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8 May 2010

British Political analysts struggling with concept of coalition...

There's no cute video for this. Anyway, British political commentators are struggling to explain to the public their own weird historical mutant of election law, where everything is an ad hoc gentleman's agreement. Aside from the fact that the Prime minister has to decide when he calls for an election, there's the case of the hung parliament where the sitting government actually gets to decide who to talk to first. But the Liberal Democrats have decided not to do that, not in the least because they wouldn't have a majority, even with Labour, but they would, with the Conservatives. But then, the conservatives aren't going to offer the Lib Dems Proportional representation, Which is what they need if they're ever going to be a viable contender in the future. Britain has one the most heavily gerrymandered district systems in the world, which is why the Liberal Democrats have 8% of the seats, when they have 23% of the popular vote. If the Conservative-Liberal Democrat government doesn't make it, then there is little to no hope of a majority government, unless there's a truly bizarre rainbow coalition in the works. If there's anything this election's proved, it's that the Liberal Democrats are right, Britain needs a major election reform so it can have the governments it needs, not this shit. And all the ranting and raving about how coalition governments are rife with 'horse trading' are just so much nonsense. Contra-moral sellouts labeled as compromise are the very soul of politics, and whether you dither and argue with coalition partners or extremists and lunatics within your own party is completely irrelevant.

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