Posts Tagged ‘Clegg’
Day 4 of negotiations
Monday, May 10th, 2010
Acting in the national interest?
Talks continue at 10.00 am this morning between the Conservative and Lib-Dem negotiating teams to see if they can reach agreement that would allow the formation of a new government. Nick Clegg will meet his parliamentary party at 1.00pm and David Cameron his MPs at 6.00pm. Both will have the objective of smoothing ruffled feathers amongst colleagues uncomfortable with the compromises necessary to reach agreement with people who, until recently, have been implacable political opponents.
Now that the dust has settled from the election result how does each of the major parties stand this morning?
Conservatives
There is no disguising the disappointment in the Conservative camp at failing to creep over the line needed for an overall majority. The line is that expectations were too high in the first place; they gained more seats than have ever been achieved since the 1930s; they secured a record Lab-Con swing of over 5% – bigger even than Margaret Thatcher achieved in 1979; and won a higher share of the vote than Tony Blair won in 2005, when he secured a majority of 69. And yet there are mutterings that the Party should have done better against an unpopular Prime Minister, an unfavourable economic backdrop and a government on the ropes. The critics wonder if the campaign wasn’t too cautious and the message too opaque.
In some ways the narrow party political advantage for the Conservative Party is to form a minority administration backed by a “minimalist” deal with the Lib Dems, giving Cameron maximum room for manoeuvre to call a fresh election and seek a more decisive mandate at a time of his choosing.
However, Cameron appears genuine in trying to put in place something more ambitious and durable, which would have the necessary legitimacy to deal with the current economic and financial crisis. His preferred approach seems to be a full coalition, with Lib Dems participating in government. This has attractions for Cameron. A programme supported by the Conservative Party and Lib Dems would represent nearly 60% of the votes cast on Thursday and enjoy a majority of 78 over all other parties – potentially a strong mandate to govern for a full term.
What price would Cameron be prepared to achieve this? The indications are that he is thinking big. The Lib Dems have four priorities flowing from their election manifesto: reducing the tax burden for those on low and middle incomes; reducing class sizes, introducing more diverse providers and providing extra funding for disadvantaged pupils; banking reform, tough action to cut the deficit and boosting the green economy; political – including electoral – reform.
On tax a deal seems feasible. The Lib Dems policy to raise the tax threshold and the Tories opposition to the NIC rise are both targeted at similar objectives. They also have similar positions on limiting tax credits for the better off. Cameron would undoubtedly be prepared to downgrade the priority to raise the Inheritance Tax threshold to achieve a deal.
The education policies of the two parties are already very similar and seem unlikely to cause an obstacle to a deal. Similarly the parties are not too far apart on banking reform, agree on the green economy and the differences on the deficit are to do with timing, rather than overall approach. Whilst the Lib Dems attacked the Tories for wanting to take £6bn out of the economy this year, given the scale of government spending and borrowing, this is a relatively modest difference, even though exaggerated during the campaign.
The big stumbling block is political reform. The two parties will agree on things like the power to recall MPs who transgress. The key calculation for Cameron is how much he can concede on electoral reform. His approach seems to be to offer an all party committee to look into options, a free vote of the House of Commons on whether or not to put the conclusions to a referendum, and, if passed, to hold such a referendum. Cameron still has to sell this to his MPs, many of whom will be sceptical. However, if an unstoppable momentum has built up for the Queen to ask Cameron to form an administration, it would be a brave Conservative MP who stood in the way.
What the discussions have going for them are some strong personal relationships. Edward Llewellyn, Cameron’s chief of staff and member of his four-man negotiating team, used to work for Paddy Ashdown when he was running Bosnia.
Lib Dems
For the Lib Dems the election was a huge disappointment. The campaign promised so much and, in the end, failed to deliver a breakthrough, or even an increase in the number of seats. Clegg’s ambition to replace Labour as the main challenger to the Tories on the centre left was unfulfilled.
And yet, Clegg now finds himself in the position of kingmaker he eschewed during the campaign. How he exercises his choice is fraught with difficulty and danger for the Lib Dems.
