I've just watched Gordon Brown's valedictory speech live on the television and then Cameron's response as he entered Downing Street - both of which I have to say were generous, statesmanlike and dignified. The same could certainly not be said of John Prescott, who seemed to have been collared for some comments by Channel 4 News just as Brown was on his way to see the Queen. In fact, within five minutes of Brown leaving Downing Street, Prezza already seemed to have started the next General Election campaign. He was rehearsing the rhetoric about the "Liberals being the same as the Tories," which no doubt will become drearily familiar over the next couple of years and seemed to be more interested in Labour's preparations for making trouble in opposition than what form the government of our country might take.
In the past few days, many column inches have been devoted to the possibility of a so-called "progressive coalition," to keep David Cameron out of No.10. Without commenting on the desirability of such an arrangement, it seems to me that it was never viable, not least because a Lib-Lab arrangement would be unable to command a majority in the Commons.
In addition to that, there's the "progressive" bit. Many, many moons ago I was a member of the Labour Party and I have to say that only someone who had never been a member could possibly think that everyone in the Labour Party is "progressive." Many are, of course, but others are as conservative with a small "c" on issues of political reform as the most right-wing Tories - one only needs to look at the government's "achievements" during the last 13 years to see that.
In addition, the support or at least acquiescence of the nationalist parties would be needed. I can't remember who it was that said that the unionists were the undertakers of any government, but if that's so then the nationalists surely must be sharks - their support can be bought at a price, but they would certainly move in for the kill as and when it suited them. The concessions they would have extracted would surely have made any such coalition deeply unpopular with English voters. I was particularly amused to see that the SNP claimed to be terribly concerned about preventing the Tories from taking power. The reality is that they must be rubbing their hands at the prospect of a Conservative PM in Downing Street, which could pave the way for a successful referendum on independence. Cameron is surely well aware that he will have to tread carefully north of the border.
The negotiations between the Tories and Lib Dems were undoubtedly conducted in a serious spirit; those between Labour and the Lib Dems, conversely, had an air of political theatre about them. In the first place, many Labour backbenchers and even cabinet ministers were opposed from the outset to the "coalition of the losers" which, probably correctly, they considered to be an electoral suicide pact. It may be that the appearance of serious talks served a purpose for both parties: for Labour, they can claim that the Lib Dems rejected a "better deal" than the Tories offered them, on the basis of their deathbed conversion to the importance of proportional representation, not expanding Heathrow airport and so on. On the other hand, the Lib Dems will be trying to demonstrate that a coalition deal with Labour was never viable, in an attempt to pacify their radical leftie supporters who will be horrified about a deal with the Tories. Anyway, the recriminations had already started on Newsnight with Ben Bradshaw spinning the "party line" that the evil Lib Dems were determined to lever Cameron into No.10 no matter what. More entertainingly still, Labour are apparently now the new "radical" party and plan to "reconnect with their voters." Well at least they have finally managed to admit that they are completely out of touch.
Nick Clegg may be left with the feeling that he was not so much the kingmaker as the pawn in this particular chess game. In the end, he was left with a choice between a deal with the Tories or nothing: and of course nothing would mean a Tory minority government, constitutional crisis and another election within 6-12 months in which the Lib Dems would likely be hammered from both sides - not least because the two main parties are far better funded. I don't know whether Vince Cable had read my last blog posting, but he apparently intervened at a meeting of Lib Dems yesterday to describe a Tory deal as the "least worst option."
Perhaps the most intriguing figure in this whole episode is David Cameron. For him, forming a minority government with another election to follow would have been a viable alternative, as he was urged to do by some of the right-wingers in his own party; yet instead, he chose to enter a coalition with the Lib Dems. It seems there is some genuine personal rapport between the two party leaders which may at least in part explain the success of the negotiations that have established Britain's first coalition government since the war. But what were Cameron's real reasons for doing the deal?
Well, of course there may be an element of political calculation - after all, the Lib Dems are the natural home for disgruntled Tories, so the political fallout from any difficult decisions in the coming months may be limited by having them as part of the government. He may even see the arrangement as a way of moderating the influence of certain backbenchers and ditching awkward policies like the ludicrous pledge to increase the inheritance tax threshhold to £1,000,000. Maybe it was Cameron's response to the "Scottish problem," to try and get more Scottish MPs in the governing coalition; or perhaps it is that rarest of all pearls in politics: genuine statesmanship. We may never know - or at least we may have to wait ten years for the memoirs to come out. What we will discover over the coming months and years is the level of commitment of both parties to the coalition - and whether the Tories are really prepared to deliver even the very limited reform they have promised; I hope they are.
