Having got its AV referendum bill through Second Reading - but with bloody battles still to come, one suspects - the next piece of constitutional vandalism the Coalition intends to visit upon us is fixed term parliaments. I have previously explained why I consider them unnecessary and why they are undesirable. Indeed, in many ways fixed term Parliaments are even worse in concept than AV. I assume that the limited public outcry about their introduction is because the Americans use them - and obviously any constitutional arrangement the Americans use must be okay.
Of course, much that is foolish follows from this. If one advocates fixed term parliaments, it's rather embarrassing to pursue things like a minority administration - because that would involve committing to being in a minority for four or five years, rather than just a few months followed by a new General Election. So Coalitions become that much more necessary.
Since our leadership has lurched from one extreme (fixed term Parliaments) to another (dissolutions triggered by any change in prime minister) and back again on parliamentary terms in just a few months, they clearly don't have any settled internal view on the point. What's happened here is just that we've ended up lumbered with that one of our leadership's opportunistic vote-chasing constituitional innovations on the question that the Lib Dems felt most comfortable with.
It remains a policy in search of a rationale, a policy that undermines a key plank of the constitutional monarchy, and a policy that is blatantly not as good as what we've had up to now. I know that these three objections carry little weight - but doesn't that tell you something??
I'm not expecting anyone to pay any attention on this point. But at least I tried...