How do these numbers affect us?

[Loring2]

What?

Gee, that sucks dongers, Loring. Seems like your fairweather friends set you up as the patsy for a colossal joke. They made you the fool. The fall-guy. The jester. Don't you hate it when friends take advantage of your intelligence like this? I don't think you need people like that in your life, if you ast me.

By the way, are you interested in buying a bridge? I have this really neat one in Brooklyn that I can show you...

You must be kidding ... I own that bridge already ... why you sucker

 

[trysail]

Today Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced the date of the General Election. We have a whole four weeks of campaigning to survive. Compare that with a US Presidential Election.

It is possible that the Labour Party will win the most seats with fewer votes than the Conservative Party. They did that last time. That is partly because the Labour Government refused to alter electoral boundaries to reflect changes in population. Inner cities, where the Labour vote is traditionally stronger, have seen reductions in population for the electoral boundaries. Suburbs and semi-rural areas, where the Conservative vote is stronger, have increased in population.

The Liberal Democrats, our third party, gets far fewer seats than its popular vote would suggest.

It is quite possible that Labour will be in a minority in England, and govern because of seats they have won in Scotland and Wales, which have devolved parliaments. Why should Scottish and Welsh MPs decide what laws are to be passed covering England?

The UK's electoral system needs an overhaul. It won't happen unless there is a hung parliament with neither Labour nor Conservative having enough seats to govern on their own. The Liberal Democrats have said for years that they want reform of the voting systems as part of the price for being part of a coalition.

The election will be interesting as well because so many MPs are retiring. Whoever wins we will have more new faces than at any time since 1945.

Og

Queen Ensures She Won’t Decide Who Governs in Hung Parliament
By Robert Hutton and Thomas Penny

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601082&sid=ab9_qdC32qro

April 9 (Bloomberg) -- For the first time since 1923, a British monarch may have to resolve a stalemate over who will become the next prime minister. The queen’s aides are working to make sure that never happens.

Eighty-seven years ago, King George V had to pick Stanley Baldwin over Lord Curzon after Prime Minister Andrew Bonar Law resigned without suggesting a successor.

Polls suggest neither Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown nor Conservative David Cameron will win the necessary votes for a majority in the May 6 election, resulting in a so-called hung parliament. Civil servants have drafted rules they hope will cover every eventuality to protect Queen Elizabeth II’s neutrality.

“The queen must remain absolutely above politics,” said Robert Hazell, director of University College London’s Constitution Unit, who was involved in drawing up the new standards. “The palace is keen to distance the queen as much as possible in order to protect her.” The rules prescribe procedures to avoid the confusion that followed the February 1974 election, the only time since World War II that no party won a majority. It took four days before Conservative Edward Heath resigned as premier, allowing the queen to name Labour’s Harold Wilson to lead a minority government.

Conservative Lead

A YouGov Plc poll completed April 7 showed the Conservatives ahead in popular support by 37 percent to 32 percent. That would give Labour 287 seats and the Conservatives 272 in the 650-seat House of Commons, according to a formula devised by Colin Rallings and Michael Thrasher of Plymouth University.

Their calculations suggest the Conservatives need to win the popular vote by more than 10 percentage points to gain a majority in the Commons. No YouGov poll has showed that since Jan. 7.

U.K. bonds and the pound will stay “under a cloud” unless the election produces a clear winner who can narrow the record budget deficit, according to Merrill Lynch Wealth Management. As the polls tightened this year, Gus O’Donnell, who as cabinet secretary is head of the Civil Service, accelerated plans to codify the conventions that surround elections. Consulting with the queen’s most senior aide, her private secretary Christopher Geidt, and academics, he drew up a draft chapter for the Civil Service Manual.

Impossible Position

When he circulated it in February, lawmakers on Parliament’s Justice Committee questioned whether Brown could be trusted not to put the queen in a politically impossible position by requesting another election if he was unable to form a government, something the Conservatives would likely oppose.

Hazell said two new paragraphs had been added to the as- yet-unpublished final draft to address lawmakers’ concerns.

The rules make clear that “the prime minister must not resign unless and until it’s clear who his successor would be, so that the queen and the country are never without a government,” Hazell said. “Second, it’s a strong duty on the prime minister not to put the queen in an awkward position, not to ask for a dissolution of Parliament if she might refuse it.”

Those standards would prevent Brown from asking for a second election if he wasn’t able to form a government.

Britain has no written constitution, relying on precedent and specific laws instead. The 83-year-old queen, as sovereign, still formally dissolves Parliament, appoints the prime minister and presents the legislative program as that of her government. She has done so since she came to the throne in 1952.