As I mentioned before, the process of entering government will force the Lib Dems to define much more clearly what they stand for. I'm disappointed at the election of a Tory-led administration, though it cannot be disputed that the two parties together did command the support of a majority of the electorate. Obviously it would be hypocritical to accuse the Lib Dems of "betrayal", since they never had my support in the first place - the possibility of them supporting the Tories into No.10 being one of the reasons for that. I also formed the view quite a long while ago that if we wanted more Green MPs we would have to fight to get them under something like the existing system - an opinion that has been entirely vindicated by recent events; those people who voted "tactically" for the Lib Dems at the last election, please take note.
However, now is not the time for churlishness. Like it or loathe it, the arrangement between the Tories and Lib Dems is historic, with Nick Clegg taking over as deputy prime minister - meaning that he could actually be answering Prime Minister's Questions on occasion in the Commons. And I will say one thing in is favour - whatever he achieves in the post, he surely cannot fail to make a better fist of it than John Prescott!
Tuesday, 11 May 2010
Saturday, 8 May 2010
Clegg's difficult decision
Well, the dust has settled a bit now over the election, and I would of course like to start by thanking the 1,669 people who voted Green in York Central, along with my fantastic campaign team who helped to deliver something in the region of 70,000 leaflets in the past 4 weeks or so. The other thing is the excellent news that Caroline Lucas finally made the breakthrough for us at parliamentary level - I predict that she will begin to make a mark immediately. But of course the great talking point at the moment is Nick Clegg's position and whether he will support a Conservative-led government in a hung parliament.
Broadly speaking, he has four options:
(i) A formal coalition with the Conservatives
(ii) Some other kind of agreement (such as "confidence and supply") with the Tories
(iii) A deal (probably a formal coalition) with Labour
(iv) Don't do a deal with either party, whilst agreeing to work together on "issues".
Let's firstly look at a deal with Labour. Whilst in policy terms there is probably more natural common ground here, there are several significant and probably fatal drawbacks. The first is the simple practical one that the Lib Dems and Labour don't have enough seats for an overall majority even if they combine their forces; this means they would need to depend on the support or at least acquiescence of the smaller parties such as the SNP or Plaid Cymru which could make it difficult to drive through tough decisions. In addition, the Lib Dems would be seen as propping up a government rejected by the electorate, so there would be limited goodwill from the public, and the unpopularity of the government could pave the way for a future Tory landslide - especially if they lost seats by gradual attrition from by-elections, which could limit the future life-expectancy of the government. Labour have offered electoral reform, but that looks like alternative vote, a limited change which falls far short of the proportional system favoured by the Lib Dems.
A deal with the Conservatives is prima facie a more attractive option, much as some Lib Dem activists might squirm at the prospect. Cameron is the leader of the largest party, so can reasonably claim (as Clegg has indicated) a moral right to have the "first go" at forming a government. Because both parties in the coalition did not form part of the last government, there might be at least some degree of goodwill from voters, which would be lacking for a Brown-led administration. There might be a willingness from the Tories to offer genuine policy concessions and cabinet posts - and surely if the Lib Dems never want to take power then what is the point?
However, the most serious problem is that the Tories will almost certainly never offer any real movement on the Lib Dems' most totemic policy - proportional representation. Cameron has made plenty of warm statements about the Lib Dems in the past few days, and will do everything possible to attract Clegg - but also to make him look unreasonable if he refuses to make a deal. A sort of "confidence and supply" arrangement, which falls short of a coalition, could have many of the disadvantages of still being seen to support the Tories - unpopular with some Lib Dem supporters and activists - but would deprive the Lib Dems of the advantages, such as cabinet posts and genuine influence over policy. As one of the newspapers put it earlier, if you're going to sell your soul, do it properly.
Now there is a point here. In the last week of the campaign, the Lib Dems in York distributed a leaflet telling Green supporters to vote tactically for the Lib Dems, as we would then get PR and Green MPs at the next election, reform of the political system, every day would be the first day of spring &c &c. In my view, this was a disingenuous promise as it was always going to be difficult for the Lib Dems to deliver PR, unless one of the main parties was really willing to make a serious concession. This relates to the next point I'm about to make.
