alternatehistory.com

The Conservatives would be faced with a precarious situation throughout the entire 2010-2014 parliament. Never having a majority of more than three seats, the Hague ministry was often forced to resort to three-line whips on important legislation, especially related to Europe, or on the support of conservative Northern Ireland unionist parties. Hague's second term in office, in contrast to his first, would not see many many more drastic changes made to the status quo, although the government did introduce legislation that modified funding given to the devolved governments of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland to be based more on fiscal necessity than by population alone. This had the effect of reducing money to all three regions- something that resulted in the near-wipeout of the Scottish and Welsh Conservatives in those assembly's elections in 2013 and made Hague unpopular in the non-English part of the United Kingdom.

Labour had replaced Jon Cruddas with Scottish MP Jim Murphy. Murphy, unlike Cruddas, was more of an establishment figure and despite his biting criticisms of the funding reform and Hague's close relationship with US President Riley (especially as the American president's reputation began falling in Europe owing to the lobbyist scandals), he remained unable to mobilize non-English voters for a massive Labour wave that party strategists hoped would give them a victory in the general election.

Murphy's attempt was aided somewhat by the retirement of Democratic leader Malcolm Bruce in favor of Simon Hughes. Hughes became the first openly gay major party leader in British history, but this was marred by him having entered parliament in one of the nastiest by-elections in UK history that, ironically, spread homophobic innuendo about the Labour candidate and while he was facing an ethics investigation (that ended up being unfounded).

In 2014, owing to two party members resigning their seats, the Conservatives fell below the nominative threshold for a majority but still had an effective majority owing to Sinn Féin's abstentionist policy that had their seven MPs refuse to take their seats. Hague took this opportunity to call for a new election, hoping to keep the majority through a general election campaign instead of hoping on two by-election victories.



The results led to the second hung parliament in 13 years. The only chance for a coalition, between the Conservatives and Democrats, was seemingly doomed from the outset. The Democrats, remembering how they had lost over a third of their parliamentary group the last time they had propped up an incumbent prime minister who had lost his majority, were disinclined to enter into another coalition. As a result, the negotiations went nowhere and Hague began his parliament with a supply-and-confidence deal with the Democrats that would last until January 2015, long enough to give each party time to prepare for new general elections...