Of course voters prefer single-party governments!

For the political geek there were some interesting stats in this week's Opinium / Observer poll, centred around what should happen if there's another hung parliament in 2015.

We asked whether government made up of just one political party or governments made up of multiple parties in coalition best served Britain and the result was fairly overwhelming support for single-party governments by 55% to 15%.

There are a few explanations for this and one is that the majority of governments since our political system began its current incarnation in 1945 have been single party and all of the ones that are remembered generally as successful are single party including the icons of the left (Clement Attlee) and the right (Maggie). Aside from the national government during the second world war, which I expect most simply associate with Winston Churchill rather than parties, the only period of multi-party government was the Lib-Lab pact of the 1970's which few remember fondly.




But the main reason is probably this: people vote for one party! 'Single party government' is seen by respondents as 'single government by my party' while 'multi party government' is 'my party sharing power with others I don't like'. Even Lib Dems were split, 37% to 36%, in favour of single party governments.

The other interesting stat for me was what voters think should happen in the event of a split decision where one party has the most votes but a different party has the most seats. Constitutionally of course the party with the most seats wins as the government is determined by the balance of the House of Commons whose members just happen to be elected. 58% of voters say the party with the most votes would be the 'winner' and should have the right to form the government vs. just 26% who said it was the party with the most seats.

This probably isn't a new finding and if you'd asked this question on a poll about 40 years ago then the answer might be the same, if less convincingly. But the connection between who the government is and how the public votes is less formally established than in most other modern democracies so it's interesting that they have become so overwhelmingly connected in the public mind. One of the best books I read in the last year or so was Mr Balfour's Poodle by Roy Jenkins about the passage of the Parliament Acts in 1910 to establish the supremacy of the House of Commons (as the expression of the 'will of the people') over the House of Lords. The Liberals had won a convincing election victory but were continually blocked from enacting legislation by the Conservative majority in the Lords. It's well worth a read if you're interested in one of the key stages in the establishment of democratic government in the UK.

40 years ago, coincidentally, is the last time that this particular scenario happened and despite the Conservatives winning by over a hundred thousand votes, Harold Wilson returned as prime minister. One thing about a parliamentary system though is that the strength of a government is directly related to how it came to power. Close elections tend to result in unworkably small majorities and short lived governments so winning on votes but losing on seats may be worse for a party in the long term than the other way around.