The final option, of course, is for the Lib Dems to stand back and avoid supporting any party because there's insufficient common ground - an option which of course carries the risk of looking impotent. The most likely consequence of this would be a Cameron minority government which would soldier on for a few months at least. The problem, however, is that the Lib Dems' negotiating position is much weaker than it would be in say, a continental European country with a genuinely proportional electoral system. In those countries, the equivalent of the Prime Minister wouldn't necessarily have the right to call an election any time they wanted, and even if they did it's unlikely any party would get more than 50% of the vote, so basically a coalition is going to happen anyway and they might as well get on with it. Under the British system, the PM could call a fresh election in 6, 12 or 18 months if the other parties blocked government legislation - and just a smallish swing of the vote could result in an overall majority. The other point is that the smaller parties - and that includes the Lib Dems - have much more limited financial resources than the big two, so several general elections in quick succession could rapidly empty their coffers. So if there were a Conservative minority government, Cameron can almost challenge the other parties to pull him down, with the threat of another election if they do.
Clegg may in the end decide that the least worst option is some kind of deal with the Tories. The Lib Dem activists who are at this moment gathering with placards urging him that PR must be a precondition for any deal may have to recognize that he just may not have enough clout to deliver it whatever he does. This does, however, point up a wider issue about the Lib Dems. They have built their support both on traditional centre-party voters - those who don't like the Tories but are also uncomfortable with Labour - and yet at the same time have also appealed to those to the left of Labour - those concerned about things like the replacement of Trident. In electoral terms, one of their strengths has been their ability to be all things to all people - but this is a balancing act that will be increasingly difficult with the responsibility of of power in a hung parliament.
One of the great ironies of the Liberals and then Liberal Democrats over the past 100 years is that for most of that time, their raison d'etre has been to be kingmakers in a hung parliament - yet the moment they use that power, they end up alienating half their supporters. As the old saying goes, be careful what you wish for - you might just end up getting it.
Broadly speaking, he has four options:
(i) A formal coalition with the Conservatives
(ii) Some other kind of agreement (such as "confidence and supply") with the Tories
(iii) A deal (probably a formal coalition) with Labour
(iv) Don't do a deal with either party, whilst agreeing to work together on "issues".
Let's firstly look at a deal with Labour. Whilst in policy terms there is probably more natural common ground here, there are several significant and probably fatal drawbacks. The first is the simple practical one that the Lib Dems and Labour don't have enough seats for an overall majority even if they combine their forces; this means they would need to depend on the support or at least acquiescence of the smaller parties such as the SNP or Plaid Cymru which could make it difficult to drive through tough decisions. In addition, the Lib Dems would be seen as propping up a government rejected by the electorate, so there would be limited goodwill from the public, and the unpopularity of the government could pave the way for a future Tory landslide - especially if they lost seats by gradual attrition from by-elections, which could limit the future life-expectancy of the government. Labour have offered electoral reform, but that looks like alternative vote, a limited change which falls far short of the proportional system favoured by the Lib Dems.
A deal with the Conservatives is prima facie a more attractive option, much as some Lib Dem activists might squirm at the prospect. Cameron is the leader of the largest party, so can reasonably claim (as Clegg has indicated) a moral right to have the "first go" at forming a government. Because both parties in the coalition did not form part of the last government, there might be at least some degree of goodwill from voters, which would be lacking for a Brown-led administration. There might be a willingness from the Tories to offer genuine policy concessions and cabinet posts - and surely if the Lib Dems never want to take power then what is the point?
However, the most serious problem is that the Tories will almost certainly never offer any real movement on the Lib Dems' most totemic policy - proportional representation. Cameron has made plenty of warm statements about the Lib Dems in the past few days, and will do everything possible to attract Clegg - but also to make him look unreasonable if he refuses to make a deal. A sort of "confidence and supply" arrangement, which falls short of a coalition, could have many of the disadvantages of still being seen to support the Tories - unpopular with some Lib Dem supporters and activists - but would deprive the Lib Dems of the advantages, such as cabinet posts and genuine influence over policy. As one of the newspapers put it earlier, if you're going to sell your soul, do it properly.
Now there is a point here. In the last week of the campaign, the Lib Dems in York distributed a leaflet telling Green supporters to vote tactically for the Lib Dems, as we would then get PR and Green MPs at the next election, reform of the political system, every day would be the first day of spring &c &c. In my view, this was a disingenuous promise as it was always going to be difficult for the Lib Dems to deliver PR, unless one of the main parties was really willing to make a serious concession. This relates to the next point I'm about to make.
