Not sure why I mentioned the above except that it had something to do with inflation.

I see they've called a general election for May 7. I probably didn't know about that because the news is too full of talks with Iran and Hillary Clinton's missing emails server.

The election date has been known for ages. In fact, since they passed the Fixed Term Parliament Act as one of their first bits of legislation back in 2010, it's been known for the better part of 5 years.

This is not a good thing btw. The government ran out of meaningful legislation after year 4 and the whole of the last 11 months or so has been tedious electioneering.

Yeah, I forgot about that. I guess that's why it hasn't been on the news, besides the Iran thing: not a surprise, i.e., not newsworthy. I was looking at the Downing Street website when I noticed that.

However, it seemed to me that part of the whole point of parliamentary democracy, as it was explained to me, is that you *can* have an election virtually anytime, should there be impassible gridlock or legislative inertia. That's of course as long as the government does not abuse the privilege of calling an election to pick up extra seats, or a series of unstable government coalitions triggers elections every five minutes (Italy, postwar France, interwar Germany).

How popular is the UKIP? I followed a link from the UK govt website to the Independent newspaper, and the current prediction is:

CON 280
LAB 273
SNP 45
LDP 25
UKIP 4
CYM 3
GRN 1
RSP 1

Although I am puzzled as to why there is still a Scottish Nationalist Party after the Scots defeated a referendum for independence. And it's interesting that they're actually way ahead of the Lib Dems. One of you was telling me last year that they've lost respect with the voters because of their alliance with the Conservatives. Didn't it used to be that the Liberal Democrats were the "& 1/2" in what was describe to me as a "2 1/2" party system? and now they're moving to the bottom of the deck?

So what, either a hung parliament (again) in which a coalition will have to be negotiated, or a minority government. Not being a lawyer, and not being British, I have no idea how that will play out with a Fixed Term Parliament. Does this mean that if the coalition (or minority government) loses confidence, too bad, it's in for the whole trip whether anybody likes it or not?

And Tories & Labour neck and neck, wow. Not being an expert, couldn't this take WEEKS to resolve when it ends up a hung parliament that's this, well, hung?

If I were to venture a guess, it seems that with this many significant parties developing, the Labour and Conservative parties no longer commanding the oligopoly they used to (as far as I know), there may have to be even *more* constitutional changes to accommodate this new "multi-party" atmosphere. (I would assume).

The website says that Parliament will reassemble on May 11. Can they delay that?

Not being a lawyer, and not being British, I have no idea how that will play out with a Fixed Term Parliament. Does this mean that if the coalition (or minority government) loses confidence, too bad, it's in for the whole trip whether anybody likes it or not?

Not quite. What would first happen is that the sitting government has the right to try and form a government, either by trying to put a coalition together or simply attempting to go it alone as a minority government. They'd have to pass a vote of the house on the first Queen's speech though, which is effectively a confidence motion. if this is voted down then they would have to resign and the opposition parties get a 2 week window in which they can attempt to form an alternative government and pass a confidence motion of their own. If that proves to be impossible then fresh elections are held but if it does happen then under the terms of the Fixed Term Parliament Act (a truly egregious bit of constitutional vandalism, typical of the Lib Dems who were responsible for it) it would then require a two thirds majority vote in Parliament to force fresh elections before the 5 years are up. In effect this would mean that yes, we'd be stuck with a potentially very unpopular minority government for the full term with no real prospect of changing things.

The real danger here is that the SNP are making a lot of noises to the effect that they will try to use their bloc of seats to vote down any prospect of a Tory government and seek to prop up a Labour government as an alternative through what's known as a 'confidence and supply' agreement. This means that that they'd always support the government on key confidence votes and the budget (which amounts to a confidence vote) but would otherwise negotiate their support on other legislation on a case by case basis. this would be a constitutional minefield that could quite easily bring about the end of the Union. Since so much has now been devolved to the Scottish Parliament, in effect the SNP would be voting to impose policies solely upon English voters in the main, and naturally they'd be demanding their pound of flesh in the form of ever-increasing fiscal transfers to Scotland, ever more devolution to Scotland and who knows what else. They'd have Miliband over a barrel. The resentment this is likely to engender in England can only be imagined, but it's likely to get ugly pretty quick and will be disastrous for Labour in the medium term.

In other words, nobody really knows what the hell would happen if the numbers come out as the newspaper I quoted predicted?

And wait a minute, does not parliament assemble before the State Opening of Parliament (i.e., before the Queen's speech)? That almost sounds like the chicken coming before the egg, or vice versa. I'm reading the UK government website as we speak but that point isn't totally clear...it seems that the UK's unwritten constitution was not designed to solve this sort of thing...

