All sensible people are bound to sympathise with David Laws as his soaring ministerial career crashes almost before it has taken off. I’m not too sure, though, about what is fast becoming the conventional wisdom among the commentariat: namely, that he has paid a high price for his perfectly honourable attempt to preserve his privacy and to avoid publicity for his sexual orientation. It’s even being asserted that there has been no question of personal profit from what he has done: his sole concern, it’s being said, has been to protect his private life from intrusion and unwanted exposure.
But actually his sexuality and his desire for privacy have nothing at all to do with his downfall. He has been forced to resign by the revelation that for years he has been breaking a pretty basic rule governing MPs’ expenses: namely, that you can’t claim back from the taxpayer ‘rent’ on your second home that you pay to your own spouse, partner or relative. The gender of Mr Laws’s partner, to whom he has been paying rent for their shared homes, is completely irrelevant. Nor is it the case, as one of the BBC’s army of political correspondents was saying on television last night, that Laws’s offence was to pay rent to his partner. There’s no rule against that; Mr Laws has always been entirely free to pay his partner whatever he thinks right, whether in rent or anything else. What, however, he was not free to do under the rules was to claim it back in expenses from the public purse.
Mr Laws’s initial defence was to deny that the person with whom he has lived for several years, evidently in a sexual relationship, was his ‘partner’ within the meaning of the rules governing MPs’ expenses. His justification for this interpretation was that he and his room-mate have separate bank accounts and lead separate social lives. There seems no need to spend time on a scrutiny of that defence, which indeed Mr Laws now appears prudently to have abandoned. At any rate, he now acknowledges that he feels that “what I have done was in some way wrong” (I love that “in some way”, as if he’s still not quite clear what it was, like the injured look of a puppy who’s been smacked for peeing on the carpet and can’t understand what was wrong about that).
There is certainly a sad and worrying implication in Laws’s acknowledgement that the reason for his concern for ‘privacy’ (code for secrecy about his sexual orientation) was that he didn’t want his Roman Catholic parents to know that he was gay. It seems incredible that in this day and age there should be in this country parents to whom a middle-aged man, a spectacularly successful MP and former banker, didn’t feel able to talk frankly about such a central aspect of his life and personality: such is the bigotry generated by a cruel and irrational but widely shared religious doctrine. But none of this has the smallest connection with the offence that brought down Mr Laws.
Liberal Democratic party leaders are queueing up in front of the cameras and microphones to assert that David Laws’s tragedy is the result of his honourable concern to protect the privacy of his private life. That however is nonsense, even if it’s well-meant nonsense motivated by kindness to a friend and colleague. Homophobia and the right to privacy and a private life have nothing to do with it. David Laws claimed from public money some £40,000 to which on any rational analysis he was not entitled. Nothing about his sexuality or his desire for privacy forced him to claim and receive this money as parliamentary expenses: amid all the furore about MPs’ expenses it beggars belief that it never occurred to him that he was cheating. He’s a multi-millionaire: it’s not as if he needed the money. Other MPs have been forced to leave parliament and abandon their political careers for lesser offences. Laws’s position as Chief Secretary to the Treasury with prime responsibility for axeing public services, at the expense of tens of thousands of people incomparably poorer than Mr Laws, was manifestly untenable once it became public knowledge that he was an expenses cheat — and a cheat on such a substantial scale.
We should all feel sorry for him. He’s obviously exceptionally talented and exceptionally well equipped for the unsavoury task to which he had so recently been assigned. It’s fair to hope that he’ll be back in government before long. His colleagues’ loyalty to him in his time of crisis has been commendable. But the idea that he’s somehow a victim of prejudice or newspaper intrusion, or indeed that he’s a victim at all, is strictly for the birds.
Brian
Some jewels from the print media
…the day after an email exchange about liberty between Tony Blair and I was published in the Observer, …
Henry Porter, The Observer 16 May 2010
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/may/16/henry-porter-civil-liberties-coalition
…an exhausted-looking Boulton jabbed his finger and furiously refuted Cameron’s claim that the Sky man wanted to see David Cameron in Downing Street.
James Robinson The Observer, Sunday 16 May 2010
http://www.guardian.co.uk/theobserver/2010/may/16/adam-boulton-alastair-campbell-sky-news
Andrew Marr, whose Sunday morning BBC show goes out at the same time as Boulton’s Sky programme, …
Ibid
Boulton’s own high standing may even mitigate against such a radical change of direction.
Ibid
The Camerons, as the first new occupants of Downing Street since first lady fever began, thus find unprecedented attention focused on Samantha.
Jess Cartner-Morley, Guardian, 12 May 2010
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/may/12/samantha-cameron-profile
…given Mr Cable’s occasionally coruscating attacks on Mr Osborne’s judgment in the past.
George Parker, FT, 22 May 2010
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/87246f86-5fb9-11df-a670-00144feab49a.html
Addenda, 25 May 2010
On overhearing my husband and I discussing this….
Letter, New Statesman, 24 May 2010
Out of these pieces, my mother would sew dresses for my sister and I….
“Author” Justine Picardie, Liberty Print catalogue, May 2010
But Paul’s success dwarves even these.
Ewen MacAskill, Guardian, 19 May 2010, p.21
But, along with the principal of basic rights and freedoms, …
Seumas Milne, Guardian, 20 May 2010
Dear Harriet,
Decisions about what kind of opposition Labour is going to be obviously can’t wait until the leadership elections in the autumn: it falls to you to set the tone and issue the guidance as soon as you possibly can. I was pretty horrified to see Alan Johnson on television today attacking, in his amiable way, the coalition government’s decision to “Adopt the protections of the Scottish model for the DNA database”, and trying to defend the Labour government’s policy on this touchy subject. I suggest that this kind of thing, however understandable, is the worst possible start to Labour’s stint in opposition. Many of the policies set out in the coalition agreement which now constitutes the basis of the new government’s programme, especially the section on civil liberties, are skilfully chosen, not just to look liberal and enlightened, but actually to represent real improvements on Labour’s legacy, even or especially when they propose to reverse or repeal some of the more illiberal of the measures left to us by the Blair era. Many of us who are loyal but worried members of the Labour Party, or just instinctive supporters of it, have been dismayed by some of the illiberal excesses of Labour’s record — and I don’t just mean Iraq. The 2010 election defeat gives the party the opportunity to make a fresh start, which must include acknowledging past mistakes, however painful that might be for those who were chiefly responsible for making them; or if not acknowledging them, at least not trying any more to justify or defend them. It will send the right message if you enthusiastically support government measures to correct or reverse past mistakes, and better still if you make your own proposals for more enlightened policies, even or especially when they conflict with those of the past. There’s plenty in Labour’s record in government to boast about; as for the authoritarian and belligerent excesses, the less said now, the better.
I would like respectfully to offer you two golden rules that should govern the behaviour of the Labour Party in opposition, in and out of parliament:
(1) Be a responsible and constructive opposition, actively cooperating whenever possible, opposing only when absolutely necessary. Concentrate on showing that you’re an enlightened and above all a different government in waiting, not merely a party hell-bent on opposing whatever the government does; and
(2) Radically overhaul every aspect of the late Labour government’s policies, brutally slaughtering sacred cows, and boldly thinking the hitherto unthinkable. In the words of Danton: De l’audace, et encore de l’audace, et toujours de l’audace! Avoid like the Black Death any impression that if and when Labour is re-elected you will simply take up where the Blair and Brown governments left off. If that’s how it looks, you won’t be returned to the government benches for a generation, and you won’t deserve to be.
