h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

That may be - but AFAIK the major parties in those countries are a LOT closer together on Major issues than those in the UK!

The major parties may be closer together in opinion, but only because there are more of them. The UK, despite the Liberal Democrats best efforts, is a two party system. Most European nations with a PR system have 4 or more major political parties, all of which at one point or another have formed part of a Government.

The problem in the UK is that the electoral system means that to split off from one of the two main parties is electoral suicide, ie SDP from Labour in the 80's. Therefore both parties have threads of opinion within them that are mutually exclusive, and nothing really gets done. If a PR system were introduced into the UK, then these threads could split off and form their own parties yet have a reasonable chance of electoral success and an input into a future Government.

This seems unlikely - Coalition Govts don't seem to work in the UK - IIRC the last one only lasted a couple of years (lib-lab pact?) and was a bit of a disaster...

It might work......