Fixed Term Parliaments

All the farce about a possible election over the past few weeks has led me once again to consider the benefits of fixed term parliaments. Other countries operate this quite successfully so why shouldn't we. At the moment the Government of the day can choose the timing of the election and inevitably pick a time which most suits them. This is acting in their interests, but not necessarily the country's interests.

Surely in a modern democracy we can cope with fixed length parliaments, preferably of four years in duration. That was everyone knows where they are and this silly phoney war doesn't happen. If we were really bold and coupled it with sensible hours for parliament actually sitting ans introduced more efficient voting methods then we could make it somewhere where things actually got done.