Hang It

There still need not be another hung Parliament.

If everyone who wanted a Labour Government voted Labour, if everyone who wanted rid of both of the Coalition parties voted Labour, and if everyone in Scotland who wanted to save the Union voted Labour, then there would be a Labour overall majority.

There probably would be if only two of those things happened.

The third of those tactics has been advocated publicly by Margaret Thatcher's closest ally, and the entire strategy was undoubtedly going to be advocated by Peter Hitchens in a column that the Mail on Sunday therefore judged too dangerous to print.

I voted Yes in the AV referendum. But, by comparison with the various forms of Proportional Representation promoted by those who do so, I cherish the fundamental equality of First Past The Post.

Each of us has one vote, that vote is counted once, the candidate with the most votes wins, and every constituent is then the responsibility of the Member of Parliament thus elected.

I should be immensely sorry to see that go, just as I should be to see the lowering of the voting age to two years below the school leaving age, or to see the direct election of part or all of the second chamber.

If there is to be an elected element in, or in place of, the House of Lords, then the electors ought to be the members of the supreme House of Commons, which is the real House of "the nations and regions" by virtue of its constituency basis.

But I know when I am beaten. I am beaten on votes at 16, and must now hold out hope that the minimum age for jurors and for parliamentary candidates will go up to 25. I am probably beaten on a directly elected second chamber, although I have not yet given up hope on that one.

And a second hung Parliament would leave me beaten on the electoral system for the House of Commons.

In the popular mind, the principal argument for First Past The Post is that it delivers strong Governments by giving them overall majorities. It would have failed to do so twice in succession, potentially resulting in 10 years of coalition government.

No one seriously imagines that a second General Election this year would deliver an overall majority if the first had delivered a hung Parliament. That happened, very narrowly, all the way back in 1974. But it would not have happened in 2010.

Nor, in that case, would it happen in 2015. We are not living in 1974. Some of us are no spring chickens despite not having been born in 1974. Scarcely any significant political figure from that period is still alive.

Another hung Parliament would necessitate the existence of a prepared plan for electoral reform.

Let each of the 99 areas having a Lord Lieutenant, areas that are conveniently called different things in each of the four parts of the United Kingdom, elect five MPs, either each of us voting for one candidate, and with the five highest scorers elected, together with the sixth in the 40 most populous (by electorate), the seventh in the 30 most populous, the eighth in the 20 most populous, and the ninth in the 10 most populous.

That would give a total of 595 MPs, and it would even save Election Night, which the legislation might require local authorities to observe. In the event of vacancies, MPs elected on a party ticket would be replaced by the nomination of that party, while Independents would be replaced by means of First Past The Post by-elections.

There would never be more than 35 Scottish Nationalists. The Liberal Democrats would disappear altogether, there being no further need of a means of voting against Labour or the Conservatives without voting Conservative or Labour.

If there must be a directly elected second chamber, then each of the 99 areas ought to elect six Senators by the above means, a total of 594, at the same time as elections to the Commons, which ought to occur every four years, not every five.

If, that is, there must be a fixed term at all. But, again, I know when I am beaten.