Fixed Term Parliaments Bill

I will indeed go into that later, but the point that my Bill tries to make is that to hold a general election in those circumstances should require a greater consensus among the political parties in the House of Commons and the other place than merely a decision by the Government of the day. The power to call an election in such circumstances still exists and must exist, but should it lie with the House or with the Government? I say that it should lie with Parliament. The fourth reason for rejecting the present system is that it leads to a rather silly macho style of politics, as we saw last autumn when the debate was effectively reduced to a version of ““Come on and try it if you're hard enough””. We ended up with a game of political chicken between the parties, each trying to outdo the other in showing that it did not fear a general election. The outcome was very nearly a general election that no party really wanted, and it is extraordinary that that situation was allowed to arise. Part of what was going on last year is another reason for rejecting the present system. Certain elements in the media wanted an election, and tried to encourage the parties to vie with another in their eagerness for one. That was because newspapers tend to sell more copies during general elections. I want us to resist the underlying thesis that politics has become simply part of the entertainment industry. The power of Governments to call elections is definitely entertaining, but it does not strike me as good governance.