Poll: What Does the United States Need?

[Nye Bevan]

35. The House of Commons in Westminster has 650 seats.

The Conservatives have only 303 seats and the current governing coalition only has an overall parliamentary majority because of the support of the Liberal Democrats (56 seats). If the Liberal Democrats wanted to, they could bring down the government and force new elections by siding with Labour and enlisting the support of some of the even more minor parties.

As another example, in 1977 Labour lost its overall majority in parliament and clung to power only through a "Lib-Lab pact" (an agreement that the Liberal party, which only had about 13 seats, would support the government in a no-confidence vote). Subsequently the Liberals decided to end this agreement and new elections were forced when the government lost a no-confidence vote.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lib%E2%80%93Lab_pact