UK to get a taste of minority parliaments?

The opinion polls are starting to look that way:

A ComRes survey for the Independent showed the Tory lead over Labour narrowing to five points in the past month. A YouGov survey for the Sun gave the Tories a seven-point margin, well up on the weekend's low of two but still short of the double-digit lead David Cameron needs to be confident of a Commons majority.

Both surveys were conducted before the Tory peer and fundraiser Lord Ashcroft revealed he had "non-dom" tax status yesterday.

The polls reinforce the recent trend showing Labour gaining ground on the Tories as the election, expected on 6 May, approaches.

The Independent survey was taken over the weekend, when Cameron admitted to his party's spring conference that the Conservatives faced a "real fight" to win power.

While the findings give the Tories a bigger share of the popular vote, the poll rating suggests Labour would be returned to government with the most MPs under the first-past-the-post electoral system.

This would leave Labour short of an outright majority, however, and so it would be forced to strike deals with the smaller parties for support on controversial issues.

Fears of a hung parliament sent sterling temporarily to a nine-month low against the dollar yesterday following another YouGov poll at the weekend suggesting the Tory lead was down to just two points.

From the Guardian. Depending on how far short Labour falls, who would be the most likely partner in a coalition or accord? I'm thinking the Liberal Democrats (if Labour isn't too far short of a majority, Respect is a theoretical possibility, but that seems like too much to hope for). What kind of concessions might the Lib Dems extract? This could have interesting consequences, especially if electoral reform is on the table.

Iggy adopts Steve's attitude to cooperation

So now Ignatieff has ruled out a coalition as well:

Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff vowed Friday that his party would never enter into a governing coalition and said he could make Parliament work without such a deal.

"In January, we did not support a coalition, and we do not support a coalition today or tomorrow," Ignatieff told reporters in Ottawa.

Ignatieff said he wouldn't need to form a parliamentary pact because, unlike Prime Minister Stephen Harper, he doesn't treat political adversaries as enemies.

Source. I don't know, saying you'll never form a coalition, no matter what, sounds a lot like treating your adversaries as enemies to me. Fair enough to say, "we have no plans to form a coalition at this stage", but to categorically reject the idea seems a bit extreme.

To be fair, the idea of a coalition has been badly smeared over the last year, so it's understandable that Iggy might see it as something best avoided, but I think it would be a lot more constructive to try to sell the public on the idea. Most of Europe is governed by coalition governments most of the time, for instance. Of course, most of Europe has proportional representation, so the parties know from the start that they're unlikely to ever get a majority government. The prospect of that tends to focus the mind wonderfully. But as long as the Bloc is a major player, majority governments are pretty unlikely here, too, so it's high time the Liberals and Conservatives acknowledged that fact. Maybe then we could make Parliament work.

What Steve says in private

As we know, Canadians -- even those who are willing to support the Conservatives out of hatred of the Liberals -- are leery of giving them a majority. You've doubtless noticed the fact that they never seem to say the M-word in public. In front of the party faithful, though, it's a different story:

Of course, all the leaders (except Gilles) want a majority, but Harper's unwillingness to talk about it in public is telling. And when he talks about how a coalition will surely arise if the Cons don't get what they want (far from clear, but never mind), his followers take it for granted that this would be an utterly evil thing. Never mind that Harper's European counterparts like Angela Merkel would never think of trying to run a minority government on their own... his message seems to be "Vote for me, and I promise I will not cooperate with anyone". Nice.

ETA: the whole speech can be found here; hat tip to A BCer in Toronto.