So you’re more correct in quoting Waugh at me than you might think. Internal disagreement is productive up to the point of decision. Beyond that point we stand or fall. Post-merger we’ve stood tall and we’ve prospered so we should celebrate the fact that David Owen effectively cut himself adrift.

Just so long as Clegg keeps the members abreast of his current thinking I think the controversy in the coalition question is our most powerful tool to help us frame the issues under contention and set the tone of the election. If it is used judiciously then it will help draw attention to our platform which will be to our benefit as we look to pass the psychologically important 100 MP mark.

Clegg’s background is as a negotiator and there’s no reason to think he’s suddenly changed, so just keep singing ‘poker face’.

Up to a point, Lord Copper. The internal disagreement we had back in 1987 took rather a while to develop a better solution.

That little trouble stemmed from two decisions by Dr David Owen. The first was to stand for the leadership of the SDP on a false prospectus. He described himself as a “radical” and a “socialist”, thereby claiming a position well to the left of his original opponent, Roy Jenkins. Once elected, he rapidly moved a long way to the right. The second decision was to walk out when the membership finally decided it was not simply prepared to follow his every move.

Let’s hope history will not repeat itself.

No, really, it all depends on the circumstances and conditions laid out.

But it must be emphasised that the consequence of coalition in national government must be electoral reform.

End internal feuding? If that’s what you want to call it – I call it ongoing debate on the issues that matter. And that’s not something I want to put a stop to as it makes us the dynamic force we are and enables us to stay relevant.

The coalition question is the test of a LibDem party leader. With how much success they manage to execute the ‘pivot’ is the measure of how successful they will be over the course of their term. So far Clegg has managed it far better than any leader in memory which fills me with confidence.

Anyway, I don’t want to see this question settled. I want it to grow in the public mind.

I want more people to consider the prospect of a LibDem government. I want more people to be forced to pay attention to the leaflets we post through their letterboxes and I want to hear more people tell me that a vote for the LibDems is a meaningful vote because there is a possibility that it will do more than just make a difference.

We are a democratic party, so we should value internal disagreement as the means to develop better solutions. If our opponents are attacking us for behaving democratically then we need to do it louder!

Cheers H.

If Blair had been honest and played the rules properly, “Would we be fighting Wars one after the other in pursuit of nothing more than oil and foreign assets, where are Saddam’s cash assets now? And does any one really believe that there will be any left for us when the present confict is ended, and does anyone else think that Cameron resembles another Blair in many ways?

With a hung Parliament Blair could never have got away with it, and hundreds of our soldiers would still alive and ready to defend our country and our people (The Voters at the next election, as and when required.)

Matthew – You clearly know more about the German situation so I cant honestly comment on that. However, in Scotland there is a feeling amongst senior Scottish Labour people that the Lib Dems were far more than an irrelevant junior partner and the expression ‘tail wagging the dog has been used more than once. I support PR and see a natural consequence of PR being the end of a single party dominating a parliament. Coalitions are seen as as inevitable consequence of voting reform and have been used as an argument against it. Why not step up and say that a coalition can be a good thing – say the economic recovery is key and we offer that?

I dont really follow your argument about the Tories/Labour forming a coalition. It just seems an approach based on ‘cutting your nose of to spite your face’. I still think imperfect power is better than no power.

Geoffrey Payne puts it well when he would “hate to see the party go the way of the German FDP”. It seems to me the German FDP became just that sort of party – comfy jobs for a couple of its senior members, but a loss of much of a distinct identity. The party became a meaningless makeweight rather than something anyone (apart from those at the top who got jobs out of it) could feel much attachment to. It stumbles along on a small proportion of the votes and hardly any active members, hoping every time that a tiny few will go for it on the grounds “We need that sort of makeweight”, or by deliberately misrepresenting Germany’s silly electoral system (the list vote is the one that counts because that’s the one that give the party balances in the Bundestag, but many Germans – I have spoken to Germans about this and they tell me this is how it is – think of the list vote as some secondary vote so can be fooled into thinking that a FDP list vote is a “second choice rather than what it really is – the only vote that counts).

If we make it clear that what we are about is the wish to change politics completely in this country, and that we see elections as Labour/Tory versus us, is that “lacking ambition”? I am suggesting that our line should be “If we don’t come out top, we will say to the Labour and Conservative parties ‘You have won the election, so you form the government, both of you, you are so alike that you are the natural coalition partners’”. Where is the lack of ambition in that? The ambition is in saying that we are in it to win, and in holding out because if what we suggested took place, we would win the next general election. Look at how the FDP prospered in the times when it was the opposition to a SPD/CPD/CSU grand coalition.

