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.