This reminds me of the electoral crises of 1800 and 1824...when the electoral college deadlocked (for opposite reasons) and which party (or more specifically, who) controlled the government hung in the balance for weeks. Not an entirely applicable situation but of course the effect being the same...I omit 1876 because that was due to electoral fraud. Again, not exactly applicable comparison, but in the ballpark (everyone waiting to see who the hell is in charge you know?)

I actually want to say that I considered (since things seem to be getting at least a little bit better for me) that I would write something (at least the length of a Kindle single, knock on wood) on the transfer of power in England/Britain from Crown to Parliament (or cabinet/prime minister, etc.) I haven't decided on a title, but I've been keeping a few notes in a notebook specially reserved for it. ("Checkmate" perhaps? hmmm...)

And wait a minute, does not parliament assemble before the State Opening of Parliament (i.e., before the Queen's speech)? That almost sounds like the chicken coming before the egg, or vice versa. I'm reading the UK government website as we speak but that point isn't totally clear...it seems that the UK's unwritten constitution was not designed to solve this sort of thing...

Yes, but there's no contradiction. A minority government would form and then if it fails on a confidence motion it would be forced to resign.

The Lib Dems were "responsible" for the FTA? Interesting. So how did their 50-odd MPS outvote the 300 Tories in the Commons?

It was part of their price for the coalition agreement.

Granted, the Tories also deserve a measure of blame for agreeing to it.

How long does the new House of Commons have to form a government? The State Opening of Parliament is on 27 May; the new parliament assembles on the 18th. I'm not sure I entirely understand. The queen's speech is handed to the queen by the prime minister on 27 May right? at the state opening? How can she read the speech from the throne if the government hasn't been formed by then? I was under the impression that the queen reads a speech given to her by the PM. What if....well, if they vote against' the "queen's" speech and that means a possibly different government, isn't she reading fiction, then?

The Queen's speech is just the intended legislative program of the government for the coming session of Parliament. If it gets voted down then that counts as a vote of no confidence in the government and it would fall.

What would happen prior to that is dependant upon how the seats are distributed at the election. If Labour ends up as biggest party then Cameron would resign as PM as Miliband would get first crack at either forming a coalition or attempting to govern as a minority government. Either way he'd present a proposed Queens speech which would then be voted on. If the Tories are the largest party then Cameron gets first crack at trying to form a government. He'd either attempt to form a new coalition with the Lib Dems, which would probably be his first choice but most likely won't be possible because the numbers are unlikely to add up, or he'd try to go it alone as a minority Tory government (which would be the first choice for a lot of his backbenchers anyway). It would then remain to be seen whether he could pass his first Queen's speech vote in the House. In theory Labour and the SNP might be in position to vote it down and then move in to take over after the government falls. Whether this would actually happen is debatable though. It depends largely on the numbers again. if between them Labour and the SNP have a majority then they'd probably go for it, but if not then they may end up being reliant on all of the other minor parties voting down the government, and we could easily see a lot of abstentions because most of the parties are skint and won't be able to afford the risk that we could end up having fresh elections.

There's also the question of whether Labour itself might choose to abstain rather than try to govern in an unstable minority beholden to the SNP. In truth I think they'd probably make a grab for power if they can, but strategically speaking it's an enormous risk that could potentially kill the Labour party. They may calculate that it's better to let Cameron stumble along as an unpopular minority PM than sieze the reins themselves and end up antagonising voters right across England by making concession after concession to the nationalists.

That would be two elections in the space of the same month, then?

I dunno about Britons, but your average American voter: "Again? I just voted three months ago! What the hell, man!"

It's happened before. There were two elections in 1974. Labour won unexpectedly but with a wafer thin majority and Harold Wilson decided to go back to the country after a few months to seek a more stable mandate. It worked, but they still didn't end up with a particularly big majority and by 1978, after a few MPs had died and by-elections had been lost, they were governing as a minority propped up by the Liberals.

The reason the Lib Dems insisted on the passing of the Fixed Term Parliament Act was to prevent Cameron trying to pull the same trick. The Tories might well have been tempted to govern for a year or so, pass a lot of populist legislation and then try to go again while they were still relatively popular.

Understandable. Are there any positives to a Fixed Term Parliament? and I read on the website there can still be a motion of no-confidence to trigger an election (which I had thought was the typical way elections were triggered in parliamentary democracies, but I guess I'm wrong.)