Minority government: it can work if politicians thinks big

Minority government is alien to the British system in the minds of most politicians. But if current polls are reflected in the 7 May result, and if no coalition partnership is forthcoming, we could be heading for the first government without a majority in the Commons since February 1974.

The leader of that minority government was Harold Wilson whose Labour Party won more seats – despite getting fewer votes - than Edward Heath and the Tories.

Wilson had just one thing on his mind – to bring in a raft of popular polices and go for a second election where he could get a majority. He duly raised pensions, tightened price controls, provided food subsidies and indeed won a majority – albeit a narrow one - in October. (For the detail, go to Chapter 27 of Ben Pimlott’s 800-page biography, ‘Harold Wilson’.)

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But as Martin Kettle has argued in The Guardian, the fixed term parliament act would make calling a quick election difficult. So why not a minority government that thinks positively?

Nick Pearce argues in today’s Financial Times that the best guide to how a successful minority government might play out is 1910. Liberal leader Herbert Asquith may have lost his governing majority that year, but he went on to lead “perhaps the most successful minority government in modern British history”.

Pearce, who heads the Institute for Public Policy Research, says minority governments fail “when they focus solely on parliamentary survival, staggering from vote to vote and surrendering the initiative to the opposing party”.

• Countdown to 7 May: check The Week's daily election round-up

What Asquith proved in 1910 was that politicians can accomplish much more than many currently realise — “but only if they are prepared to venture further from their usual ideological habitats” and form “broad alliances”.

Pearce writes: “Governing with support from a progressive alliance of Irish nationalists and the infant Labour Party” Asquith’s Liberals “passed historic constitutional reforms that established the primacy of elected MPs over the House of Lords and broke the landed gentry’s hold on power. They created a national insurance system that laid the foundations for the modern welfare state.”

Food for thought for Ed Miliband, who – because of the hostility of the SNP towards the Conservatives, and based on current projections – is the leader most likely to be able to form the type of broad alliance Pearce advocates.

Labour is in the lead in two of the latest polls and level-pegging in the third.

Populus: Labour 34%, Tories 31%, Ukip 14%, Lib Dems 8%, Others 13%.

YouGov: Labour 35%, Tories 33%, Ukip 14%, Lib Dems 7%, Greens 6%.

Ashcroft National Poll: Labour 31%, Tories 31%, Ukip 15%, Lib Dems 8%, Greens 9%. Ashcroft also gives a regional breakdown showing that in England the Tories lead Labour by 34% to 30%. That looks good until you check with the 2010 result when the Conservatives enjoyed a lead in England of 11%. Such a swing against the Tories could cost them more than 40 seats on 7 May.