UK elections On May 5 elections for English local councils, the Scottish parliament and assemblies in Wales and Northern Ireland took place as well as a referendum on reforming the voting system for UK parliamentary elections
Nationalist MSPs decide to play safe by choosing one of their own, Tricia Marwick, for the crucial role of presiding officer, tightening party’s grip on Holyrood
Scottish business leaders are avoiding expressing alarm at the Scottish National Party’s poll victory – in spite of its intention to hold a referendum on independence
Westminster promises not to block a referendum on Scottish independence and to look at speeding up granting powers to Holyrood, as the SNP leader dismisses polls showing weak support for the move
Negotiations to begin on newly elected Stormont government after elections in which the Democratic Unionist and Sinn Féin took seats from unionist and nationalist rivals
With Lib Dem representation demolished acrosss large areas of the country, being in Nick Clegg’s shoes at the moment is an unenviable task which no party member has moved to take on
An interactive feature explaining the differences between the existing ‘first-past-the-post’ and the proposed ‘alternative vote’ system, also illustrating how the result of the 2010 general election might have been different had it been contested under the AV system
The Green party is running twice as many district council candidates as Labour and the Liberal Dems combined in West Somerset, where Britain’s first new nuclear power station is expected to be built
Once formidable opposition are dead on their feet in the run up to local elections as a result of a combination of unpopular local decisions and the national coalition
In Eastleigh, the party’s fliers for the council elections don’t mention MP Chris Huhne’s second job – as a cabinet minister – and attack ‘Tory county cuts’
Leicester South will be voting on councillors, a new MP, the alternative vote and a mayor, with the interest meaning 55 per cent of the electorate are expected to take part
In this brilliant counter-history, philosophy professor Domenico Losurdo shows how liberals have been failing to live up to their ideals, but argues that this is no reason to lose faith in liberalism
Britain’s biggest constitutional issue is the question of independence for Scotland, driven by a canny Alex Samond, SNP leader, after an overwhelming election victory. David Cameron must look out: secession would be a disaster
A switch to AV would not solve all the problems. But it would compel more MPs to appeal to a wider group of constituents and would make the House of Commons more representative of the electorate, writes Philip Stephens
Those who think impending defeat will mean the beginning of the end for the bruised Liberal Democrat leader should think again, writes John Kampfner
Unionists console themselves with polls that say while Scots are happy to put nationalists into office, more than two-thirds oppose separation, writes Philip Stephens
There is no economic reason to fear a new voting system as this week’s referendum on the alternative vote offers a chance to update an antiquated system
Even if the alternative vote – which prevents anyone being elected without the support of half the voters – is not the official system, voters will tend to behave as if it were. And in Britain, they do, writes.John Kay
The alternative vote system would be an advance on first-past-the-post, which has become less representative in an era of multi-party politics
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