The first of these rules will require a degree of restraint, and behaviour often contrary to every tribal Labour instinct, which won’t come easily to those accustomed to the no-holds-barred bare-fisted combat tradition of adversarial British politics. But it’s essential to recognise that ordinary decent people detest the kind of yah-boo order-paper-waving point-scoring politics of prime minister’s questions, and yearn for a government and opposition that behave like grown-ups, especially at a time of national crisis, with the nation’s finances in ruins and the threat of a double-dip recession and yet more massive unemployment hanging over us. The spectacle of both government and opposition back benches baying and screaming at each other, in fits of bogus merriment or of equally fabricated indignation, does almost as much harm to the standing of politics and politicians in people’s minds as the scandal over MPs’ expenses. Even when the government’s economic and financial policies seem to us misguided, inferior to ours, unlikely to succeed, please remember that they have a mandate to pursue them, and it’s no part of an opposition’s right or duty to try to prevent them from working. None of us, least of all the poor, the vulnerable, the homeless and the unemployed, has a stake in the government’s failure. If Labour in opposition is seen to have contributed to failure, we shan’t soon be forgiven. Explain how things could and should be done differently, more fairly, but then work hard and uncomplainingly to make the elected government’s policies succeed.
Exercising restraint and practising grown-up politics in opposition will call for the kind of discipline that won’t come easily to some of your Labour colleagues, especially those with hearts of gold on the wilder back-bench shores of militancy, even with a small m. There’ll be ample provocation from the government side to hit back in kind when they bellow their cheap shots about the frivolous over-spending of Labour’s last days in office, the skeletons they claim to have found in every ministerial cupboard, and stuff like that (some of it probably well founded: much not). We know from the pre-election style of Cameron, Osborne, Hague, Theresa May, Fox and Lansley and other Tory luminaries, even some of the Tory-inclined LibDems, how unscrupulously partisan they’re going to be. They’ll taunt you with attacks on Labour’s record in government, and some of the attacks will hit home. Don’t respond in kind; don’t try to defend and justify every last policy and action of Labour in office. Persist in asking sober questions that genuinely seek information. Enforce on your colleagues, especially those on the front bench, the rigid rule: never ask a question to which you already know the answer. Offer the government your support when they deserve it. Indicate willingness to take part in consultations with ministers as policies on great national issues are evolving, and promise not to exploit or abuse your participation in consultations if your offer is accepted. Show that you are more serious, courteous and conscious of the national interest, as distinct from party advantage, than the cheapskate Tories in their triumphalist euphoria.
Implicit in this is that Labour in opposition needs to acknowledge, explicitly and often, that harsh and painful measures to restore the country’s finances were always going to be inevitable, whichever party or combination of parties won the election. Some cuts in public services are bound to figure in the menu and the living standards of many people are bound to suffer. There will be room for legitimate but sober argument about the fair and proper balance between increased taxes and reduced government spending; about how best to protect the most vulnerable in society from the worst effects of the measures that will have to be taken; and about ways to reconcile continued government support for the nascent recovery from recession with the need to demonstrate — as much to our own public opinion as to the fickle and febrile markets — a real determination to put the country’s affairs in order with a minimum of delay. But that can’t and mustn’t mean opposing everything the government does for the sake of opposing. The electorate will harshly punish a Labour opposition which can plausibly be portrayed as obstructing the measures that sensible people of all political persuasions recognise as necessary and unavoidable. Similarly, seizing every opportunity to exploit and exaggerate frictions within the governing coalition will harm Labour much more than it will harm the coalition. Leave that to the harlots of the media.
You will face especially difficult choices when the government’s axe begins to fall on the public service and the services that it provides. There will be protest marches, demos, work-to-rule, probably strikes. Labour’s instinct, especially in opposition, will be to support the protests and the strikes, almost regardless of the merits of each case. But in a situation where almost every section of British society is going to have to bear some of the burden of restoring the nation’s finances, and most sections of society are naturally going to come out in the streets to defend their own sectional interests, the Loyal Opposition simply won’t be able to give indiscriminate support to every demo and every strike, without giving the fatal impression of reckless ideology-driven irresponsibility — which will rightly be taken by many as evidence that Labour is unfit to return to office. How you and your colleagues behave in these first rather feverish weeks and months of opposition will set the scene for how Labour is seen and judged for the rest of this parliament.
And finally, a highly sensitive point: you simply can’t afford to allow Labour’s front bench to look like a seamless continuation of the last one. Those few who watched the opening of the new parliament on television will have flinched at the spectacle of Jack Straw there on the bench beside you, nodding and grinning as smugly as ever, as if he personally was quite untainted by his association with all the previous government’s failures and excesses. We flinched again hearing the misguided voice, yet again, of David Blunkett, of all people. Whoever selected him to speak on this iconic occasion? It’s time for the Straws and the Blunketts and most of the other tarnished stars of “New” Labour — and please let’s never hear that always tawdry term used again — to retire gracefully to obscurity on the back benches, to be replaced by fresh faces whose freedom won’t be circumscribed by a commitment to the unbending defence of past disasters.
All this adds up to a tall order, especially for a caretaker leader. But you enjoy the unchallengeable legitimacy of having been elected by all wings of the party to your present position. You enjoy, and deserve, huge goodwill, respect and support. Insist that the candidates for the leadership use their influence to ensure compliance. As long as you lead the opposition, most of your Labour colleagues will accept your leadership and follow the course you set. The great majority of Labour’s millions of supporters out here in the country are silently cheering you on. Don’t give in to the taunts of the government benches or the vicious slanders of the right-wing press: maintain a statesmanlike commitment to the national good. And when your few swivel-eyed militant knee-jerk Tory-bashers get out of line, smack ‘em down! There’s no-one, but no-one, on the opposition benches better placed than you to bring it off.
I’m going to write to you again later about the second of my proposed Golden Rules. This is more than enough to be going on with. And it’s not meant to be advice — that would indeed be an impertinence on my part. It’s an appeal; a desperate, not very optimistic appeal.
Good luck!
Best wishes
Brian
For one brief shining moment it looked as if Camelot might be possible after all: the LibDems and Labour share much common ground; very many — probably most — LibDems see themselves as left of centre and in many cases are deeply anti-Conservative. The Labour Party is gradually moving to support for some kind of change to the electoral system, starting with AV, and it looked for a time as if the movement of progressive opinion in favour of full-blooded proportional representation for elections to the House of Commons, in my view almost entirely misconceived, would become unstoppable, giving Labour a head start in the competition for LibDem favours. For us libertarian socialists there were also great attractions about the prospect of an alliance with the LibDems helping to turn back the tide of illiberal legislation and repressive policies visited on us by New Labour in the name of the “war” on terrorism and crime. But it was not to be.
Three factors, I think, pulled down the shutters on any hope of a government of the progressive majority:
1. The LibDems couldn’t in the end risk incurring the odium of having rescued a heavily defeated Labour Party, even a Labour Party soon to shed Gordon Brown, and prolonging its hold on power, thereby seeming, plausibly, to be spitting in the face of the electorate.
2. A progressive alliance government would have depended too heavily on the support of the centre-left nationalist parties of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland for its survival. Even though the smaller parties would not have needed to be included in a formal Lab-LibDem coalition or other formal alliance, reliance on their support in votes of confidence and budget resolutions would have made the government vulnerable to nationalist party blackmail, as indeed the SNP and Plaid Cymru leaders were already brazenly threatening. The arithmetic was simply too precarious for any hope of stability and strong government.
