I think there are plenty of good points to the parliamentary system but I also feel like you should have to win more than 34% of the vote to get a supermajority
Yeah. That's not parliamentary per se, it's first past the post which is the same thing we have. But it gets worse on the disproportionality when you have four parties breaking double digits and first place is in the mid-30s.
Unfortunately FPTP is like The One Ring of UK politics: whoever wins does a Boromir/Isildur and thinks "Maybe we shouldn't destroy it, maybe we should use its terrible power for good?"
Lib Dems got played hard when they had their once-in-a-generation chance in coalition with electoral reform as one of their top demands, and then let the referendum be on AV (RCV) instead of PR.
I always wonder what would have happened if Clegg hadn't gone full Lawful Neutral and decided he must go into coalition with Cameron because they'd won the most seats. If he'd entertained the idea of letting Brown pitch a Lib Lab coalition to him.
The wiki article seems to suggest that both are kind of true. Clegg said that Cameron should have the first attempt at forming a government, but they did also meet with Labour. Paddy Ashdown seemed to think that Brown was not interested in sensibly negotiating?
the press united behind the lie that the biggest party gets first shot, there's nothing in the constitution saying that but it would have made things very difficult for a Lab/Lib to make it through a year (I don't think any 20thC hung parl. did)
I had it from a LibDem insider that Brown wasn't at all interested in continuing to govern and to be fair there are a number of very good reasons not to, of which the press howling at you daily that you're illegitimate is just one.
