In the early days of the Tory-Lib Dem Coalition ministers were faced with a problem.

The decision had been taken to lock in the government for a fixed term parliament lasting five years.

This was necessary, it was felt, to create stability and ensure that neither party could flounce off, triggering another general election.

The full ramifications of the decision to go for five years instead of four, creating one of the longest parliaments since World War Two, will only really be felt in the next five months.

But it caused an early dilemma for Coalition ministers.

The end of the term, 2015, was also the date of the next Holyrood elections.

Should they both happen on the same date? Or should one be moved?

And so an announcement was made that whoever won the 2011 Scottish Parliament vote, in this case the SNP, would have an extra year in power with elections not held again until 2016.

Last week that principle of separate votes on separate days was one of the less controversial parts of the Smith Commission on new powers for Scotland.

While the control over elections should be devolved to Holyrood, it recommended: "UK legislation will prevent the Scottish Parliament deciding that general elections should be held on the same day as general elections to the UK Parliament, European Parliament or local government elections in Scotland."

And yet there are some MPs and peers both in Labour and the Liberal Democrats who query whether this would be best for Scots, and, it has to be said, for their own party political advantage.

They argue that there are potential benefits of a co-called "day of democracy".

In purely selfish political terms these include that parties could run on a "joint ticket" with their colleagues at Westminster.

This, it is argued, could allow the pro-UK parties to highlight how they 'stick up for Scotland' through co-operation rather than conflict more often than they currently do.

It is not an argument,it has to be said, that is ever likely to win over the SNP.

The other main reason is turnout.

It might be a strange time to think about the issue following a record turnout in some parts of Scotland for the independence referendum.

And some experts argues lower voter numbers are not necessarily cause for alarm - that when elections are tight, and the electorate does not necessarily know who is going to win, they tend to vote.

Sitting at home, under this argument, is not always a bad thing, because it suggests voters are broadly happy with the expected result.

But some warn there are real long term concerns.

The argument runs that a "democracy day" would encourage many to the voting booth.

In the Smith Commission deliberations part of the concern was that joint elections could crowd out proper discussion of issues distinctive to each election.

There are others who argue that the low profile of some politicians, no matter at what level, councillor, MP, MSP could be exacerbated if all were fighting elections at the same time.

But others believe the opposite.

That high-flyers in some parties, Charles Kennedy in the Lib Dems say, could help throw some of their magic on to their colleagues during joint campaigns.

One Lib Dem reports that when the idea was discussed within his party there was particular opposition from councillors.

They felt that the specific issues on which they were campaigning would get little or no notice from the public in joint elections.

Would voters concerns about bin collections and local schools likely to go away just because another set of politicians is talking about, say, the economy, at the same time?

Of course in the background to all this is the spectre of the scenes that surrounded the 2007 Holyrood elections.

Then 140,000 spoilt ballot papers after the two separate voting systems were included on the same ballot paper.

But some pro-UK politicians are wondering whether what was essentially an administrative error has blinded their colleagues to wider possibilities.