3. In my view Nick Clegg’s gut preference was always to work with Cameron rather than Brown — and the impossibility of knowing who would succeed Brown in just a few months’ time must have strengthened that preference. Clegg played his cards skilfully, using his talks with Labour to gouge further concessions out of the Tories, and the Neanderthals in David Cameron’s party must be outraged by the thought that he probably made more policy concessions, and more generous promises of key posts in a coalition government, than were strictly necessary to hook and land his fish.
Now that the die is cast and the LibDems are tightly tucked up in bed with the Tories, a typically British blame game is in full swing, the Labour Party team insisting that they were negotiating with the LibDems in good faith and that their talks seemed genuinely promising until for no good reason the LibDems broke them off and defected to the common enemy, while the LibDems say that Labour never made a remotely convincing offer and seemed generally uninterested in a coalition or any other alliance. Perhaps I’m unduly suspicious, but it seems to me that the LibDems need to try to pin the blame for the failure of the talks on the Labour Party, in order to placate the many grass-roots LibDem supporters and members who are sickened to find themselves not just seduced but actually impregnated by the Tories. The anti-LibDem alliance fulminations of such Labour has-beens as Mr Blunkett and Dr Reid did of course seem to lend credibility to LibDem assertions that Labour’s heart wasn’t really in it.
* * * * *
As was (almost) said of Charles I, nothing became Gordon Brown in office like the leaving of it. His offer to resign by the autumn if this would help to persuade the LibDems to join an alliance with the Labour Party, justified by his frank acknowledgement of personal responsibility for Labour’s election defeat, was an act of great personal courage on the part of this proudest of men, always deeply reluctant to admit to failure or error. Similarly, his resignation statement outside No. 10 Downing Street, and his remarks after his resignation to party workers and colleagues at Labour headquarters in Victoria Street, did him great credit. Few who heard these farewell statements can have failed to be moved to sympathy and admiration for a man of enormous talent who has achieved many great things in these past 13 years but whose limitations of personality and character have denied him the ultimate success, the respect and the affection, to which in many ways he was entitled. He will probably be missed more than most people would now expect. Despite the terrible temper, the secretiveness, the uncollegiate manner of working, the reluctance to take quick decisions, and the flawed judgement of the people with whom he chose to surround himself, he was nevertheless a towering political figure for more than a decade. Many of us genuinely wish him and his family well.
* * * * *
Assuming that prime minister’s questions (PMQ) in the House of Commons continue in some form or other, there’ll be a widespread yearning for a more sober, more informative, less tribal atmosphere when the two principal party leaders face each other across the despatch boxes. Scorn and contempt for the yah-boo shouting matches, the cheers and jeers of the excited back benches, the petty and often flagrantly dishonest point-scoring, of PMQs in the last several decades have contributed almost as much to the low esteem into which parliament and politicians have fallen as the MPs’ expenses scandal. New prime ministers generally promise to eschew point-scoring in PMQs and to treat the occasion as an opportunity for MPs of all parties to seek and receive information about government actions and policies; such promises rarely survive more than a handful of gladiatorial sessions. Much will depend on Harriet Harman, now leader of the opposition ad interim, pending Labour’s election of its new leader. Public opinion would respect a Labour opposition which promised to support the government whenever possible as it grapples with the nation’s worst economic and financial crisis since the 1920s, rather than seizing every opportunity to make its life more difficult and its decisions more unpopular. I wonder if Ms Harman is up to it? Mr Cameron can’t realistically expect a sober and constructive opposition if he constantly accuses Labour of responsibility for the financial mess we’re in, and misrepresents Labour’s 13 years in office as an uninterrupted chronicle of mismanagement and failure — as the irredeemably, jejunely tribal William Hague, our new foreign secretary, was doing without a shadow of embarrassment on the radio this morning. There was another jarring echo of it in today’s CamClegg press conference in the No. 10 garden. The omens are bad.
* * * * *
Our new rulers already promise, or threaten, to change the constitution in various ways, including the introduction of fixed-term parliaments. There are obvious potential merits in this idea: it would prevent an opportunistic prime minister seizing a moment of popularity to go to the country for a premature and perhaps unnecessary election, sometimes for fear of electoral punishment if he or she hangs on to the bitter end of the 5-year term. It could allay doubts in the markets and elsewhere about the short-term survivability of the government when the confidence of the almighty markets is the Holy Grail of our national life. But it raises some awkward questions about what happens if the votes of rebels or by-election changes in the composition of parliament deprive a government of the majority it needs to pass its basic legislation, or if there’s no longer a parliamentary majority available to vote supply. In such circumstances, if there’s no party leader able to secure a majority for an alternative government, it’s hard to see how a fresh election can be avoided even if the fixed term is nowhere near up. In which case declaring that parliaments will in future be for fixed terms has a rather limited meaning.
* * * * *
As Labour licks its wounds — not for too long, one hopes — elects a new leader, and then starts to think about the direction it will take in opposition, the values it will define and the programme it will offer to the country at the next election (whenever that might turn out to be), the search will be on for a new big idea that might catch the imagination of that elusive progressive majority on whose support Labour’s hopes will depend. There is one big idea available which ticks so many boxes that it’s a wonder none of the mainline parties has hitherto picked it up and adopted it: the eventual completion of devolution, one of Labour’s most courageous successes, by the adoption of a fully fledged federal system for the United Kingdom. Labour would need to acknowledge that this could be achieved only with the whole-hearted, cross-party consent of a sizeable majority of the British people; that it would take at least two decades to complete the project; that at every stage extensive consultation would be required by Royal Commissions, Speaker’s Conferences, parliamentary Select Committees and parliamentary votes, constitutional conventions and several referendums. Along the way to federation a new separate parliament and government for England would have to be established, in itself a huge and controversial undertaking; and all remaining internal powers not so far devolved would need to be transferred to each of the four UK nations, England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. This would mean a massive localisation of real power over people’s lives, draining power from the federal government and parliament at Westminster to the four federated nations. All parties claim to favour decentralising power and giving local people a greater say in how their lives are organised. Here’s the big idea which would energise that otherwise vague aspiration and provide an objective and a context for the changes that are already long overdue. Come on, Labour: how about some vision for a change — and I really mean “for a change”!
Brian
My Google Alert service has belatedly noticed this:
Twitter / LabourList: Brian Barder on what Gordon’s people should say to Clegg’s people if parliament is hung …
http://www.barder.com/2526
Brian Barder on what Gordon’s people should say to Clegg’s people if parliament is hung… http://bit.ly/9wKCI0.
twitter.com/LabourList/statuses/13413302414
I wrote this two days before the election and put it on my blog. It also appeared in LabourList. “Gordon’s people” are now apparently reading from my suggested script almost word for word. I shouldn’t say “I told you so”, but….
My proposed imaginary message for Labour to transmit to the LibDems concluded, if you remember:
One last point. Strictly between ourselves, Gordon has told me that whatever happens he’s definitely going to step down in six months’ time and retire from politics altogether. He wants to devote himself to charity work and to spend more time with his family. But he would love to be able to leave behind a stable centre-left government based on a close LibDem-Labour collaboration that would have the best chance of safeguarding the economic recovery and building on his legacy.
That was pure guess-work laced with advocacy, written on 4 May (before the election) and derided by some readers as absurd.