What I am suggesting is in line with what the Labour and Conservative parties say they prefer – elections being a binary choice, with just two alternative governments on offer. So if they will not form a grand coalition in the event of us not being the largest party, we will tell them “We take you at your word – you say it is better to have a single party government than a coalition, and you support an electoral system which distorts party representation away from being proportional to votes in order to make this outcome more likely. Now, you have won, so we will give you what would have been delivered had we not existed – single-party government by whichever of you has the more MPs. It is the clear logic of the position of both of you that you would rather we did not exist. Following from that, the clear logic of both of you is that you prefer the other one to have absolute majority government if you do not get it yourself. You say you hate the horse-trading and uncertainty and coalitions which proportional representation gives. So we will accept that you have won with that position and we will not engage in it. That is why we shall not vote down a minority government by whichever of you has the most seats, nor will we oppose whatever policies such a government puts through. Given your position on the desirability of single-party government, and your support for an electoral system which is designed to twist us out of fair representation so that you two can take untrammelled power in turns, it would be hypocritical of whichever of you has the smaller number of seats to criticise us for that”.

We should, of course, reserve the option to vote down anything grossly illiberal. Not voting against something does not mean we should not criticise it. If we feel it wrong, we should make quite clear, using the same lines as given above, why we will not actually go into the lobbies against it. An excuse to pull the plug will, of course, be found when that government reaches the nadir of unpopularity, as it will given these tough times and the uselessness of the top brass in the Labour and Conservative parties. Then we win the ensuing general election.

Since when has a nuanced answer ever been more respected by the voters?

With regards to the orginal post:

1. A coalition will be the only real way to get our policies enacted instead of being happy to stop the policies of other parties that we dont like. Have some ambition man!

2. Agree that a clear message is required but a far more nuanced answer than an Iain Paisley style No! No! No! will be treated with more respect by voters.

3. A clear party line is needed.

4. If we say we wont go into coalition then they media will look at other ways of trying to work out what will happen in a hung parliament. It is really conceited to think that the issue about us being in a coalition is the issue. The real issue about a hung parliament and how the UK will be governed. If rule ourselves out of any future governance and legislative process then we may as well buy lots of badges for our candidates with the word – Irrelevant across them.

5. A clear and easy to understand coalition agreement achieves both the delivery of our policies and the blocking of legislation that we dont even want to see presented in Parliament. If the Tories win there will be at least two factions in government, the Labour Party will also break apart and the Nationalists are already forming a block. Why reduce our status by making us no stronger than one of these factions? Why not aim for something bigger and form part of the Government?

Douglas

We have always kept open the option of coalition. Why do different this time? Especially now, when the pound is under threat if Britain cannot form a stable government. If we are not prepared to help avoid the risk of uncertainty and instability, then we are simply issuing an open invitation to our opponents to point out that risk, and to the voters to reject us.

I can think of only one really good reason to rule out coalition, and it’s Stephen’s number three. It could save us from internal feuding. It will be the least bad option, I suppose, if it is the only way we can avoid an open split between those whose position is to the right of David Cameron, and those whose position is not.

6) The Labour Party and the Conservative Party are closer to each other than we are to either of them, so in the event that we do not win a LibDem majority in Parliament, a Labour-Conservative coalition is the most natural outcome.

Also, I think:

7) The electoral system gives us a much lower representation than our proportion of votes, and therefore lesser influence in a coalition than we would have if that coalition were based on number of MPs in proportion to votes. We cannot accept to be part of a coalition where our influence is lessened by this distortion.

The danger with the “we won’t join a coalition” line is that our opponents will label us as people who are scared of power. They will say that we are letting down those who voted for us because when we were offered the chance to have real government power, we refused it. The other two parties have both reached the point where they are accepting a no-majority Parliament is quite likely, so they are already preparing the ground for this. Both of them have put out “We are the best partners for the LibDems to form a coalition in a hung Parliament” messages.

Given our support for PR, we have to accept that holding out forever against involvement in coalition is silly. But that does not mean we should accept coalition which is not on our terms. To me, pushing the “Grand coalition” line seems to be the best strategy – it’s “them or us”, “Labour&Tory v. LibDem – which do you want?”. The campaign then has to be centred round the idea that Blair essentially took over the politics of the previous Tory governments, and we are campaigning against all of that. It shouldn’t be that difficult, given that the problems this country faces now are largely due to the long-term effects of Thatcherism.

Remember the plan to double the number of lib dem MPs ?

If the party is serious about gains – say 85 MPs after the election, then a hung parliament is almost a certainty.
This would be no net losses to the Tories and 20 gains off Labour – all of which looks distinctly possible – but only if we have something worth saying to voters.

as a party we must never talk about putting Labour or Conservative in power, it must be about putting Lib Dem policies into effect.

It won’t do to argue that this was just a story in the Guardian. It was not denied.

But David, it *was* denied – see the BBC link in my comment above yours!

http://www.libdemvoice.org/clegg-to-rule-out-any-form-of-lib-dem-coalition-17964.html

It won’t do to argue that this was just a story in the Guardian. It was not denied.

Presumably Nick wants to rule it out, Vince wants to rule it in, and on that basis (shades of Steel and Owen) we are going to put up two leaders with opposing views, and watch our opponents take us apart?

A Lib Dem spokesman said: “We have not ruled in or out any hypothetical situations after an election.

“The voters will decide the result of the election and then all parties will have to respond to that decision.

“In the meantime we will get on with our job of getting across the Liberal Democrats’ policies to build a fairer Britain.”

Mr Cable said the idea that the Lib Dems were planning to rule out a coalition was “the product of a vivid imagination”.