Belgian Hung/Coalition Government collapses

[Berberis]

It is hilarious. Cameron's rapidly cobbled together PPB shows just how sht scared they are.

 

PPB's are regulated to make sure they are fair to all parties. Cameron’s wish to address the sudden change in the focus of this election is nothing to do with being scared, it’s about addressing the issues. If he had ignored the recent change people like you would be trying to say he is ignorant of the electoral climate.

 

Incidentally political betting is still in favour of a conservative win with an overall majority and has not changed much since before the leadership debate.

 

Labour has the problem of being the party in power when the **** hit the fan, that’s for sure. The Lib Dems have the problem that they are very attractive to specific demographics, one of which, young voters are very unlikely to vote or even be registered. Pollsters may ask what peoples intention or who would they vote for, but that doesn’t mean these people will even vote come May 6th.

[Berberis]

But are they stupid enough to see through camerons desperation to try and get people tactically voting for them rather than the lib dems? That was his intention when he was talking about coalitions.

 

Of course, if we do go to PR, virtually every government from that moment on will be a coalition government.

 

And they don't collapse particularly regularly either

 

The only problem with PR was highlighted by the EU elections last year. 2 elected BNP MEP's.

 

Labours sudden conversation to PR, is confusing as they had always previously rejected it. Maybe they seriously think they could become the 3rd Party of UK politics and do not want to have the same struggle as the Lib Dems?

[Berberis]

To say that coalition governments are stable is simply wrong. They fail more often than other governments by a long shot.

 

Looking to nations close to the UK. The following coalition governments all collapsed within the last 14 months

 

• Dutch
  
• Icelandic
  
• Latvian
  
• Belgium (today)
  

Thats 1 every 3 and a half months. Then looking further afield you can find many more.

 

Then we have the assertion that the Lib Dems would not form a coalition government, ruling the prospect out back in Feb this year. Ref: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/feb/14/liberal-democrats-coalition-hung-parliament

 

So who does that leave to form a coalition government? Labour and the Conservatives?

 

If we do not give a clear mandate to one party, the country will suffer as a result.

[plekhanov]

PPB's are regulated to make sure they are fair to all parties.

No they aren't, the regulation makes sure parties above a certain levels of support get equal access to having PPB, the content of those broadcasts is anything but fair as it is determined by the parties who put them out. As the most recent Tory scaremongering broadcast demonstrated.

[HeadingNorth]

To say that coalition governments are stable is simply wrong. They fail more often than other governments by a long shot.

 

Looking to nations close to the UK. The following coalition governments all collapsed within the last 14 months

 

• Dutch
  
• Icelandic
  
• Latvian
  
• Belgium (today)
  

Thats 1 every 3 and a half months.

 

For an area to cover Iceland at one end and Latvia at the other, it must include about thirty countries. If said countries have elections every five years, as we do ... then at least one government every two months should be falling anyway by running out of time. Your argument is not very persuasive.

 

You'd do better to look at Italy as a fine example of how proportional representation can lead to chaos. That one country alone changes its government roughly once every ten months, on an average since World War Two.

[slimsid2000]

So far Nick Cleggs electioneering has consisted of walking his Bulldog around Dore village asking people if they will vote for him. This is OK as far as it goes but he needs to do a lot more than this.

[plekhanov]

To say that coalition governments are stable is simply wrong. They fail more often than other governments by a long shot.

 

Looking to nations close to the UK. The following coalition governments all collapsed within the last 14 months

 

• Dutch
  
• Icelandic
  
• Latvian
  
• Belgium (today)
  

Thats 1 every 3 and a half months. Then looking further afield you can find many more.

 

Then we have the assertion that the Lib Dems would not form a coalition government, ruling the prospect out back in Feb this year. Ref: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/feb/14/liberal-democrats-coalition-hung-parliament

 

So who does that leave to form a coalition government? Labour and the Conservatives?

 

If we do not give a clear mandate to one party, the country will suffer as a result.

14 months That's an odd figure to settle upon, could it be because you were having difficulty finding enough cases of "collapsed" coalitions to cherry pick within 6 or 12 months perhaps?

 

Do you honestly expect this exercise in cherry picking to convince anybody? The facts are that many of our EU partners have long had coalition governments and on the whole they seem to do pretty well stock markets included.

 

The Tories and their supporters like you are simply panicked that the partial press can no longer freeze out the Lib Dems and are frantically trying to scare people off them by any means they can think of.

[L00b]

Any country that regards chips with mayo as its' haute cuisine is going to prove to backward to govern.

Belgian cuisine is probably the finest you're going to find outside of France (well, of Alsace, to be more precise). They like their fine foods, do the Belgians, and have done for a very, very long time

[Berberis]

14 months That's an odd figure to settle upon, could it be because you were having difficulty finding enough cases of "collapsed" coalitions to cherry pick within 6 or 12 months perhaps?

 

No, that was the results from the first page of searching on Google. The oldest was back in Feb 2009, thus 14 months ago.

[Berberis]

The Tories and their supporters like you are simply panicked that the partial press can no longer freeze out the Lib Dems and are frantically trying to scare people off them by any means they can think of.

 

Lastly, I have not made up my mind on who to vote for yet. I have not thoroughly investigated the policies of all the main parties and until then I will just listen and give my opinion.

 

However I, like many, am turned off by parties and their advocates that like to tell me how I feel (just like you have) and vote for one that asks me what I think.