Unfortunately my powers of prophesy don’t extend to forecasting the outcome of the current Westminster soap-opera. A tug-of-war seems to be in progress: Clegg and the rest of the right-wing faction of the LibDems seemingly want to seal the deal with the Tories on the terms now offered by Hague (and presumably Cameron) despite the rumbling opposition of the Tory troglodytes; the LibDem left (probably Huhne, Hughes, Cable and the majority of the grass-roots) is pulling the other end of the rope towards a deal with Labour, now that the Brown obstacle is effectively removed. Clegg may well be using his negotiations with Labour simply as a means of strengthening his position in his bargaining with the Tories (and he has already had some striking success in this); some in his party, perhaps a majority, genuinely want them to succeed. Clegg has the advantage of being the leader; the LibDem left probably has the numbers within the party’s organs. The outcome, it seems to me, is anyone’s guess.
The objections to a government of Labour and the LibDems with the likely support in major votes of the smaller centre-left parties don’t seem to me impressive.
The right-wing tabloids complain that Gordon Brown’s successor, to be elected by the arcane processes of the Labour Party constitution, would be yet another “unelected” prime minister. But all our prime ministers are “unelected” by the British electorate. Only the voters in the putative prime minister’s constituency get to vote for (or against) him or her. In Brown’s case, he was re-elected in Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath with an increased majority. The rest of us voted for candidates identified by their parties, and research has shown that the vast majority of the electorate determine their votes by reference to the party of their candidate of choice, only rarely influenced by the candidate’s personality or record. (The expenses scandal may of course have distorted this generalisation in the case of this month’s election, but the generalisation remains broadly valid.) Thus it’s basically the party which is elected, not its leader. The regrettable precedent set by the ill-conceived television “leaders debates” may have obscured this truth, but truth it remains. There have been numerous examples of changes of prime minister between elections without the querulous bleatings of the Daily Mail declaring them illegitimate because they served as prime minister without having fought a general election as party leader. One prime minister in recent history actually held office in No. 10 for two weeks while not even a member of either of the houses of parliament: and even after that he was only elected an MP in a by-election, not in a general election. Few complained at the time that anything unconstitutional had happened or that his position as prime minister was invalid. We elect parties, and the parties elect their leaders, with parliament choosing which party to entrust with office.
Nor need we be swayed by the ritual description of a Labour-LibDem coalition or pact as a “Coalition of the Losers”. No single party won an outright majority either of the votes cast or of the seats won, so all of them are in that sense losers. Labour and the LibDems combined would hold more seats in the Commons than the Conservatives and this has usually been the main criterion for forming a government. It’s true that the two parties would still be short of an overall majority but the decisive question is whether such a government would command the confidence of the majority in the Commons in a vote of confidence: and since most of the smaller parties belong to the centre-left and are more or less virulently anti-Conservative, it’s a reasonable expectation that on crucial votes they would support a Lab-LibDem administration in preference to the only alternative (a Cameron government or fresh elections); and that accordingly they would probably collectively provide a majority. Of course a Lab-LibDem government wouldn’t be able to guarantee its ability to get every last piece of its legislation through parliament: but that’s true of any minority or coalition-type government when intra-party rebels may defy their Whips.
It’s no doubt true that “the markets”, those ill-defined but apparently omnipotent forces, would prefer a Conservative government with LibDem support to a Labour government with LibDem support. The markets calculate, no doubt accurately, that a mainly Conservative government would focus almost exclusively on reducing the deficit and paying off much of the national debt, starting yesterday, whereas Labour would attach at least equal importance to safeguarding Britain’s recovery from recession (since renewed growth in the economy is the key to deficit reduction and debt repayment) and to protecting the poorest and most vulnerable in society from the worst effects of cuts in spending on public services and increased taxes, both of which are inevitable whichever government emerges blinking into the sunlight later this week. But one of the great issues of our time is whether we are tamely to accept the primacy of the markets over our own democratic processes and system of government. Chancellor Mrs Merkel, Presidents Sarkozy and Obama, and many other world leaders are determined that we must not, and are actively working towards an international consensus on how to bring the menacing and fundamentally anti-social influence of the markets under democratic political control. Such an attitude to the markets is anathema to both the British Tories and the British Blairites, both of whom have adopted a position of cringeing pre-emptive surrender to the City and its markets. Now that the markets have demonstrated their essential destructiveness, and their blind commitment to the transfer of wealth from the many to the mega-rich few, by bringing the world’s economy to the brink of collapse, the case for bringing them under control by much tighter regulation must surely be unanswerable. A Lab-LibDem administration is far more likely to play its part in that international effort than a Tory Party still in hock to its rich supporters. The frenzied opposition of the markets while this process is being worked out will do us considerable harm, in terms of higher costs of government borrowing and general panic in the markets over Britain’s and other perfectly reliable countries’ creditworthiness, but the alternative — continuing to let the markets control our policies — will be far more harmful even in the medium term. (My immoderate views on all this are spelled out more fully here.)
A more potent objection to a Labour-LibDem outcome is that a savage electoral penalty awaits whichever party is in office in the next few years of compulsory and unavoidable austerity, with the whole population having to suffer painful reductions in welfare and incomes and very little opportunity for other reformist measures, however desirable, costing money which the government won’t have. It will be almost impossible for any government to avoid harsh and unpopular measures which may well bring thousands of people onto the streets in protest, as is happening already in Athens. There’ll be a general feeling of gross injustice that ordinary people, who have not a shred of responsibility for the ecomomic and financial calamity that has overtaken us, should be made to pay much of the heavy cost of recovery from it. If it’s a predominantly Labour government that has to bear the brunt of these perfectly justified protests and this sense of unfairness, it could be the end of Labour’s electability for a decade; and if Labour’s unpopular measures have succeeded in bringing Britain out of the recession and made a start in restoring its financial balance, it could well be a decade or more of Tory government that will reap the benefit and govern in much happier times. In other words, the next few years might be a good time to be in opposition. Against this, though, must be set the deep damage likely to be done to millions of innocent people by the accession of a Cameron-Osborne government hell-bent on prematurely paying off the bankers at whatever cost to the nation’s recovery from recession, and regardless of the penalties inflicted on the most vulnerable people in our society, while the mega-rich see their taxes cut and their inordinate wealth relatively undisturbed. It would be intolerable to wish that on our country simply to preserve a medium-term electoral advantage for the Labour Party. So the choice for decent progressive people is clear, pace Mr Blunkett and Dr Reid: a Labour-LibDem administration, whether in coalition or a confidence-and-supply pact, would be vastly preferable to any available alternative.
Whether we’ll get it, however, remains an open question, at any rate as of 11.30am on Tuesday 11 May, 2010!
