What happens if the election result isn’t clean cut?
We’ve got a report on Channel 4 News tonight looking at why hung parliaments are more likely than they have been for years and what that means.
I thought Lord Owen was particularly interesting on the subject. He says the old adage that “one is enough” just doesn’t want any more.
Lord Owen says that if David Cameron or Gordon Brown was elected with a majority under around 15 they should acknowledge that it’s not enough to govern effectively in difficult times and should go into coalition talks.
Lord Owen says his experience of the second Wilson government, which ruled as a minority administration between March and October 1974 and then won a majority of three in the second 1974 election was that it’s weakness in the Commons made it incapable of taking tough decisions.
When the Labour government, then under Wilson’s successor, Jim Callaghan, lost its majority altogether, Lord Steel, then Liberal leader, stepped into the breach and formed the Lib-Lab Pact.
Lord Steel tells us pacts won’t do in these times and after a general election. Coalitions should be sought.
Former Deputy Governor of the Bank of England, Sir John Gieve, and the long-time Lloyds-TSB Chairman, Sir Brian Pitman, both warn that the buyers of government debt reserve special fear and loathing for minority governments and hung parliaments.
They both predicted in interviews with us that if the polls consistently predict a hung the parliament it could decisively force up the price of government borrowing.
Former Cabinet Secretary, Lord Armstrong also speaks to us. He was Edward Heath;s private secretary back in February 1974 when the Tories came second in the tally of MPs but Mr Heath decided to stay in No. 10 for a few days to test out his coalition options.
Lord Armstrong said Mr Heath felt strongly that his political opponents couldn’t be trusted with the keys to No. 10 at such a time of economic crisis and that he ended up looking “a bad loser” in the public’s mind.
Lord Armstrong says he can imagine Gordon Brown being similarly dogged if he was presented with similar results in the next general election.
For the afficianados, there’s a fascinating contemporary account of what happened between 1st – 4th March 1974, written by Lord Armstrong recently released after an FOI application by the Thatcher Foundation – you can read it here: