As the title suggests, do you think the next Government will last a full five year term as the Coalition Government has managed?

 

Some commentators are predicting that a Coalition won't last or a minority government will struggle and be overpowered by the rest of Parliament if we have the likely outcomes of a Labour / SNP coalition or Labour / Conservative minority government.

 

My gut instinct tells me that the next Government won't last particularly long, one year max and won't get a lot done. Although everyone thought the Coalition might not last 5 years and it did, this time the situation is slightly different because there could potentially be no coalition or more than two parties forming it. Labour and SNP have some key differences, which I'm not sure the SNP would back down from.

It's a mug's game trying to answer this question until we know what the next government actually is...

I felt fairly confident that this government would last the full term (with the possibility that the Lib Dems would leave the Tories run a minority government for the last six months or so). However, the next government is anybody's guess at the moment. A two-party coalition with a reasonable (byelection-proof) majority would stand a decent chance. Anything else would be a lot more vulnerable.

Alex Salmonds article in the Spring issue of the New Statesman could be relevant to this in terms of the Queens Speech getting through parliament!

I don't fully understand the effects of the Fixed Term Parliaments Bill, but I'm enclined to think that it would be difficult for any government to dissolve voluntarily and try and hold an early election for its own gain. That makes it far more likely that whatever government we end up with will go the distance.

They problem is we havent seen how this would work if there was a minority government yet which relied on other groups votes to make the PM the prime minister.

I don't fully understand the effects of the Fixed Term Parliaments Bill, but I'm enclined to think that it would be difficult for any government to dissolve voluntarily and try and hold an early election for its own gain. That makes it far more likely that whatever government we end up with will go the distance.

Yes - but it does mean that we could end up with switches of government mid-way through if the standing government no longer commands confidence but another party does, without having a two-thirds majority in favour of a new election.

Yeh it could last 5 years with changes of government if the PM loses his authority - see the following quote

 

"under the [Fixed-Term] Parliaments Act that Westminster parliament’s passed but nobody seems to have read, you’d then have a two-week period to form another government "

Edited April 3, 201510 yr by steve201

There's two options.

 

1. Parliament passes a vote of no confidence in the government. This doesn't trigger an election. Instead, the parties have an opportunity to form another government. However, if a Government cannot be formed within 14 days an election will be triggered automatically.

2. A motion is passed in Parliament for an election.

 

And as mentioned by Qassandra it has to be 2/3 majority.

 

I don't fully understand the effects of the Fixed Term Parliaments Bill, but I'm enclined to think that it would be difficult for any government to dissolve voluntarily and try and hold an early election for its own gain. That makes it far more likely that whatever government we end up with will go the distance.

 

I agree that it will be hard for the governing party (the party with more votes at least) to hold an early election for their gain. It would be more likely to happen if every other party opposed the Government, rather than the Government itself.