Brian
The media, electronic and print, are in one of their periodic feeding frenzies over the hung parliament and the leisurely horse-trading (very much the right word, alas) over who might form a British government one day. The prime minister, in office but no longer in power, has very sensibly gone home to Scotland, where he’s on his way to the kirk (well, it’s Sunday and he’s a son of the manse). While we’re all feverishly subjecting to intensive textual analysis every casual word confided to Andrew Marr by earnest young Mr Gove , and nodding agreement to the pearls of wisdom emanating from Messrs Marr, Rawnsley and Boulton, the casual UK newspaper reader and television viewer could be forgiven for not noticing that Wall Street and the Eurozone are on fire, sterling and the London stock exchange are in free fall, the key leaders of the rest of Europe are in almost permanent crisis session, and we face the real threat of another global slump on the scale of the banking collapse of 2008. The intricacies of our parliamentary arguments and feeble gropings towards forming a proper government are almost wholly irrelevant to the bush fire raging all around us — except that if we carry on much longer with (in effect) no government, no functioning prime minister, no policy for dealing with the new banking and credit crisis, and no prospect of having any of these rather desirable things quite soon, the nervous nellies on the trading floors will write us off as an obviously impossibly bad risk, perhaps starting tomorrow. They will thereupon sell off our currency for whatever they can get for it, and laugh at the idea of buying our sovereign debt unless we pay them an astronomical premium in interest to bribe them to do so, thus adding yet more billions to the bill for borrowing and the need to borrow even more. The only way to placate them will be to follow in every detail their self-serving orders: no increased taxation except taxes that hit the poorest hardest, swingeing cuts in all public services, instant action to pay back to the bankers the massive debts we were forced to incur in order to rescue them from their own greed and folly, thus strangling any hope of slow steady recovery from the recession; and all this at the expense of the jobs and homes of ordinary working (and retired!) people who bear no responsibility whatever for the mess we’re in.
So while our pygmy politicians squabble at a glacial pace over electoral systems and tax credits, Greece is on fire and the fire is lapping at the gates of Portugal and Spain, then Italy: no guesses at who’s next in line. The Footsie 100 has seen its sharpest fall in five months; EU leaders are “struggling to put together a European multibillion-euro emergency facility to protect the eurozone’s most vulnerable countries before financial markets open on Monday“, with Britain reportedly turning down the pressing invitation to contribute to it; “on Thursday, a cascade of automated trades tumbled through equity markets, knocking 650 points – just over 6 per cent of its value – off the Dow Jones Industrial Average stock index in a matter of minutes. It recovered to end the day only 348 points down – but not before striking terror into the hearts of traders. On Friday, the FTSE 100 lost £35bn in value“, also according to the FT; and much, much more of the same.
Unless you buy the Financial Times, you wouldn’t know about any of this from the front pages or from the television Breaking News straplines. All you’ll discover is that 99.9% of the population (or some such figure plucked from empty air) think that Gordon Brown should resign immediately as prime minister, blithely ignoring the reality that if Brown resigns now, the rest of the government resigns too, there’s currently no-one else who meets the requirements for being invited to form a government, and we’d be sailing our leaky ship towards the rocks without even the half-broken rudder that we have at the moment. Meanwhile 5,000 excited people in peculiar hats assemble in Whitehall waving placards and shouting imprecations at young Mr Nick Clegg if he dares to climb into bed with Dave without first securing a new electoral system. I didn’t hear a single demonstrator yelling at poor Nick “Never mind proportional representation, Nick: that can wait — for God’s sake get on with getting us a government before the markets open on Monday morning, or we’re all toast!”
The elder statesmen gravely admonish their boyish successors to take their time over the negotiations; better to get it right than to get it soon, they say. Other European countries do this all the time, and sometimes take months to reach a conclusion: what’s the hurry? Clegg spends fruitless hours with various permutations of LibDem party leaders and their councils and committees, trying to get their permission to accept something less than 100 per cent of LibDems’ perfect-world demands in order to permit a Cameron government to be formed. Cameron is similarly assailed by the troglodytes of his own party menacingly crying betrayal at any sign of willingness to make a few meaningless concessions to LibDem sensibilities. From time to time Gordon Brown telephones Clegg from his Scottish croft with yet more imaginative bribes dreamt up by Lord Mandelson, and shouts angrily down the line at the hapless LibDem leader when he doesn’t instantly and gratefully swallow the bait. You might think, mightn’t you?, that these great statesmen would be scared out of their wits at the thought of what the almighty markets will do to us if we still haven’t resolved our piddling little problems by Monday morning when the markets wake up and resume their important blackmailing duties. Not a bit of it. Further party meetings are even now being scheduled — for Monday evening. This is indeed the way the UK ends, not with a bang but a LibDem whimper.
While Greek workers riot in the streets in protest at the savage cuts in their living standards and jobs being forced on them by the omnipotent, all-seeing markets and their handmaidens in the Chancelleries of continental Europe, our own middle classes are decorously but equally angrily demonstrating in favour of various forms of proportional representation — a cause which on even the most favourable assumptions is highly unlikely even to be put to a referendum within the next five years, and if it is, might well be rejected by popular vote. Polly Toynbee and Helena Kennedy are nevertheless in a state of uncontainable excitement all over the television screens and the columns of the Guardian at the marginally improved prospect that some time in the parliament after next, we might move to a referendum on an electoral system that would be guaranteed to land us in this kind of chaotic and paralysing mess after every single election, unlike First Past the Post which does it to us approximately once every 20 years.
So we have to pinch ourselves to be reminded that there’s a real, man-sized crisis going on out there in the real world, while we’re all busy examining our constitutional navels. Two centre-right heads of government and/or state, Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy, our two most powerful EU partners, both of the political right, are vehemently denouncing the irresponsible power of the markets and the credit rating agencies over the policies and actions of sovereign independent countries and their elected governments. Chancellor Merkel calls for the restoration of the primacy of politics over finance. Merkel, Sarkozy, Obama and other leaders in Europe and the US are calling for much more effective international regulation of the banks, to address the present glaringly wide democratic deficit. Here is the overwhelming and most pressing problem of the decade, crying out for remedial measures before the whole structure collapses, and the only response from our doomed, caretaker government is a restatement of its stubborn opposition to any more regulation, speaking from a script composed by a committee of fat cats somewhere in the City. And if ever we finally get around to transferring the tenancy of No. 10 Downing Street to young Mr Cameron, with even younger Mr Clegg trotting obediently along behind him, we may be sure that they will obey the reactionary and regressive commands of the City and the international bankers even more slavishly than New Labour has been doing these last 13 years.
Two postscripts, one exasperated and the other sad:
1. Why do our political and constitutional pundits continue to talk as if the Labour Party would need to elect a new party leader before there could be a new Labour-led alliance of the centre-left parties under a new prime minister such as one of the Milibands or Alan Johnson (or, God help us, Ed Balls)? Gordon Brown could perfectly well continue as leader of the Labour Party but step down as prime minister, provided it was clear before he resigned that Miliband/Johnson/[Balls] was the person demonstrably best placed to form a government that would have the confidence of a majority in the Commons: a feasible but in my view highly improbable scenario. (And why does the Guardian publish a letter from an enthusiastic joker who thinks that Labour plus the LibDems have an overall majority in the House of Commons? Nought out of ten in arithmetic for the joker — and even less for the Guardian letters editor.)
2. The death of Alan Watkins robs us of the best, most elegant, well-informed and wittiest political commentator of our age. He was a delightful and convivial friend and a brilliant writer, whose weekly column in the Independent on Sunday took all the most perceptive people with an interest in politics straight to the IoS website, if not always to the newsagent, every Sunday morning. We should all uncork a bottle of reasonably expensive red this Watkins-less Sunday and drink most of it at a sitting to his memory. (His last column is here.)
Brian
5pm on Friday 7 May 2010 with only one more result to come in today: Tories 305 (36.1%), Labour 258 (29.1%), LibDems 57 (23.0%).
I don’t think that the LibDems have any serious alternative to signing up to Cameron’s not particularly generous offer and getting the best deal they can in terms of policy concessions. But they have a weak hand: they couldn’t justify climbing into bed with Gordon after Labour has won under 30% of the vote, nearly as awful as 1983, and lost 91 seats. The astonishing thing is that the Tories won only 36.1% of the vote when they started with so many huge advantages: and they can’t explain that away by reference to the ‘unfair’ distribution of voter numbers among constituencies.
