Musings on the UK election from a NZ perspective (also submitted as an article for BBC news online)

I really hope that the Lib Dems can form a strong coalition with one of the other two major parties. I'm a NZ resident originally from the UK, and it is interesting to note that there is a wide reaching call for proportional representation in the UK, whereas we've had it here for many years and the popular opinion would be to go back to a first past the post system. Although ostensibly as fairer system, and one that certainly looks like it should work well on paper, it has been found that the former often means you end up with a dominant party forming a government with all the smaller (and often highly unpopular) minor parties to form a majority.
For a classic example, you only have to look back to the election before last here in New Zealand, which was a very similar situation to the current one in the UK. There was no clear majority, but Labour were in the position that the Tories now find themselves in. The National party (our equivalent of conservative) refused to deal with the Green party (who were in a very similar position to the Lib Dems) due to their vastly conflicting opinions on most subjects.
Prior to the election Labour said they would form a colation with the Greens, but it turned out that the public vocalisation of this prior to the election was probably responsible for enough of the vote being swayed in their favour to mean that they didn't have to. Hence they eventually formed government with a wide assortment of the minor parties (ACT and NZ First being the to major players). This turned out to be a very unpopular (and highly undemocratic) decision, and resulted in some dreadful appointments to government.
Possibly the worst example of this was a NZ First politician called Winston Peters being given the job of Foreign Secretary by the then Prime Minister. This was a man so disliked by government that in order that he wouldn't win his seat (and continue to disrupt parliamentary proceedings) both Labour and National joined forces to encourage the electorate to vote for whoever was ahead in the final poll before election time. They duly succeeded, and Mr. Peters lost his seat. However, the Prime Minister appointed him to the aforementioned key position in order to coax the NZ First support she needed. So a politician who was with out portfolio and was was so thoroughly disliked by both his colleagues and the public alike ended up in one of the five most powerful jobs in parliament for an entire term of office. Sure, he did tow the Labour line and largely kept his head down and did what he was told, but it was truly an embarrassment and a very sorry state of affairs for one of the self proclaimed forerunners of modern democracy to have sunk so low.
I can only hope that the Tory's are aware of this sorry little tale and that whether it be with the Blues or the Reds, the Lib Dems become the second component of the next UK government.