Editorial: Nightmare on Downing Street

Opinion

Britons will be going into this weekend feeling that their worst nightmare has come true spiced with some added horror.

Not only have they elected a hung Parliament for the first time since 1974 but by all accounts polling was a shambles, which could yet lead to legal challenges and delay the final outcome of the election.

And if all that was not enough, the nightmare coincides with gathering economic storm clouds which emphasise how urgently the country needs decisive leadership.

Instead, late on election night, there were signs of initial skirmishing in what may be a drawn-out and debilitating power struggle.

Predictably, the incumbent Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, made a bold case for being allowed to stay in Downing St.

"The outcome of this country's vote is not yet known, but my duty to the country, coming out of this election, is to play my part in Britain having a strong, stable and principled government, able to lead Britain into sustained economic recovery," he said.

For many, the obvious response to this early claim on power would be that the best thing he could do for stable government would be to acknowledge that the Conservatives, as by far the largest party - even though short of a majority - should have first go at forming a government.

Equally predictably, Conservative leader David Cameron argued the result showed Brown and Labour had lost their mandate to govern.

Before the election, it was widely expected that the Liberal Democrats would have the numbers to decide the issue and yesterday, election night in Britain, Labour was quick to promise concessions on their most cherished aim: electoral reform to give them seats in Parliament equivalent to their proportion of the vote.

But, adding a further degree of uncertainty to the already complicated equation, it looked as though the Liberal Democrats had fallen short of the number of seats they were expected to win and, even with their support, Labour would not have the numbers to form a government.

This greatly weakens the bargaining power that Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg will have in talks with Conservative leader David Cameron.

Top of Mr Clegg's agenda has always been electoral reform, and the moral force of his case was thrown into high relief during the campaign with polls showing the Liberal Democrats running neck and neck with Labour but gaining only about a quarter of the seats.

The argument will seem all too familiar to those New Zealanders who remember the late 1970s and early 1980s when minor parties attracted significant numbers of votes - from 12 to 20 per cent - but won at best a precarious toehold in Parliament.

There are significant differences between Britain now and New Zealand then. The impetus for change to proportional representation in New Zealand came not just from the minor parties but from the fact that National won two elections in its own right with a smaller proportion of the votes than Labour.

Even more important was public concern at the unbridled power that allowed successive governments to ram through highly unpopular reforms.

Without such extra impetus and given the climate of anxiety about a hung Parliament in Britain, Mr Clegg may have a harder time convincing people of his case after the election than before.

This will be especially likely if people consider that a hung Parliament, although a relatively rare phenomenon in a first-past-the-post system - just three hung Parliaments at Westminster in the 20th century - is par for the course under proportional representation.

For instance, there have been five MMP elections in New Zealand and no party has won sufficient votes to govern without some form of support from elsewhere.

And yet such election results no longer cause widespread anxiety. On the contrary, coalition talks are expected features of the political landscape for all the comment and discussion they might provoke.

It is a lesson the British would do well to learn in a hurry. It could help them wake up from their nightmare.