Joensuu

If the majority of people vote towards the centre, won't a PR system mean that the majority of MPs who are elected represent a central party (whether moderate left, right, authoritarian or liberal)? Why would coalitions be made of the basis of left and right? Scotland may or may not continue to be part of the union. For the first time in three hundred years the majority of English people don't care whether the are or not, and while a slim majority of Scots realise what they would lose and want to retain the union. Under FPTP losing Scotland would cement years of Tory governments; under PR losing Scotland would not really change the balance of power too significantly.

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Or perhaps you could choose to vote for the middle. Why couldn't centre right and centre left parties be able to form a centralist block?

Away from the centre ground, possibly, but these things balance out. More representative of the views of the country, definately. It is likely that more parties will form, each representing a niche opinion - it won't just be left v right as you imagine. Because, I find your assumption (that the very similar countries who we neighbour are too different to use as examples for how the UK might work) to be rather bizarre. We have similar economies, education systems, desires, politics, welfare, sport, recreation, desires and lifestyles. Why would we not be similar when it comes to how a hung parliament might function? Would a carrot seed and a parsnip seed be too different to each other to assume that they might act in different ways when planted?

1974 was a complete failure, and has managed to scare people away from hung parliaments, which are usually decisive, representative, and perfectly workable.

Lack of supporting evidence. Oh, and plenty of evidence to the contrary on the continent.

Source?

Think this one is going round in circles. Labour has been fruitlessly hunting down the immigrents but so far have found it expensive, and largely joyless. The Tories have dreampt up a soundbite about kicking them out, despite not knowing where 'they' are... but heck it goes down well with the skin heads and toffs. The Lib Dems have proposed something different which hasn't really been tested... considering the other policies have failed, isn't trying something new a good idea?

Ouch, spending an extra £15 Billion on armed forces. Wonder how they plan to fund that?

Well I guess you could have been there for 4 years or 15 then - if there is no record of you, then you won't get amnesty... you'll simply have alerted the authorities to your existance, whoops.

I know you're saying that with tongue firmly in cheek, but had you said it seriously I'd be inclined to agree with you...

So long as the Somaili pirate can produce evidence to support their claim to have been in the country for 10 years...

Is this the same PIS whose chairman in 2005 said: "The affirmation of homosexuality will lead to the downfall of civilization. We can't agree to it" ? And whose chairman asked his MoJ to investigate: "‘any crimes of a pedophile nature have been committed by homosexual persons"?

Says it all..

Is it acceptable for me to wear sandals to St Mary's tomorrow?

Can't access Youtube at work I'm afraid Dune. Aware that there is a huge division in Belgium based on language. It almost split the country in 2007. This might have underpinned the split. Notheless, the coalition has prevented (for now) some nasty legislation being passed, so can only be a good thing.

I don't think UKIP are to the right of the Tories, the two parties are virtually identical on every policy except Europe, in which the UKIP want out, while to Tories prefer to allie themselves with extremists... As wanting to increase trade is generally considered a right wing thing, you could argue that UKIPs hatred of Europe places them to the left of the tories (alternatively they might not be considering the economics of Europe, and instead just allowing their dislike of foreigners to cloud their opinions).

Nice work Dune, a creditable source for once. So a centre right coalition, which has been trying to pass a nasty peice of anti-muslim law, has collapsed because one of the parties grew a concience and realised it was very much the wrong thing to do... thank goodness for coalitions (wonder what would have happened in 2003 had Blair been in a coalition, would Iraq have been avoided I wonder?). Sounds to me like coalitions can help avoid extreme laws being passed...

Imagine the burden of proof would be on the illegal immigrant. There is no way that UKBA will accept hearseay. As badgerx16 pointed out, there are loads of ways for them to leave a footprint in the UK. In reality this policy will be a lot tougher than it initally sounds, and is likely to drive a lot of illegal immigants out of the shadows. Many of them will then be returned to their country of origin, but some many be able to provide enough proof to stay in the country. Point is, the policy is both workable and more likely to succeed that the Tory's unworkable rounding up of people who are hiding nonsense. Let the immigrents reveal themselves, assess their cases fairly and then put them into either 'return' or 'taxable' categories...

Our miliatary spending % of GDP is only lowish (67th out of 200) on the list of countries because the list includes about 50 small miliary dictatorships, in which generals desperately ramp up miliary spending to keep themselves in the hot seat. As such once you take these countries out, then take out countries such as South Korea & India who have miliarry problems with their neighbours, our spending is actually very high. Who is saying cut trident and replace with Y? I'm calling for scrapping it all together. Nick Clegg is calling for a review of trident (neither scrap nor replace).

I don't know which car to buy, I'd best get the most expensive top of the range one, because if I don't er, I just don't know what might happen... Surely defence spending should be based on an assessment of risk - as nukes don't help to mitigate against any risk, why waste the money, and make ourselfs a bigger target in the process?

Ha, no quote from Clegg I see... Wonder why, oh, yeah, because he was actually reacting to a crazy comment by the Bishop of Rochester in the Telegraph, on January 6 2008, who said "those of a different faith or race may find it difficult to live or work [in such areas] because of hostility to them." And also that had been attempts to "impose" an "Islamic character" on certain areas in Britain, "for example, by amplifying the call to prayer from mosques." So what was Nick's reaction to the Bishop? Nick Clegg, leader of the Liberal Democrats political party, also criticized the bishop's statements, describing his words as "a gross caricature of reality." So not really 'hey let's introduce megaphones and the call to prayer' is it?

Ay, if it came down to numbers, last I saw we were 22nd... (with the 3rd/4th highest spending). Well, I'm certain that 'not knowing' isn't really a good foundation to spend money on something. Surely, the very fact you 'don't know' suggests we should not waste the cash?

Not sure I understand how cutting trident will have an impact on the UK arms industry. They will still be able to produce their weapons for multiple countries to buy (including the MoD). Also scrapping Trident would mostly have an impact on that big British company, er, Lockhead Martin... er

It's all about scale TDD. If you are a small country determined not to be push around by the big kids nukes give you some muscle. But if you are a large economy who has friends with nukes there really is little point in retaining your own. If Russia turns hostile: 1) Why would we alone be facing them? 2) Are they more likely to nuke us if we have nukes or if we don't? 3) Are they more likely to trust us and not become hostile if we don't have nukes? I can't remember the exact numbers, but wasn't the UK estimate something like 2 days (with nukes) that we could last out against a full on Russian attack (without US support). Oh no, if we didn't have nukes we might only hold out 30 hours instead...