I had consistently and wrongly predicted an overall Tory majority, which seemed inevitable after 13 years of Labour, with a deeply unpopular Labour leader, the MPs’ expenses scandal, two unpopular wars, all flights grounded for days on end, and above all the deepest recession for a generation, all inevitably blamed on the Labour government, however unfairly in some cases. I’m still at a loss to know why Cameron failed to get his overall majority when circumstances were so uniformly favourable for the Tories. The LibDem share of the vote (a mere 23%, with only one more result due today) is less than 1 point better than they won in 2005, before Nick Clegg had been invented.
So I see no reason to change my revised forecast of this morning: Cameron leading a minority Conservative government with the provisional acquiescence of the LibDems following loose agreement on a number of policy promises. The mechanics of achieving this won’t be at all straightforward if Gordon Brown insists on exercising his right to meet parliament as prime minister seeking a confidence vote on 25 May on a Queen’s Speech full of seductive goodies for the LibDems and for the other left-of-centre parties. I suspect however that he will be prevented from dragging things out in this way by an appeal to his patriotism: the country can’t afford to prolong the uncertainty and to delay urgent decisions on the economy for another 18 days. Brown will also be under pressure from younger Labour ministers not to discredit the party in this way for fear of yet more punishment by the electorate in the next election, which could well take place within the year.
Brian
It’s 1030am on Friday 7 May, the morning after the night before. Enough results are in to make it arithmetically impossible for any one party to win an overall majority in parliament. As expected, the Conservatives will be the biggest party and will have won the biggest share of the vote. Labour will be the second biggest party in the House of Commons, almost certainly with the second biggest share of the vote. Cleggmania has failed to deliver the big advance in the LibDem results that we all expected: his party has actually won fewer seats than in the last parliament. Labour has lost more than 80 seats and a corresponding share of the vote, historically a very substantial defeat.
The main factors worth noting as pointers to what happens now seem to be:
1. Gordon Brown has the right, as the incumbent prime minister, to remain in Downing Street until parliament meets in two weeks’ time, submit his policy programme to the House of Commons, and see if he can win majority support for it.
2. Brown also has the duty, as distinct from the right, not to resign, even if it becomes clear that he can’t muster a majority for his programme, until there is an available successor who can demonstrate beyond doubt that he can form a government that will have the confidence of a majority in the House of Commons. As of now, no such successor exists: Cameron can’t demonstrate this morning that he could get majority support in the House, although he might be able to do so after negotiations with the other party leaders.
3. Even if the LibDems were to promise to support a continuing Labour government, the combined strength of the two parties won’t give them an overall majority. They would need additional support, e.g. from the left-of-centre Scottish, Northern Irish and Welsh nationalists, all of whom would try to extort a heavy price in terms of continued or increased budgetary support for their respective countries — a price that no new government is likely to be able to afford to pay.
4. The Conservatives, with a convincing lead over Labour in both seats and (especially) in votes, have the better claim to form a government, but even with the support of the right-of-centre smaller parties (Ulster Unionists, DUP — but who else?) they will struggle to muster an overall majority in the House of Commons unless they can persuade the LibDems to give them provisional and perhaps conditional support.
5. It will be very difficult for the LibDems to refuse to allow a Conservative government to take office, or to cause it to lose the vote on their Queen’s Speech, since if they do, it could well be impossible for any other government to be formed, and it’s axiomatic that the country’s government must be carried on — especially in the midst of a major global financial and economic crisis demanding very early decisions by whichever British government is in office.
6. There is very little common ground shared by the Conservatives’ and LibDems’ policies, but probably enough to justify LibDem support to enable Cameron to govern, at any rate for a reasonable period of time. The joker in the pack will be a referendum on a change in the electoral system, which the Tories have hitherto strongly opposed but which has been a central plank in the LibDem platform. There might have to be some kind of compromise on this: perhaps reluctant Conservative agreement to a referendum in which the Conservatives would campaign for a No vote. Or the Conservatives might refuse to compromise on the issue and challenge the LibDems to prevent any kind of government from being formed. The LibDems will also try to exact other policy compromises by the Conservatives as the price of their support, but it’s far from certain that they will succeed. LibDem options are limited.
The inevitable outcome seems almost certain to be a minority Conservative government under David Cameron with reluctant and provisional support from the LibDems. Once that outcome is assured, Gordon Brown will have no alternative but to resign. My gloomy guess is that this will happen before we all go to bed tonight.
The news which ought to dominate today’s front pages (but doesn’t) is nothing to do with our elections: it should be the maelstrom in world markets and exchanges, including Wall Street and the Eurozone, as they are swept by panic over the prospects for the survival of the Greek economy and even doubts about the future survivability of the Euro. Billions are being wiped off share prices and currency values while our party leaders, haggard from lack of sleep, embark on a process of haggling whose outcome is not really in doubt. But the reality is that in most of Britain, all eyes are focused on the complexities of the election results.
Here’s how I saw it developing last night and in the small hours of this morning:
Midnight, 6/7 May: If the exit polls even roughly predict the eventual result, there’s a clear anti-Tory, centre-left majority that would justify a Labour government with LibDem support. But the real results may be very different. The few results declared so far suggest wildly different swings even in neighbouring constituencies.
Watch this space!
0015am 7 May: Exit poll figures suggest Con 305, Lab 255, LibDem 61. If eventual results were the same, Lab plus LibDem (316) still wouldn’t have the magic score of 326 that represents an overall majority. But they could probably rely on support from Plaid Cymru and perhaps the SNP (? plus any Greens and Respect) to put them over the top (326 minus unoccupied Sinn Fein seats). Alternatively the Conservatives plus Ulster Unionists plus DUP might get to 326. Still seems possible that Brown could stay in No. 10, offer parliament a Queen’s Speech including referendum on PR, and challenge the LibDems to vote against it.
0030am: Swings from Labour to Tory in the few results so far begin to suggest an overall Tory majority some time later on Friday. I’m sticking to my long established prediction that Brown will resign later today and Cameron will be commissioned to form a government. But I still hope against hope that I’m wrong!
Now to bed with the laptop….
2am Friday 7 May: on the laptop
At last some good news: our excellent MP for Tooting, the Labour Transport minister, Sadiq Khan, has been re-elected. The Tories spent a fortune in the effort to unseat him but he won with a 1% increase in the Labour vote. Bravo, Sadiq.
The swings around the country are now all over the place and it’s anyone’s guess whether the Tories, with or without support from the Ulster Unionists and the DUP (who have already lost one seat, that of the Chief Minister of Northern Ireland!), will have won an overall majority in the House of Commons. In case they don’t, Labour leaders on television are valiantly keeping open the option of submitting a Queen’s Speech to the House which the LibDems would find it difficult to defeat. They must have been reading my blog!
But whatever happened to Cleggmania? The results for the LibDems so far are appalling.
Brian
In my previous blog post I sketched out a possible message that Gordon Brown’s emissary might usefully deliver to a representative of Nick Clegg, the LibDem leader, in the event of a hung parliament. This took the form of a statement of the Labour government’s intentions regarding its programme to be submitted to parliament, to be presented on a take-it-or-leave-it basis, not as the opening bid in a negotiation or even in a dialogue. For this I have been scolded in a comment for advocating a brusque and unfriendly attitude to Labour’s potential partner in a future coalition or alliance, implicitly rejecting a more conciliatory and cooperative approach. Here are the reasons for writing as I did.
