‘Hung’ parliament a negative term

• FOLLOWING the results of the local council elections, pundits are predicting that Labour will be the largest party in parliament after the next general election but will not have a majority of seats.

Analysts are forecasting a “hung” parliament, which is a strangely negative term for a minority or coalition government, where the biggest party needs the support of others to implement their programme.

Surely this would be a good thing, given the huge challenges facing the country, such as the cost-of-living crisis and tackling climate and ecological emergency. These require new thinking that goes beyond traditional party tribalism.

It is true that the 2010-2015 Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government had its problems; but it looks like a bed of roses compared with the cronyism, incompetence and sheer nastiness of subsequent Tory rule.

Coalitions or other power-sharing arrangements already happen at a local level, where there are currently 91 district councils outside of London with “no overall control” (almost one-third of local authorities), up from 75 before last week’s elections.

This has not created instability: the bins still get emptied and decisions are made, just usually with support from councillors outside of the largest political group.

The other advantage of a coalition government is that smaller parties joining it would almost certainly demand the introduction of proportional representation for future general elections.

No system is perfect but we could end up with a government that actually represents the majority of voters; something our antiquated winner-takes-all, first-past-the-post, electoral system usually fails to do.

DEE SEARLE, NW5