Umm... UK folks, this is a *serious* problem, right?

[petulans]

Heya, folks! Long-time no-see, eh? This post is for UK folks (or for that matter other interested parties who fancy sticking their oar in - I can hardly complain what with my American Politics fixation now, can I?)

Okay, I will try to keep this brief, but I think that we have a really genuinely serious problem. I haven't been around much of the day, so am not sure if this is all over the news and if so, whether someone more knowledgeable than I may have pointed out that my fears/analysis are/is incorrect/incomplete (if anyone feels this to be the case, please let me know, as I'd really like to be wrong about this one!)

Basically, as some of you are aware, as part of the pact forming the new Conservative/Lib-Dem government they propose to shortly bring up (and presumably back with the whips) legislation to change the percentage of MPs needed to win a no-confidence vote in the Government (ie. a vote which if it is called and goes against the Government, leads to the dissolution of the house, fall of the Government and a new election being called.) Previously this has had a 50% threshold. The new legislation would increase this to 55%.

As I see it, there are the following issues:

• It would mean that 54% of MPs, currently representing around 2/3rds of the UK public would be unable win a no-confidence vote! This is bad enough in terms of representative democracy front, but on the principles front surely this impressively manages to be both opposite in spirit of the PR reforms the Lib Dems want and yet the opposite of Tory reservations against PR on the 'stops people bringing down an unpopular government.' front.
  
• Even worse than that, it leads to the potential for situations where, were the Lib Dems to exit the coalition then the Government would be unable to win votes as they would have less than the necessary 50% of MPs, the other parties would be unable to win the no-confidence vote which would normally result from a Government which was frequently/persistently unable to meaningfully pass legislation as they'd have less than the necessary 55% of MPs for this.
  
• For that matter given that there's also legislation in the agreement for fixed-term parliaments, then the Government in the situation described previously wouldn't even be able to call a new election to try and remedy the crisis described above by booting it back to the voters.

The only way out of this that I see is potentially having MPs of the governing party joining the no-confidence vote in whatever numbers would be necessary to get above 55%. However, in many circumstances (one example being if the party wasn't doing too well in polling which indicated that they would be likely to lose seats if a new election were called) this is likely to be opposed by the Government and its whips, especially as there'd be a temptation to try and blame the other parties for 'paralysing' the Government and trying to capitalise on that blame, thus only furthering the paralysis.

Ummm... yeah, I could go on (and on and on and on) on just this issue alone as there are other really troubling scenarios which could play out in future parliaments depending on their make-up, and it really worries me, but I figure I should open up the floor to discussion (as I said, hopefully of the "calm down, Greg - this wouldn't play the ways you're describing because of X, Y and Z fronts!) I may post later on my thoughts in general (ha ha) on the election, but at the moment, this issue is kinda dominating for me.

Edit : Links are here (full text of pact, relevant section about 1/3rd of the way down under "6. Political Reform") and here (BBC condensed bullet-pointed version, about 1/4 of the way down under "Political Reform")