I have no problems with a conciliatory approach by Labour to the LibDems, based on mutual (but not one-sided) respect and a genuine effort to map out common ground as a basis for a government programme enjoying the support of all the main centre-left parties (which will between them almost certainly command the confidence of a majority in the House of Commons). Indeed this is the election outcome I profoundly hope for. I deliberately wrote my imaginary script for a Labour communication to the LibDems after the election produces a hung parliament (if it does!) in the form of a statement of intentions rather than a request for the launch of negotiations for several reasons.
First, I wanted to demonstrate that in this situation the Labour government will not be the demandeur, begging the LibDems for favours. Still being in office, and entitled to put forward to parliament a programme in the Queen’s Speech carefully crafted so as to be likely to win the support of the majority of MPs, Labour has the initiative and LibDem options are rather limited. They can make demands and lay down conditions if they like, but if these are ignored by the governing party, they still face the same decision: shall they defeat a government programme that gives them much of what they have been campaigning for? If they vote against it, or even if they abstain, they will be effectively obliged to sustain in office, for a considerable time, a Tory government whose policies give them nothing at all.
Secondly, I wanted to avoid the implication that at the moment when it’s clear there’s a hung parliament, “negotiations” must automatically start, between the LibDems and the Tories and between the LibDems and Labour, with the LibDems effectively auctioning their favours to the highest bidder. This would imply that the Tories and Labour have an equal chance to buy LibDem support by offering the most and biggest policy concessions. But the Tories are unlikely to have an opportunity to submit their government programme for parliamentary support unless Labour has done so beforehand and has been defeated on the floor of the House. The expectation must be that the first decision facing the LibDems will be whether to vote for or against the incumbent Labour government’s Queen’s Speech; there’ll be no way for the Tories to get theirs in first, unless of course the LibDems declare in advance that they are firmly committed to supporting a Tory government. And why on earth would they do that?
Thirdly, I wanted to show that even without bargaining and horse-trading between LibDems and Labour, there’s a very large area of potentially common ground between the two parties: all the items I included in my hypothetical communication to the LibDems would enjoy massive support among Labour Party members and supporters, even though some would require changes in current Labour government policy: and all would conform closely with LibDem policies in their manifesto. In combination they would add up to a progressive reformist programme for a centre-left government supported by both the main centre-left parties which together will have won a majority of the votes cast and the seats won in the election.
On the question (raised in another comment on my earlier post) whether the LibDems’ likely share of the national vote will entitle them to an invitation from Brown to take part in a formal Lab-LibDem coalition, with several seats in the Cabinet, I suspect that this might not be what they will want: they might well prefer the greater freedom to criticise and to hold somewhat different positions on current issues which they would enjoy if outside the government but supporting it ad hoc and conditionally, under a formal or informal pact. If their leaders are part of the government, running government departments and participating in Cabinet decisions, they will be bound by the doctrine of collective government responsibility, which would greatly limit their freedom of manoeuvre. They may also prefer not to incur the odium they might earn by being seen to sit down at the Cabinet table with the widely unpopular Gordon Brown: and going into a coalition with him would look even more provocatively like propping up and perpetuating an unpopular Labour government which on some criteria would be seen as having lost the election, even if it wins more seats than any other party. And not least, a semi-informal pact might not require the internal party formalities of meetings of the party executive and/or a special LibDem conference that would apparently be required for Clegg to enter a formal coalition.
Similarly, I’m not convinced that the Labour government would prefer a formal coalition with the LibDems to a less formal alliance or understanding with them. Reaching quick and clear-cut decisions would be more complicated if a group of LibDem Cabinet ministers had to be persuaded to acquiesce in them over every issue that might arise, and there could be considerable reluctance to hand over to them three or four (or even more) key departments of state: the current Labour ministers of those departments might not be overjoyed at having to step down from them to make way for a LibDem. Sections of the Labour Party in the country (what’s left of it) might also regard the acceptance of the LibDems into a predominantly Labour administration as a form of surrender, even betrayal. So both sides might well prefer a pact to a coalition.
I don’t however agree that the LibDems would suffer no electoral backlash if they were to deny their support in quick succession first to Labour and then to the Conservatives, thus almost certainly precipitating another election very soon after tomorrow’s. Such a demonstration of uncompromising LibDem ideological purity might give some satisfaction to the political theologians in the Liberal Democratic Party but I think it would arouse considerable anger everywhere else. The LibDems would not be able to avoid the charge of having made it impossible for anyone to govern the country, and this at a moment of grave crisis when firm and resolute government is desperately needed. Such a charge could not be made against either Labour or the Tories, both of which would have been only too ready to carry on the Queen’s government (if you’ll pardon the expression) had they not been prevented from doing so by LibDem obstinacy. History, or at any rate the conventional wisdom and common sense, show too that the electorate doesn’t like being forced to go through another election campaign all over again so soon after the last one, when a little flexibility and willingness to compromise on the part of the LibDems would have made a second election unnecessary. It’s a fair bet that in such circumstances the electorate would punish the LibDems and that their share of the vote would drop like a bomb.
For these reasons I don’t believe that if the LibDems were to vote to defeat the existing Labour government’s programme in the Queen’s Speech, they would then realistically have the option of voting down the Conservative government that would inevitably at once take its place. They would be stuck with a Cameron government for at least a year and possibly longer, probably until Cameron himself judged that the moment had come when he could expect to win an overall majority in a fresh election and could thereupon ask for a dissolution (which would undoubtedly be granted). Thus the LibDems would find themselves forced to acquiesce, perhaps for years, in a Tory government over which they would have no leverage or influence whatever, as well as having to prop up a Tory government adamantly opposed to any change in the electoral system. In other words, if Brown can hang on for long enough to submit a LibDem-friendly Queen’s Speech to the house of commons, the LibDems will have no realistic option but to support it, thus ensuring the continuation of a Brown Labour government. To do anything else would be LibDem suicide. They would have only one shot in their locker, and if they fired it, that would be the end of them.
All this of course assumes that the LibDems will hold the balance of power in a hung parliament if that’s the result of tomorrow’s election. This assumption may need to be qualified, or possibly reinforced, by the attitudes of the smaller parties if these succeed in materially increasing their representation in the House of Commons. The Ulster Unionists are already in an alliance with the Conservative Party and DUP MPs would probably support the Conservatives as well, as might UKIP. If Sinn Fein MPs continue to boycott the House of Commons, that will reduce the number of seats required for a majority. Any Green, Plaid Cymru, SNP and Respect MPs are likelier to support a Labour than a Conservative programme for government. So it’s not absolutely axiomatic that the LibDems’ votes in the House of Commons on their own will be decisive. The devil will be in the arithmetical detail. Seats in parliament, not the share of the votes cast in the election, will be the ultimate determinants, however much the Tory or LibDem press might clamour for the opposite.
