Democratic Society blog archive

The fixed-term Parliaments idea is around again, which is rather a shame. Fixed-term parliaments are the concession-that’s-not-a-concession of reform, the democratic renewal equivalent of telling your spouse “I’m sorry that you’re angry”.

Astonishingly, people take great umbrage at the existence of this power. Here’s Anthony Barnett on the topic (in relation to Henry Porter’s new civil-liberties novel, The Dying Light):

There is a small dark power that haunts this land. The power of the Prime Minister to call an election at his own timing, manipulating events in the interests of accumulating and continuing a personal influence that is rooted in kingship not democracy.

The importance of the power to call elections is minimal at best – more Casper the friendly ghost than a dark power haunting the land. Hadleigh Roberts makes the obvious case that fixing it won’t fix politics. I would argue that it won’t even make much difference to the length of Parliaments.

As the Canadians know and the Germans found out, any fixed-term Parliament needs a get-out clause for situations like February 1974, where a Parliament is hung and can’t transact business. Let’s take out of the equation, therefore, those elections where Parliaments were elected with majorities of ten or lower.

In the other elections since 1945, the most common length of a Parliament has been about four years. In fact, it has been just over – four years and five months.

All the outliers in terms of parliamentary terms have been on the long side, not the short. John Major in 1997 – five years. Gordon Brown now – likely to be five years.

Can you spot the similarity? Prime Ministers who make use of their electoral discretion are not monarchical dictators warping the will of the people, they are condemned men delaying the execution date in the vain hope of a reprieve.

If you look at the terms of successful Parliaments – ones where the governing party were returned to power – since 1945 they average four years and fifty-one days. So this reform would shorten the length of successful PM’s Parliaments by just over seven weeks. Do we not have more important things to do?

This entry was posted on Monday, September 14th, 2009 at 5:39 pm and is filed under Constitutional Reform. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.