Our politics emphasises the differences between parties.
Much as voters say they want parties to work together, to agree more, to be more constructive, those that do it are often punished in the polls and at the ballot box. If you want someone to vote for you and not the other guy, it’s more effective to say how you differ than how you’re alike.
“I agree with Nick” didn’t turn out to be the winning strategy for Gordon Brown – Labour did better when they were shouting about where they disagreed with Nick – and with Dave.
The result is parties emphasising the differences – often to the extent that the politicians themselves forget how much they’ve got in common.
So the coalition has thrown up a curious situation. Unusually for political parties, the Conservatives and Lib Dems find – for now at least – that it’s in their interests to find, and emphasise, their areas of agreement.
Those similarities are always there. MPs talk about how, beyond the adversarial atmosphere of the chamber, cross-party co-operation is the norm and the parties work together on all sorts of things the public rarely get to hear about.
The same’s true in local government. Not just in coalitions where a council has no overall control. Even when one party is in control, the politicians frequently co-operate and agree on a whole range of issues.
Some have characterised our new coalition government as the Lib Dems and Conservatives discovering they’re really pretty alike, and therefore more different to Labour and the other parties.
That’s a mistake. Had the Lib Dems gone into coalition with Labour, those two parties would have found all sorts of similarities and a whole raft of areas they agreed – areas that don’t get so much airing in Lib Dem/Labour election contests.
The same would be true had there been a Labour/Conservative grand coalition (Blair didn’t portray himself as Thatcher’s heir for nothing!), not to mention deals between other parties like the SNP, Plaid and the Greens.
Some look at any deal between any two parties (and there are a lot of them across the UK) as selling out and betraying principles. I don’t think that’s right.
The reality is that different parties and politicians have a lot more in common than they, or their supporters, often want to admit. That parties – themselves broad churches – have always worked together and have always had a great deal they agree on, as well as big chunks they don’t.
Sure, those big – often fundamental – differences are still there. The areas the parties all disagreed on were, for the most, real disagreements. Within this coalition, that comes through loud and clear in all those areas where the parties have agreed to disagree.
But those differences, important as they are, are a long way from telling the whole story. If this coalition serves to remind us of that, perhaps it’s no bad thing.
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7 Comments
Iain,
What the Party needs to do now is to find a new vernacular that defends the shared broadbrush and progressive part of the coalition – it also needs to show the differences from the Conservatives in time by using a SEPERATE form of vernacular that assists us in our efforts to define ourselves against the Conservatives. Who knows – perhaps when they see how the Lib Dems perform they may want a Lib Dem Governmetn with Conservative support instead of the other way around.
Yep, Frank Field has willingly accepted an advisory position. During the last Parliament, wreckers in his local constituency mounted a campaign to have him deselected. He saw them off, and came back with a 15,000 majority.
@john – Yes it would be nice to have a swap in 5 years time
Well there is a good way to keep the differences between Lib Dem and the Conservatives clear for campaign purposes – get the points of stalemate in the Coalition on a list, and emphasize where the Conservatives were hindered. It might help to counter the purist argument that all-of-the-whole-of-the-Liberal Democrat Manifesto has not been put into practice, and show people that there are advantages to coalition politics.
A thoughtful piece which looks beyond the immediate power-sharing issues of the day, and with which I’m inclined to agree.
If we’re to have a changed electoral system that boosts LibDem representation at Westminster and makes inter-party transfers a routine element of the voting process, coalitions and identifying commonalities are likely to be an ever more prominent part of the political scenery. That indeed means a new vernacular not just for LibDems but for everybody. The adversarial Westminster debating society hasn’t served us particularly well of late with its cheap jibes and closing of party ranks: the parties spend so much of their energy tinkering with the details and squabbling over every conceivable petty difference that no-one ever gets round to looking at the big picture of a society that really doesn’t work half as well as it should.
Will the coalition do much better in terms of policy outcomes? Probably not. But it could make a big difference to the partisan tone if the partners don’t in turn close ranks together having just bridged their own party divide. LibDems have a vested interest in seeing that the “new politics” doesn’t become just “The Two of Us v. Them”. So of course does Labour which will at some point find itself in need of a parliamentary ally. Conservatives’ interest is however the opposite owing to the political landscape of the day: better to maintain the antagonism between Government and Opposition so as to increase the chances of keeping their partners on board if they’re needed next time.
I think the new politics for LibDems has to take the form of differentiating very clearly between their place in government and their place in politics: “Yes, we’re allies in government and as such we support policy A. But as a party we favour policy B and will advocate it as a basis for the next government”. There’ll be howls from all sides about trying to have it both ways, but they’ll one day have to do likewise if they want to share power and retain their identity. LibDems have a rare opportunity to point the way to an altogether more sophisticated politics provided they resist the dangerous allure of Us v. Them.
Of course there is one party that everyone disagrees with. However they are thankfully not in Westminster.
@Chris Mills
How dare you say we all disagree with them, how could anyone disagree with policies like:
M.P’s Expenses: We propose that instead of a second home allowance M.P’s will have a caravan which will be parked outside the Houses of Parliament. This will make it easier as flipping a caravan is easier than flipping homes
or
3. Eurofit: The European Constitution which will be sorted out by going for a long Walk. “As everyone knows that walking is good for the constitution”
VOLTE Monster Raving Loony Party