The final option, of course, is for the Lib Dems to stand back and avoid supporting any party because there's insufficient common ground - an option which of course carries the risk of looking impotent. The most likely consequence of this would be a Cameron minority government which would soldier on for a few months at least. The problem, however, is that the Lib Dems' negotiating position is much weaker than it would be in say, a continental European country with a genuinely proportional electoral system. In those countries, the equivalent of the Prime Minister wouldn't necessarily have the right to call an election any time they wanted, and even if they did it's unlikely any party would get more than 50% of the vote, so basically a coalition is going to happen anyway and they might as well get on with it. Under the British system, the PM could call a fresh election in 6, 12 or 18 months if the other parties blocked government legislation - and just a smallish swing of the vote could result in an overall majority. The other point is that the smaller parties - and that includes the Lib Dems - have much more limited financial resources than the big two, so several general elections in quick succession could rapidly empty their coffers. So if there were a Conservative minority government, Cameron can almost challenge the other parties to pull him down, with the threat of another election if they do.
Clegg may in the end decide that the least worst option is some kind of deal with the Tories. The Lib Dem activists who are at this moment gathering with placards urging him that PR must be a precondition for any deal may have to recognize that he just may not have enough clout to deliver it whatever he does. This does, however, point up a wider issue about the Lib Dems. They have built their support both on traditional centre-party voters - those who don't like the Tories but are also uncomfortable with Labour - and yet at the same time have also appealed to those to the left of Labour - those concerned about things like the replacement of Trident. In electoral terms, one of their strengths has been their ability to be all things to all people - but this is a balancing act that will be increasingly difficult with the responsibility of of power in a hung parliament.
One of the great ironies of the Liberals and then Liberal Democrats over the past 100 years is that for most of that time, their raison d'etre has been to be kingmakers in a hung parliament - yet the moment they use that power, they end up alienating half their supporters. As the old saying goes, be careful what you wish for - you might just end up getting it.
Monday, 3 May 2010
The internet election
Sorry I haven't posted over the last week or so - I've been occupied most evenings with hustings and the rest of the time with leafletting, canvassing - and responding to e-mails.
On the last point, there's no doubt that the internet is making a big impact on election campaigning; I don't say transforming because as yet there certainly isn't any way I'll be able to conduct the whole thing from my armchair - which is probably a good thing for those of us looking to lose a bit of excess weight in the run-up to May 6th. But it is certainly having an impact.
Perhaps the most immediate example of this is the number of e-mails I've received, asking my views and to pledge support on various things - which I've been plugging my way through with the help of some volunteers in the office. I must have had several hundred of these.
However, the internet is also helping to keep us all honest in a few other ways - for example this website on which people scan and upload any election leaflets they may have received - so you can check whether a party is saying one thing in one place or to one set of people and something different elsewhere. I expect this to become rather interesting as the usual last-minute skulduggery kicks in - the hastily risographed attack leaflets delivered as late as possible in the hope that the other lot (whoever they are) won't be able to respond.
One interesting point I discovered concerns the Lib Dems in York. The LD candidate for York Central, Christian Vassie, lives in the York Outer constituency, a couple of miles outside the boundary. As far as I'm concerned, this is a total non-issue as I don't think it affects his ability to represent the constituency. Yet one of the York Outer Lib Dem leaflets criticises the Tory candidate there, Julian Study - because he lives in Tockwith, a short way outside the York Outer boundary. I'm happy to give Christian the benefit on this one as I suspect it's unlikely he was consulted, but an interesting point of debate nonetheless.
Anyway, I'll try and get something else up before the election - I'm now staggering into the closing straight!
On the last point, there's no doubt that the internet is making a big impact on election campaigning; I don't say transforming because as yet there certainly isn't any way I'll be able to conduct the whole thing from my armchair - which is probably a good thing for those of us looking to lose a bit of excess weight in the run-up to May 6th. But it is certainly having an impact.
Perhaps the most immediate example of this is the number of e-mails I've received, asking my views and to pledge support on various things - which I've been plugging my way through with the help of some volunteers in the office. I must have had several hundred of these.
However, the internet is also helping to keep us all honest in a few other ways - for example this website on which people scan and upload any election leaflets they may have received - so you can check whether a party is saying one thing in one place or to one set of people and something different elsewhere. I expect this to become rather interesting as the usual last-minute skulduggery kicks in - the hastily risographed attack leaflets delivered as late as possible in the hope that the other lot (whoever they are) won't be able to respond.
One interesting point I discovered concerns the Lib Dems in York. The LD candidate for York Central, Christian Vassie, lives in the York Outer constituency, a couple of miles outside the boundary. As far as I'm concerned, this is a total non-issue as I don't think it affects his ability to represent the constituency. Yet one of the York Outer Lib Dem leaflets criticises the Tory candidate there, Julian Study - because he lives in Tockwith, a short way outside the York Outer boundary. I'm happy to give Christian the benefit on this one as I suspect it's unlikely he was consulted, but an interesting point of debate nonetheless.
Anyway, I'll try and get something else up before the election - I'm now staggering into the closing straight!
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