With the occasional exception, and the limits imposed more by the media than Her Majesty's Opposition, the government of the day can do more or less what they feel like. This is especially true in the case of New Labour, thanks to their historically unprecedented efficient vote distribution. However, so long as the whips remain a credible force, and a government maintains a majority higher than, say, twenty or thirty, ineptitude is rarely a barrier to a Bill getting at least as far as the Lords. Quite what our ermine-encrusted saviours, by virtue of being so shamelessly and proudly unrepresentative of the nation, do once it's there is a question for another day.

The little voices in my head (the nice, merely interfering, benevolent ones) suggest that the question of whether majority government is a good thing is also a debate for another day. However, with the exception (again) of Silvio Berlusconi, and his comments ahead of tonight's big debate with Romano Prodi on Italian TV, pretty much tit-all is going on, so a dive into deep dark swampy waters is more in demand.

However, such a question, once opened, threatens to run and run, eventually ending up somewhere highly unpleasant, so I'll endeavour to be brief at the questionable expense of actually arguing coherently.

"The kind of man who demands that government enforce his ideas is always the kind whose ideas are idiotic." —H. L. Mencken

There is one hell of a case for a government to leave pretty much everything alone. This is based mainly on the fact that the grounds for their actions are only ever nice things like reason and the common good on very special occasions, and that if you give a person with any vestige of authoritarianism in him an impossible task to solve, pride and innate idiocy will ensure that something goes horribly wrong. However, this comes up against a few stumbling blocks.

First is one familiar to all GCSE history students. Laissez-faire (which, for the record: crap) gave us the Nazis, ergo leaving things along is bad and wrong. Secondly, much as no one will admit it, people want to be nannied. Doing stuff for themselves implies personal responsibility, which society has decreed is a scary thing, as it might go wrong, then you'd look like a fool in front of strangers. Much better to blame the government instead. Thirdly, as is infuriatingly the way with this sort of thing, one can't start talking about governments generally being a bit lazier without some jumped-up reactionary loons thinking you want to abolish government altogether, that you don't care about those that need the most help (even if that help is actually a hindrance) and all sorts of other nonsense, about which, I'm sure we're all rather familiar. It's like trying to argue for an unelected House of Lords and people thinking that you're arguing for the status quo. Anyway…

Parliament needs to be elected. Elections need candidates. Candidates need parties. Parties need loyalty. Ergo, whips, or some form of them will always exist. Block groupthinking at the expense of sense is a given. No way round that one. So, how to work with it? Make majorities smaller, or even eliminate them entirely, and thus parliament more responsive to sense and stuff. How to do that? A more responsive voting system. Res Ipsa Loquitur.

But, cry the wise, that's not good enough, you forget coalitions, for what are they, but makeshift majorities? Well, indeedy. This is where it gets trickier, and where the argument, as far as it comes from me, goes into 'not yet finished' territory. (We'll get to that one day, probably when the ERS Coalitions paper is completed). With this in mind, then, the questions whose answers take us from 'not yet finished' to 'yeah, that'll do':

What's wrong with a minority government? – Its power will only be disproportionate in that it gets to make the rules and no one else does, but eventually, I suppose, someone has to, and we might as well give 'em a few years, before passing it on to some other bunch to mess up. Furthermore, without a majority, more thought will have to go into things, as they have to win the argument in the other camp to get things through. And more thought per Bill = fewer Bills overall = more likely to make Good Things happen.

Don't we sometimes need disproportionately strong government to push through unpolitical, but generally good, measures? History is split on this, but if the argument is good enough, there shouldn't be a problem.

But there often is a problem: opposition parties have a lot to gain, namely, power at the next election, by blocking everything a ruling party tries to push through, especially the good stuff. It's not good politics to help out the law-makers, even if you make it very clear to the voters that it's only because of you that these good things happened. "There is no honour in politics" (Disraeli).

So, yes. Discuss.