Last month I spoke at an event organised by the University College London’s Constitution Unit on how the Liberal Democrats ended up in coalition with the Conservatives and the progress of the coalition so far:
The Liberal Democrats and the Coalition – Mark Pack from Department of Political Science on Vimeo.
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8 Comments
You ommitted the real reasons why the Tories were prepared to enter into coalition with you and Labour weren’t: Firstly, the Liberal Democrats, like the Tories, are the party of capital not the workers and at a time when cuts were needed and your party was run by Orange Bookers, if Labour had entered into coalition with you its membership would have collapsed and its position in the polls would be where the Liberal Democrats is now. Secondly, in the event of a hung parliament the Tory plan was to swallow you up and neuter you and that’s exactly what they have done. You should have resisted the Tory blandishments and engaged in confidence and supply on a “halve the deficit in a parliament ” agenda with Labour. If you had done so the economy would not now be 0.6 retrograde. Oh, and the final reason? In a situation where nobody had won the general election the Tories saw an opportunity to grab power without a mandate and so did the Liberal Democrats. And the reason the Liberal Democrats were even in that position was because they had lied to so many students when they gave their pledge on tuition fees. The students and many others voted for you to keep the Tories out of power not for you to llow them to grab it when they had not even passed the finishing post.
This is a brilliant exposition of the art of what can be possible for all progressive minded L/D`s.
The excellent synopsis of the present scenario of engaging with the Conservatives in `Coalition Government’ suggests and gives evidence of how it could lead Britain into a new Coalition mindset, for future Government.
The reasons of `Why with the Conservatives’? is almost a fait accompli,in any event, as there was really no other game in Town on May 6th 2010 with the severe magnitude of the £170Billion `National Deficit’ looming ahead for any Government taking Office.
Labour clearly had no stomach to continue in Government and did no homework on the possibility of a new `collegiate and pragmatic’ Coalition Government style and approach, for the next 5 years or longer.
I agree that under these circumstances a Coalition with the Tories was inevitable but one we can live with only as long as it delivers the targets of real and fairer constutional reform and serious public good from its pledged improved mangement of the Economy and Environment and to `up the anti’ on Civil and Human Rights.
Will David Cameron turn out as a moderning Tory or revert to title is a key question to revisit?
Can you discuss and disagree and still work together is also the joint Leadership conundrum?
This will continue to keep our Liberal Democrat `Triple Lock’ preoccupied.
I remain upbeat and believe that once the Economy gets out of the mire and people are back in work, especially the almost million 18-24 year old NEETs- we can we begin to sleep more soundly at nights.
Really interesting talk. Thanks for posting.
@MacK – Your point about nobody winning the election is spurious. Nobody has, in fact, won an election outright since 1950 (I believe) as since then no party has achieved 50% of the vote. I don’t know why you think Labour is more entitled to govern with 35% of the votes (in 2005) than the Conservatives with 36% (in 2010), let alone a Conservative-LibDem coalition with a combined vote share of 59%.
Also, final point, I really don’t think you can call the Labour a party of the workers and not of capital after what happened under Blair/Brown.
@Patrick Smith
I remain upbeat and believe that once the Economy gets out of the mire and people are back in work, especially the almost million 18-24 year old NEETs- we can we begin to sleep more soundly at nights.
any chance of a clue when this is going to start, as the last i looked the economy was not growing
Andrew Edinburgh
MacK says: “Firstly, the Liberal Democrats, like the Tories, are the party of capital not the workers” when he should be directing his concerns at the Labour Party. Not just Tony Blair and Peter Mandelson sucking up to America, Ghadaffi, anyone with large amounts of cash, but the systematic and deliberate maintenance and increase of inequality in the UK over 13 years. Even though the largest party is the official Conservatives, there is no conceivable way that this government will ever behave in such a Tory fashion as that run by Blair and Brown and including the Millibands, Balls, Burnham and the rest of them.
@ Liberalmartin
“@MacK – Your point about nobody winning the election is spurious.”
So all of those governments from the 1950s onwards were a mirage? Just because they were elected by FPTP?
Percentage share of the vote is irrelevant in a First Past the Post System. What matters is getting more constituency votes than your opponents and winning the seat. The party that wins the most seats passes the finishing post and wins the General Election. Not a spurious fact at all.
As for your other point, the Labour Party has always been a party that represented the workers, even when Ramsay McDonald led it!
@liberalmartin
“Also, final point, I really don’t think you can call the Labour a party of the workers and not of capital after what happened under Blair/Brown.”
Congrats on the lib dems for taking this a step further, well done.
Patrick Smith
Will David Cameron turn out as a modernising Tory or revert to title is a key question to revisit?
That depends on what you mean by “modernising”. Dropping some old-style conservatism of the sort that still had some care for this country and its people and becoming purely the party which defends the wealth and power of the international financiers may be “modernising” in the sense that it’s about destroying what is old and pushing in the way the world is going – nation states kowtow to business which has become too big for them. That does not mean it is good.