Boris Johnson has inadvertently taught us the greatest skill in politics: compromise | Martin Kettle

The prime minister’s failure to get his way has been an inspiring case study in the limits imposed by a hung parliament

Before we all charge off into the electoral unknown, let us remember some realities that are at risk of being left behind in the rush. In the 30 years before 2010, no British general election produced a hung parliament. In the nine years since 2010, two have done so. Nothing about this is predictive for 12 December. But it is clearly within the bounds of possibility that there could be a third hung parliament – and a fourth Conservative government in this decade without an overall majority.

“Single-party government is the British norm,” wrote the political scientist David Butler in a 1978 book, Coalitions in British Politics, that presciently considered what might happen if that norm were ever to change. Forty years on, change has come. In this election at least seven British parties, and three more in Northern Ireland, could win seats. So the new norm could easily continue, recur or perhaps even become more entrenched.

We live in a Britain of disintegrating and lighter political loyalties

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