Since World War II, there has only been one exception to the rule that in the UK we do not have hung parliaments.
What are they and why do we not have them very often?
What is a hung parliament?
A hung parliament is one in which no party has an overall majority, which means no party has more than half of MPs in the House of Commons.
It means that the government will not be able to win votes to pass laws without the support of members of other parties.
At the next election the number of seats contested will be increasing from 646 to 650 as a result of boundary reforms.
That means that on the face of it, an absolute majority would require one party to win 326 seats and that if no party won that many seats there would be a hung parliament.
In reality, it is not quite that simple because the speaker and his deputies, although members of parliament, do not usually vote.
Also, in the current parliament, there are four Sinn Fein MPs who refuse to take the oath of allegiance to the Queen and as a result are not entitled to vote.
What happens if there is a hung parliament?
The party with the largest number of seats will usually be asked to try to form a government.
It can do that by trying to forge an alliance with a smaller party to create a coalition government, which would usually involve policy concessions and allowing members of the smaller party into the cabinet.
In some countries, instead of forming coalition governments, they have reached agreements with smaller parties that they will support the government if there is a vote in parliament aimed at bringing down the government and forcing an election.
Another possibility is for the biggest party to form a minority government with no agreements with other parties and just try to form majorities in favour of each individual bill as it comes up.
If no party is prepared to go down one of these paths then parliament will be dissolved again and there will be another election.
Has this happened in the UK before?
In the first of the two elections in 1974 there was no outright majority.
Labour won 301 seats compared with the Conservative Party's 297.
Harold Wilson formed a minority government, but it did not last for long, with another election in October 1974 giving Harold Wilson a slim majority of only three seats.
There was also a hung parliament following the 1929 general election, with Ramsey MacDonald's Labour Party winning 287 seats to Stanley Baldwin's Conservatives 260 and David Lloyd George's Liberals 59.
Occasionally, parliaments have also become hung parliaments in the middle of a session as a result of by-elections, as happened to John Major's Conservative government in 1996.
But that still means there have only been a handful of hung parliaments in the UK.
Other countries seem to have loads of them. Why don't we?
It is all to do with the electoral system.
What are they and why do we not have them very often?
What is a hung parliament?
A hung parliament is one in which no party has an overall majority, which means no party has more than half of MPs in the House of Commons.
It means that the government will not be able to win votes to pass laws without the support of members of other parties.
At the next election the number of seats contested will be increasing from 646 to 650 as a result of boundary reforms.
That means that on the face of it, an absolute majority would require one party to win 326 seats and that if no party won that many seats there would be a hung parliament.
In reality, it is not quite that simple because the speaker and his deputies, although members of parliament, do not usually vote.
Also, in the current parliament, there are four Sinn Fein MPs who refuse to take the oath of allegiance to the Queen and as a result are not entitled to vote.
What happens if there is a hung parliament?
The party with the largest number of seats will usually be asked to try to form a government.
It can do that by trying to forge an alliance with a smaller party to create a coalition government, which would usually involve policy concessions and allowing members of the smaller party into the cabinet.
In some countries, instead of forming coalition governments, they have reached agreements with smaller parties that they will support the government if there is a vote in parliament aimed at bringing down the government and forcing an election.
Another possibility is for the biggest party to form a minority government with no agreements with other parties and just try to form majorities in favour of each individual bill as it comes up.
If no party is prepared to go down one of these paths then parliament will be dissolved again and there will be another election.
Has this happened in the UK before?
In the first of the two elections in 1974 there was no outright majority.
Labour won 301 seats compared with the Conservative Party's 297.
Harold Wilson formed a minority government, but it did not last for long, with another election in October 1974 giving Harold Wilson a slim majority of only three seats.
There was also a hung parliament following the 1929 general election, with Ramsey MacDonald's Labour Party winning 287 seats to Stanley Baldwin's Conservatives 260 and David Lloyd George's Liberals 59.
Occasionally, parliaments have also become hung parliaments in the middle of a session as a result of by-elections, as happened to John Major's Conservative government in 1996.
But that still means there have only been a handful of hung parliaments in the UK.
Other countries seem to have loads of them. Why don't we?
It is all to do with the electoral system.
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