative would be keeping a crippled govt on life support for what could be years. The Tories just could not do that, they would be rightly blamed by the electorate for an unprecedented period of stasis and absolutely massacred at the next election.