As Canadians, we have been exposed to the idea of a minority government, and so the observation of similar phenomena in other governments provides us with some remarkable parallels as well as a sense of our place on the political spectrum. Our attention has most recently been drawn to the government of the United Kingdom, a country that has not seen the need for this sort of coalition since 1974.
In the last few years, The UK has been wrought with a series of crises and, being a country with less phlegmatic attitudes towards politics, it is easy to see how the outcome of their most recent election has left them squirming. Conditions leading up to the election, being as unsavoury as they were, did not help. Following the credit crunch, the British people were rocked by a political scandal involving a large number of MPs and their abuse of the expenses system; three of these MPs now face criminal prosecution. Adding to the chaos was the resignation of the Speaker of the House of Commons, who had previously voiced his concerns over certain acts that facilitated this sort of abuse (UK’s Freedom of Information Legislation).
The ensuing election left the British Conservatives twenty seats away from an overall majority, producing a hung parliament. The British Liberal Democrats and British Labour party were temporarily in talks with the Conservatives to make the minority government work, but a number of problems came to light, the largest issue being that the Democrats refused to accept any offers unless the Conservatives promised them a referendum on proportional representation, something that the Conservatives did not wish to do. In addition to this, there were a number of policy differences, including those relating to the depth of trust each party had for the rest of Europe and the manner in which each one wished to deal with the country’s large budgetary deficit. Following these talks was an unsuccessful attempt to put together a Labour-Liberal Democrat coalition, which was ended by Labour party leader Gordon Brown’s resignation from the position of Prime Minister upon the approval of the Queen.
The Brits finally declared David Cameron of the Conservative party as their Prime Minister, a decision they came to in five short days. While they were able to resolve this situation fairly quickly, the UK’s history with minority governments has not been a particularly pleasant one; the last one was dissolved within a mere seven months, leaving parliament floundering until the Labour party was able to secure a majority. The Conservatives currently do have total support from the Liberals, but it will be interesting to see how long the coalition will be able to sustain itself. In the meantime, the UK will just have to be complacent with what it has.
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