Having waxed lyrical about creating a new politics and the need for parties to co-operate, he can hardly be seen to spurn an overture to co-operate to enable a government capable of dealing with the economic crisis. There are substantial areas of potential agreement with the Conservatives that could form the bedrock of a programme for government. Could he be seen to turn his back on this because he could not get everything he wanted on proportional representation? The indications suggest that Cameron may have done enough to secure his support.
Clegg’s big problem is his party’s rank and file and its federal constitution. Little attention has in the past been paid to the Lib Dems, but they are in fact a very broad church, which spans a wide range of political opinions from left to moderate right. Holding this coalition together sufficiently to provide support to a Conservative-led government will be a huge challenge. The role of Paddy Ashdown will be important in reassuring the rank and file. His public statements have been noticeably more favourable to the idea of doing a deal with the Conservatives, than other former leaders like David Steel and Menzies Campbell, whose sympathies and instincts are clearly towards doing a deal with Labour. However, the problems of being seen to prop up a failing Labour Government would seem to present an insurmountable hurdle.
Labour
The position of the Labour Party is in many respects the mirror image of the Conservative Party. It lost more seats than at any time since the 1930s. Its share of the vote was almost on a par with the low point of Michael Foot’s leadership in 1983. And yet as a damage limitation exercise, against all the odds, Gordon Brown’s sheer bloody-minded resilience can be seen as some sort of success. This was not the wipe-out many had predicted or the melt-down the Conservatives suffered in 1997. The Labour Party still has 258 seats and looking forward they are still very much in the game to take advantage of any Conservative-led government, which has been forced to take some difficult decisions by the time it goes to the polls. This is particularly the case if, as expected, Gordon Brown steps down and the Party elects a new and more “modern” leader in the mould of the Milliband brothers.
Of course, the master political conductor, Peter Mandelson has tried with characteristic chutzpah to suggest that the last Thursday’s result was for an emphatic progressive left majority as represented by the Labour and Lib Dem parties. The problem with such sophistry is that together Labour and the Lib Dems don’t have a majority in parliament. It also wrongly presupposes that everyone who votes Lib Dem is on the left of the political spectrum, which is clearly not the case.
Also Labour’s offer on electoral reform looks highly opportunistic and does not offer the Lib Dems any guarantee that it can be carried through.
The emerging mood in the Labour Party seems to be that a period in opposition to renew itself, is preferable to trying to cobble together an inherently unstable rainbow coalition that would then be required to take some unpopular decisions that could lead to much more negative longer term consequences for the Labour Party than it faces today.
The local picture
Thursday also saw elections in 164 councils in England, including for all London boroughs. Labour made significant gains from a very low base following four years of damaging results, picking up 420 seats and fifteen councils. Whilst the Conservatives still have the majority of English councils, Labour’s positive results restore some respectability to the local picture.
The picture in London proved particularly interesting with Labour making a comeback in a number of areas. Labour regained Camden, Southwark and Islington from no overall control. The polarisation of London has continued however, with more affluent boroughs such as Bromley, Westminster and Kensington and Chelsea remaining solidly Tory, and areas such as Tower Hamlets, Hackney and Newham gaining seats as Labour fiefdoms.
The Liberal Democrats’ general election disappointment was replicated at the local authority level with the loss of 144 seats and control of four councils, including the flagship authority of Liverpool. Zac Goldsmith’s parliamentary victory for the Conservatives in Richmond also translated into local authority triumph with the Liberal Democrats losing eleven seats – and the council.
The night also saw fringe parties such as the BNP and Respect squeezed, with the BNP losing all twelve of its seats on Barking and Dagenham Council.
We now face an interesting dynamic between local and central government over the next four years. We may well see a trial of strength similar to the 1980s, with central government attempting to force cuts on local authorities to balance the books – but in the knowledge that many councils will now not face elections for four years, whilst central government could face another contest before the end of 2010.
The broader outlook
The odds are that David Cameron will be in Downing Street sooner rather than later. The only question will be whether it is at the head of a full-blown coalition or a looser arrangement, in which Lib Dem support is provided for a fixed period of time, from outside government. The latter option seems the more likely at the moment. To be continued…
Tags: Cameron, Clegg
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