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Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

If the hon. Gentleman is arguing that Parliaments that last for five years are more likely to end with the defeat of the Government, he should be wholeheartedly embracing the coalition's plans to make this Parliament last for five years. If there is something so constitutionally or democratically wrong with five-year Parliaments, why on earth did we have to endure the previous Government from 2005 until 2010? If five-year Parliaments are wrong in principle, as several Labour Members seem to suggest, why did not the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown)—I apologise if I have not pronounced the right hon. Gentleman's constituency correctly, but as I have heard him speak in the House so rarely, I am not sure how to pronounce it—do the entire country a favour and call an election in 2009? We then could have started clearing up the mess of the worst financial deficit that this country has faced since the second world war a year earlier.