Editor says, what if the last-minute compromise on the Coalition Government was its undoing? Please note that the opinions expressed in this post do not necessarily reflect the views of the author(s).

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Scott Palter commented on 2010-05-15 03:09:10 ~
I am American not British but one of my business partners is British so I claim some familiarity with the mentality. Such a bait and switch would not go over well with the British electorate. Plus a snap election is likely to hit the LD's the worst for other reasons: 1. Their voter base sees itself as left and seems per Guardian and other media not to be happy about a Tory alliance 2. The level of austerity in the new budget will not sit well with British voters in general 3. AV gives the Tories a good number of UKIP and BNP second votes which per the Telegraph would have been worth half a dozen seats this past election.

Raymond Speer commented on 2010-05-15 04:03:08 ~
The first paragraph of the alternative history is false. The British electorate never overwhelmingly endorsed Transferable Vote or any other kind of election reform. According to the story, in that other world Cameron promised Clegg a referendum on voting reform. Tories are consistent with Major's declaration that the Tories will see change come through debate in the Commons and votes on the issues. What the Tories are adverse to are California/ New Zealand type plebiscites in which people vote directly to change laws. In that other world, the Conservatives apparently don't care if change comes to the Government by direct votes from the people.
Another point of exaggeration in the alt-world report is that half of the LIB Dems are now coalition Cabinet members.
Please note that I did say "had received a Whitehall appointment" not a Cabinet position they're not the same, read this article on the BBC News Web Site "There are expected to be about 20 Lib Dems - more than a third of their MPs - in government jobs in total".
Sorry. that is about 25 Cabinet members for the junior partners when the total size of the Cameron Cabinet is going to not exceed 30 with the LD no more than five.
And my final comment is that First Past The Post has fans. For one thing, it generates legislatures in which one of two major parties always organizes the Legislature and there is no bull in which minute parties cut deals. I think many Britons, Canadians and Americans like the venerable old system and prefer it to the Transferable Vote that the Liberals have pushed every year since 1920!

Eric Oppen commented on 2010-05-16 21:46:16 ~
Can't really comment here---British politics make no sense to me; if I were British myself, I'd vote UKIP.