Over the weekend there has been a series of articles by political commentators about the likely make up of the next government. The SNP boggy man (or should that be woman?) card was played heavily as though Scottish voters were second class citizens. It seems that many people find it a unpleasant thought that a political party should act in its own interest i.e Scotland’s interest as they see it, rather than the United Kingdom’s. Equally, many scare stories were being given another run out about the perils of another coalition government, its formation and it’s fragility. It was even hinted that a government not formed by the party with the largest number of MP’s might in some ways not be legitimate or that such a government might be the government that nobody voted for. This is nonsense.

In the first past the post constituency parliamentary system we have people don’t vote for a government they vote for their local MP. The local MP then joins with other MP’s to help form a government however, he or she is first and foremost an MP rather than a member of the government and so if he or she wish to work with other MPs to form a different government then they are welcomed to do so. This, of course, is a hugely simplistic model of how the House of Commons works but at its core lies the problem faced by all major parties who wish to try and form a government. Governments depend on being able to pass their legislation through parliament, which in turn requires discipline amongst their party’s MPs. However, with the fixed term parliament and the rise of smaller political parties, which the SNP must be considered as, party discipline starts to break down and suddenly we are faced with the prospect of Governments falling on a regular basis. This is seen by the traditionalists as an attack at the heart of the way that the country is run. Whether this is the case remains to be seen.

What it does mean is that business as usual is not the way forward. It will mean that fewer laws will be passed, not a bad thing in this author’s view, and perhaps more time will be spent holding the Government of the day to account for what they want to do. It will be messy and not to everyone’s liking, especially the rump ‘major’ political parties who will have to form differing coalitions to get their legislation through. The irony of all this is that should some form of proportional representation become the method by which MPs are elected then it can rightly be claimed that the voter is voting for a party. But of course this would then lead to coalition governments being the norm and Britain may well start entering the twenty first century rather than still think along the lines of twentieth century. Wouldn’t that be refreshing?

Simon Marchini
http://www.simonmarchini.co.uk