It’s hard to envisage a better and more promising outcome to this election than a continuing Labour government in a formal or informal alliance with the LibDems and perhaps with other centre-left parties also. The arithmetic of the opinion polls and the procedures that will apply if there’s a hung parliament strongly suggest that this is a perfectly feasible result. My fears about this dream scenario are two-fold: first, that Clegg shows signs of leaning increasingly closely towards the Conservatives (for reasons that are to me utterly baffling, even from a LibDem point of view): and secondly, that I still see a small overall majority for the Tories as somewhat likelier than a hung parliament, in spite of what the polls are saying. Something very strange indeed is going on if the main opposition party can’t win an election outright after their opponent has been in power for 13 years, has launched at least two and probably three deeply unpopular wars (two of them also illegal), is presiding over the deepest recession for a generation, has eroded civil liberties to an extraordinary extent, and is led by an uncharismatic prime minister who, however unfairly, attracts dislike and contempt in roughly equal proportions. I know that it’s impossible to doubt which side to back when you consider Labour’s outstanding successes, Gordon Brown’s unquestionable strengths and achievements, and Labour instincts and values, compared with the lamentable record in office and reactionary instincts of the Conservatives, and their economically and socially illiterate programmes (throttling the economic recovery at birth, repealing the Human Rights Act, still further increasing our bursting prison population, cutting taxes on the rich and increasing them on the poor, recklessly privatising our basic public services under cover of a lot of waffle about the Big Society, wrecking our position in Europe, and probably attacking women’s rights by surrendering to religious bigotry over abortion). But I also know that not everyone seems to see things that way!
Brian
If there’s a hung parliament after Thursday’s election, whatever the position in terms of votes cast and seats won, Gordon Brown constitutionally remains prime minister until and unless someone else can demonstrate beyond doubt that he is better able than Brown to command the confidence of a majority of MPs. I have discussed these rules and their consequences here, here, here and here, and there’s no need to set them out again. Instead, here’s what Douglas Alexander (for example) should say to (for example) the LibDem shadow home secretary Chris Huhne when he goes to see him on Gordon Brown’s behalf on Friday afternoon, after it has become clear that no single party has won an overall majority in the House of Commons:
“Chris, Gordon has asked me to come and see you to let you know what our intentions are now that we know there’s a hung parliament. Gordon thinks you and Nick [Clegg] and your other colleagues have a right to know how he intends to proceed. We both recognise that Gordon is permitted — actually under the rules he’s required — to remain in office with a caretaker Labour government until he has met the new parliament and tested by means of the vote on the Queen’s Speech whether he still commands the confidence of the majority of members of the House of Commons. We realise that a lot will depend on how you and your LibDem colleagues decide to vote on our Queen’s Speech. It seems to Gordon only fair that you and Nick should have an indication in advance of what we’re going to put in the Queen’s Speech as the programme of a centre-left government for the coming year.
“Well, we’re going to promise a referendum within six months on the electoral system for the House of Commons. It will include some form of PR as one of the options, and we want to discuss with you what form of PR that option should be. We’re also going to promise to reform the tax system so as to take more of the poorest people out of any tax liability and to increase the tax liability of the richest. We want to make taxes fairer in other ways too, and again we want to discuss with you how best to achieve that. We shall promise to set up an inquiry under a LibDem Chairperson (Vince, perhaps?) to make proposals on how best to split the high street banks from the casino speculators, and also to recommend how best to improve regulation of hedge funds and other speculative investment banks and funds. We have an open mind about the future of control orders and we shall promise to suspend their operation for two years and then to set up an all-party review of whether we really need to reinstate them. We shall institute an independent review of prisons legislation, including Indeterminate Sentences for Public Protection, to recommend the best and safest ways of identifying those now in prison who are not being rehabilitated there, and who don’t need to be in prison to protect the public, so that we can transfer them to different forms of rehabilitation and monitoring in the community and thus reduce prison over-crowding. Sentencing policy will be reformed accordingly. We are prepared to include the question of the renewal of Trident in the defence review to take place in the autumn, and we want all the major parties to take part in that review. We’ll be suspending the introduction of ID cards until we are well out of recession and at that point we’ll have an independent review of the need for them. And we’ll set up an all-party committee to try to agree on measures to control discretionary immigration in a fair and humane way, including what to do about illegal immigrants who have settled here for 10 years or more and who have become good, law-abiding citizens contributing to the economy and to society.
“We’re not asking you to give us your reactions to these proposals now, still less to enter into negotiations with us about them, or about other measures that you would like — of course we’ll listen to anything you might want to say and any further suggestions you might have, but we don’t think it would be fair to the electorate or to the other parties to get into any kind of process of bargaining or laying down conditions. And we won’t make any promises to you or anyone else going beyond what I have just told you.
“We hope you, Nick and your other colleagues will think very carefully about what I have said. Of course it’s your absolute right to vote against a Queen’s Speech on the lines of what we’re proposing, or to abstain on it. But you must realise that if you do, the certain consequence will be that Gordon will resign and Dave Cameron will be invited to form a minority Conservative government. I doubt if his government’s programme will contain any of the promises or policies that we shall be putting before the House. If you LibDems were to vote again to defeat that government, the LibDems would be rightly blamed for making it impossible for any government to govern, at a time when the confidence of business and the markets is so vitally important to our country: so you would be wiped out at the fresh election that would be bound to follow. Any hope of electoral reform would have been lost for another generation. There’d be a run on sterling, interest rates would be forced up, unemployment would increase and the beginnings of economic recovery would be throttled at birth. All that would flow from a LibDem rejection of the programme we’ll be submitting to parliament.
“You and Nick will need to think about all this and we’re not asking for your comments or decision in advance. We just thought you ought to know. No — I don’t want to give Gordon your reactions now. Let’s go and have a beer and discuss football.
“Oh — by the way: of course none of this will be possible if Nick Clegg is foolish enough to tell the Palace, or the Daily Mail, that he and the LibDems have decided definitely to form an alliance with Cameron and the Tories and to support whatever programme Cameron puts forward in a Tory Queen’s Speech. If that happened Gordon and the rest of us would have to resign straight away and Cameron would become prime minister. You would have thrown away the possibility of a centre-left reformist government based on the centre-left majority in the House of Commons following the election. What you would gain in return I’m not at all sure. But that’s of course up to you.
“One last point. Strictly between ourselves, Gordon has told me that whatever happens he’s definitely going to step down in six months’ time and retire from politics altogether. He wants to devote himself to charity work and to spend more time with his family. But he would love to be able to leave behind a stable centre-left government based on a close LibDem-Labour collaboration that would have the best chance of safeguarding the economic recovery and building on his legacy. Now, what about that beer?”
Have you got that, Gordon and Duggie?
Postscript: Sunder Katwala’s piece on the Fabian Society’s blog, Next Left, at –
http://www.nextleft.org/2010/05/revealed-tory-strategy-to-pull-queen.html
– should be required and urgent reading for everyone even slightly to the left of George Osborne (please also read my Comment on it). Katwala predicts in excruciating and all too plausible detail the intense unconstitutional pressures that the Tories and their fat cat friends in the City are already planning to bring to bear in the event of a hung parliament in order to prevent exactly the kind of outcome enivsaged above. It seems (e.g. from an extraordinary report in today’s Guardian) that Cameron may be planning to declare himself the winner of the election even when there is still a genuine possibility that a centre-left combination may have a far better chance of commanding the confidence of a majority in the House of Commons. If Cameron were in effect to declare himself prime minister when Brown was still lawfully in office as head of a Labour government, or demanded that the Queen should dismiss Brown and appoint himself prime minister instead, when there was no guarantee that he would be better placed than Brown to win the confidence of a majority in the House of Commons, he would not only be dragging the Queen into an insupportable position: he would also in effect be staging a coup d’état and precipitating a constitutional crisis of a magnitude unprecedented in modern times.
Brian
