Surely that is not in Labour's longer term interest in Scotland. If they allow the SNP to grow credibility how do they improve their popularity in Scotland where they desperately to reverse the current trend if they are regain the seats they will lose this time?

It's not, in Scotland. But it is for Labours interest in the UK as a whole because it gets them into government. And if Labour and the SNP work relatively amicably together then it provides an option for Labour in future general elections.

It seems that both Milliband and Sturgeon are busy painting themselves into corners so that any co-operation, even informal, means that one of them will sufffer a severe loss of credibility.

I think its increasingly likely that Labour will go it alone and run a minority government. Dare the SNP to vote against, or abstain, a budget with plenty of left wing measures. Eventually they'll fall out over Trident and Devo Max but by then I dont think Milliband will be too bothered if he needs to engineer a second election in about 18 months.

Labour have again ruled out a deal with the SNP and so it won't happen. The SNP will have to tread very carefully on what they oppose a Labour government on. If they are policies their former Labour voters support and they oppose Labour for political reasons they will soon lose their newly gained support.

I think Labour will be quite prepared to suffer the odd defeat with the SNP voting against them to show both English and Scottish voters what happens if you vote SNP. For English voters it shows them the govt isn't in hock to the SNP as it hasn't done dirty deals and sold out English interests. For the Scottish voter it would illustrate if you want a Labour govt the way to get it is vote Labour not SNP.

Labour has to keep the SNP at arms length so in the next election after this the charge from the Tories about Labour/SNP alliances holds no sway at all.

The effect of the fixed term parliament act on any minority govt, Labour or Tory, is going to be interesting. It might be impossible to get a majority in a no-confidence vote as don't you need 66% now not just a simple majority?

From my albeit sketchy knowledge of it I think the Act has 2 ways in which an election can be called early.

1 is through a Vote of No Confidence by the House of Commons in the same way it always has.

The other is where 2/3rds of the House of Commons directly calls for an early general Election. So there wouldn't have to be a vote of No Confidence but there'd have to be 2/3rds of the House wanting an Early General Election.

I suppose the first way is how a minority govt could be (potentially) booted out and the 2nd way is for a sitting govt to call for another election early.

If a government was effectively unable to pass legislation and put forward a motion for an early general election, could any Leader of the Opposition not support that motion? Turn down the opportunity of an election? They'd have blokes dressed as chickens following them about everywhere.

Apparently in other countries that have fixed term parliaments its not unusual for governments to table a motion of no confidence in itself and then abstain to make sure its passed.

Spot on. All the Act did really was take the power to call a General Election out of the sole hands of the PM and into the hands of the government. So the PM would at least have to have the approval of his own party in calling an early election, the other parties as you say would all HAVE to vote for an election.

A government can still be kicked out by a straight majority vote of No Confidence.

Having said that there's no way the SNP would vote against Labour in a No Confidence vote. It'd be suicide for the SNP. Nor would UKIP & the DUP vote against the Tories if the Tories were the main party in government.

That's only if they believe that FPTP has a future, the only party still clinging to that concept is the tory party.

Labour have spent near 20 years ignoring Scotland, it'll take more than five for any confidence to return

If Milliband becomes PM, what are the chances of him taking steps towards electoral reform? Plenty of stuff on devolution, decentralisation, reducing the voting age in Labour's manifesto. Nothing on FPTP or alternative voting systems.

No party has a mandate for changing the voting system as in 2011 we had a referendum and it was rejected. Pretty high turnout of 41% of which 62% voted to keep FPTP. A pity but even the Lib Dems won't got for it in the next parliament.

In other news the economy grew less than expected in the 1st 1/4 of this year continuing a trend:

Q1 2014 0.9%
Q2 2014 0.8%
Q3 2014 0.7%
Q4 2014 0.6%
Q1 2015 0.3%

Cameron's reaction? It is a risk to let Labour in to run the economy! On those figures !!!!

The LimpDems got suckered into that referendum, that's why they refused to back boundary changes.

Instead of offering AV asd the only alternative to FPTP, the question should have been: "Do you want to see an aternative to to FPTP?". If the answer had then been "yes", an electoral college should have been set up to debate the various alternatives of PR and a short-list offered to the public in a 2nd referendum.

Far from being dead, I think it is very much on the agenda again and given we've had recent experience of coalition government, I doubt it would be too difficult a sell this time around

It depends if people see PR as a system that [ialways[/i leads to a coalition government as I get the impression the vast majority don't think much of the coalition experience, even the Tories who benefited the most.

I think it would be a harder sell than ever to most of the electorate. The ones who would favour it would be those who would like to vote for the smaller parties without it being a wasted vote but they themselves are in a minority.

Apart from a major disaster (war etc), can you envisage a time in the future when one party will gain a workable majority?

Concensus government works in most European countries, there's no reason it couldn't be effectively sold to the UK electorate

As long as there is no written constitution, it will never happen. An executive only responsible to itself will ensure that as will the unelected, unaccountable power mongers of the aristocracy and big business.

Until parliament is answerable to the electorate and an independent body then the current situation will just continue to the detriment of all but to the huge benefit of the few.

The government is responsible to and answerable to parliament. We have a written constitution. It's called the law.