As it has been rumored, the UK election results have resulted in a hung parliament. . The last hung parliament from a General Election was in 1974, and it took 8 months to fix. Some individuals are likely confused as to what that means, so we’ll go ahead and brush up on our Poli-Sci, and also you won’t need to give me any instant payday loans for doing this. (You are able to if you want to though.)
UK election and the hung parliament
The UK election results have failed to set up an absolute majority in British Parliament, meaning they have a hung parliament. What that means is that unless certain things happen, the Parliament of Great Britain won’t be able to effectively do anything. That means they can’t pick a Prime Minister or do anything else. In essence, a hung parliament means that Great Britain is hamstrung.
That means welcome to Comparative World Governments
The party in UK elections with probably the most seats won by votes gets to pick the Prime Minister and Cabinet out of their ranks. . If there is a situation like a hung parliament, there can be a minority government (which rarely if ever works out well), a coalition government made by agreements with other parties, or the whole thing gets scrubbed and they hold a new election.
So what happened?
In the 2010 UK General Election (held each and every five years), the Conservative Party, headed by David Cameron, won a lot more seats than the Labor Party and incumbent Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Labor won 29.3% of the seats, and Conservative took 36.1% of the seats. Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats bagged almost 23% of the seats. Though the Conservative Party holds more seats than the others, they both out number Conservative seats, so no absolute majority exists.
So how does the end of the beginning proceed?
Conservative leader David Cameron is offering to form a coalition with the Liberal Democrats, as outlined by The Guardian. There is no British government to replace the incumbent one yet, but it’s a work in progress.
Citations
The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/may/07/general-election-2010-cameron-liberal-democrat-coalition