Civil War

Limits on how the monarch exercises those powers go back to the 17th century, when Parliament asserted its right to govern over two of the Queen’s ancestors.

Charles I was beheaded in 1649 after a civil war that followed his decision to rule and raise taxes for 11 years without summoning the House of Commons.

Charles’s son James II, who came to the throne in 1685, was exiled after attempting to rule without Parliament and placing Roman Catholics in positions of power. The 1689 Bill of Rights guaranteed the legislature’s powers and curbed the monarch’s.

Officials now want to ensure that elected representatives, rather than the monarch, make the key decisions. They lay the onus on politicians to make the decisions on any change of government, so that the monarch merely gives her assent.

Anonymous Letter

The last attempt to codify was in 1950, when Alan Lascelles, private secretary to King George VI, the queen’s father, used an anonymous letter to The Times of London to set out the factors the monarch would consider when deciding whether to agree to dissolve Parliament. Those included whether the current Parliament was viable, and whether there was an alternative prime minister.

“The popular myth is that the prime minister loses office if his party is defeated in a general election, but that is not the position,” said Robin Butler, who was Heath’s private secretary in February 1974. “The prime minister remains prime minister until he cannot command a majority in Parliament and somebody else can.”

A confidential report by Robert Armstrong, head of Heath’s private office, has been studied by Brown’s aides. It describes the fall of the Conservative government after Heath tried and failed to reach a post-election deal with the Liberal Party to stay in power.

The Conservatives won the popular vote, though Wilson’s Labour Party took more seats -- 301 to 297. The Liberals won 14.

Heath’s Talks

Heath spent much of the four days after the results were announced trying to persuade Liberal leader Jeremy Thorpe that they could govern together before finally going to see the queen to resign. Thorpe demanded that Heath be replaced as prime minister and wanted a promise to make the electoral system more representative. The Conservatives rejected both demands.

Written rules don’t necessarily avoid a crisis, according to Thomas Mann, senior fellow of governance studies at The Brookings Institution, Washington.

“In the end whether or not you end up having a constitutional crisis depends very much on the actions of the party leaders,” he said. “If one side decides to throw in the cards and, in effect, defend the legitimacy of the process, then the institution doing it doesn’t get damaged.”

 

[oggbashan]

The minor UK parties, the Liberal Democrats, Scottish Nationalists, Plaid Cymry (Welsh) and the various groups in Northern Ireland are all hoping for an indecisive result.

If neither main party wins an overall majority, the other parties will want concessions to be part of a coalition government. It works in local government. It works for many European parliaments.

The advantages? The major parties divisive proposals are likely to be watered down to something that is generally acceptable. We might at last get genuine reform of our electoral system so that everything isn't decided by a few marginal seats. At present, if you aren't in a marginal, your vote doesn't affect the outcome. For example one seat in Kent has not changed party since the mid-19th Century. It won't change on May 6th.

I will vote. My vote, whichever way I vote, won't affect the result. The sitting MP will be re-elected again. That's not too bad. He works hard for his constituents and has moderate views. If I want him to attend an event he will if it is at all possible. Some MPs nearby are almost invisible once they are elected.

Og

 

[sr71plt]

The queen has a hung parliament? Oh my, oh my. (I'm presuming she isn't complaining much about that.)

 

[driphoney]

The minor UK parties, the Liberal Democrats, Scottish Nationalists, Plaid Cymry (Welsh) and the various groups in Northern Ireland are all hoping for an indecisive result.

Og

I can't believe you failed to mention the most important minor party in the UK.

The OMRLP

 

[oggbashan]

I can't believe you failed to mention the most important minor party in the UK.

The OMRLP

Thank you for reminding me. I hope they win, but I'm not placing any money with the bookmakers.

There are also other parties I didn't mention. At the last election the Natural Law Party, whose main manifesto statement was that all our problems would be solved by Yogic Flying, lost their deposits.

The Monster Raving Loony Party are almost sensible compared with some of the other minor parties.

Og

Edited for PS: Wiki has a list of all the current and deceased political parties in the UK: Political Parties. UK Democracy gives you choice!

We also have official joke parties.

 

[driphoney]

Thank you for reminding me. I hope they win, but I'm not placing any money with the bookmakers.

There are also other parties I didn't mention. At the last election the Natural Law Party, whose main manifesto statement was that all our problems would be solved by Yogic Flying, lost their deposits.

The Monster Raving Loony Party are almost sensible compared with some of the other minor parties.

Og

Edited for PS: Wiki has a list of all the current and deceased political parties in the UK: Political Parties. UK Democracy gives you choice!

We also have official joke parties.

Personally, if I were Brit, I think I'd have to go with the Loonys. They're manifesto just speaks to me.