There are many faults with the British parliamentary system and the voting procedures which elect its members: the smaller parties are grossly underrepresented in Parliament; the government in power can simply force through any legislation it wants; there is no real separation of the legislative and the executive branches of government, and power has been increasingly centralized with the executive during the ministries of four consecutive prime ministers.

However, one might wonder, looking at the legislative constipation currently clogging the US Congress, whether Britain really wants to abandon a system which so implacably prejudices against minority and coalition governments.

Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman offers some historical context in his New York Times Column today:

A brief history lesson: In the 17th and 18th centuries, the Polish legislature, the Sejm, operated on the unanimity principle: any member could nullify legislation by shouting “I do not allow!” This made the nation largely ungovernable, and neighboring regimes began hacking off pieces of its territory. By 1795 Poland had disappeared, not to re-emerge for more than a century.

Today, the U.S. Senate seems determined to make the Sejm look good by comparison.

Last week, after nine months, the Senate finally approved Martha Johnson to head the General Services Administration, which runs government buildings and purchases supplies. It’s an essentially nonpolitical position, and nobody questioned Ms. Johnson’s qualifications: she was approved by a vote of 94 to 2. But Senator Christopher Bond, Republican of Missouri, had put a “hold” on her appointment to pressure the government into approving a building project in Kansas City.

This dubious achievement may have inspired Senator Richard Shelby, Republican of Alabama. In any case, Mr. Shelby has now placed a hold on all outstanding Obama administration nominations — about 70 high-level government positions — until his state gets a tanker contract and a counterterrorism center.

[…]

In the past, holds were used sparingly. That’s because, as a Congressional Research Service report on the practice says, the Senate used to be ruled by “traditions of comity, courtesy, reciprocity, and accommodation.” But that was then. Rules that used to be workable have become crippling now that one of the nation’s major political parties has descended into nihilism, seeing no harm — in fact, political dividends — in making the nation ungovernable.

How bad is it? It’s so bad that I miss Newt Gingrich.

Readers may recall that in 1995 Mr. Gingrich, then speaker of the House, cut off the federal government’s funding and forced a temporary government shutdown. It was ugly and extreme, but at least Mr. Gingrich had specific demands: he wanted Bill Clinton to agree to sharp cuts in Medicare.

Today, by contrast, the Republican leaders refuse to offer any specific proposals. They inveigh against the deficit — and last month their senators voted in lockstep against any increase in the federal debt limit, a move that would have precipitated another government shutdown if Democrats hadn’t had 60 votes. But they also denounce anything that might actually reduce the deficit, including, ironically, any effort to spend Medicare funds more wisely.

And with the national G.O.P. having abdicated any responsibility for making things work, it’s only natural that individual senators should feel free to take the nation hostage until they get their pet projects funded.

America-watchers will no doubt feel a pang of deja vi writ large: California was last year held hostage by the Republican minority because the state budget had to be voted through the State Congress on a two-thirds majority.

While a country wouldn’t want to become subjugated to the tyranny of the majority, it’s also fair to say that the last thing we need is America’s situation, where parliamentary rules and circumstances allow one minority party — or, worse, individual MPs — to effectively clog the entire legislative system.

Of course, politics here is not as viciously partisan as it is across the Pond — and there is clearly no facsimile of the grossly irresponsible, wantonly contrarian Republican party — but Britain is currently facing a fiscal outlook worse than any since the Winter of Discontent, and even the slightest delay while backroom deals are made, or the merest hint that the bitter medicine Britain needs to swallow to rebalance its books will be watered down to satisfy coalition partners or backbench swing-voters, will be swiftly punished by the bond market, with catastrophic consequences for the economy and the country.

It seems that first-past-the-post might be on the way out just when we need it most.