My family are a difficult bunch to please. This weekend my mother threatened to give up on the Lib Dems if Nick Clegg kept Gordon Brown in power and my sister threatened to move to Greece if he did a deal with the Tories.
Me? I’ve been fighting the Tories all my adult life, but I’ve been working to get Lib Dems into government all that time too. I am immensely proud and excited that Nick Clegg is Deputy Prime Minister (pinch me!) But I also understand the anguish and pain felt by many in the party. After fifty years of pursuing a realignment of the left, how can we now throw in our lot with Thatcher’s offspring?
The answer, of course, lies with the voters. Hope of superseding the Labour Party flickered briefly last month as we passed them in the polls. But that was not the hand that the electorate dealt us on May 6th. A deal with the Tories was the only realistic option.
Some – new recruits and old warhorses too – will leave us never to return. I regret that. But Nick was right not to be swayed by the verdict of the rolling news programmes. What really matters is the judgement of voters in five years’ time.
Those entering government face an enormous responsibility – to deliver good government with a distinct liberal tone. But the wider party must also recognise this is potentially a moment of transformation. We have to start work now on winning the referendum on voting reform. We have to plan for the next election to be on radically different boundaries returning far fewer MPs (and on AV too). Hardest of all, perhaps, we have to ask whether the guerilla campaigning techniques that have served us so well for the last 40 years are ‘fit for purpose’ now.
I am unsettled but full of hope for the future today. Being in government is much harder than being in opposition. But I am confident that if my sister moves to Greece it will be for the weather, not for the politics, and that in five years time she (and millions like her) will still agree with Nick.
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55 Comments
The party’s popularity is going to tank short-term – but it would have done that anyway if we had just sat on the sidelines and allowed the Tories to form a minority government, as we would have still been seen as “allowing” the Tories in. Under the circumstances, as has been pointed out elsewhere, better to be in, influencing the process – and hopefully keeping the right-wing fringes of the Conservatives in check – than out.
We now need to hold our nerve, deal without flinching with the hit that we are going to take, and set about proving that we do have influence in government and the ability to see LibDem policies through from manifesto to the law books. I’d like to see a proper, written Programme for Government to see exactly what’s been agreed, but so far it’s looking positive for us.
The biggest risk? In tech circles you’ll often hear talk of Microsoft’s habit of dealing with competitors by “embrace & extinguish” – take the best of their ideas and then use their size and marketing to destroy the opposition. There’s a real risk that the Conservatives may try the same, and attempt to claim credit for LibDem policies that are implemented (will the man on the street really understand which party was responsible for which policy?). We need to be aware of that risk and make sure it doesn’t happen.
I’m a Conservative and I admit this isn’t the solution that either of our parties would have predicted or maybe even wanted this time last week … but … think of what we’ve done. We have achieved stable government with representation from all parts of the UK (with the Alliance Party Member I assume taking your whip?) and have ejected one of the most authoritarian and brutish governments of recent times from office.
We’ve both got aspects of what we wanted, and whilst no-one voted for this coalition programme (we either voted Lib-Dem or Tory, and coalitions are not ideal) this is the least worst outcome (another General Election may very well have resulted in almost exactly the same outcome).
If we can work together to restore civil liberties, tackle the debt, make society freer and more responsible and stop state power being used to frighten people then we will have done a great deal for the country.
This is a good day for the UK – and for BOTH the Conservative Party AND the Liberal Democrat Party.
“and my sister threatened to move to Greece if he did a deal with the Tories.”
I’m guessing your sister doens’t keep up with news quite as much as you do, Ed? 😉
My little sister (well, I say that, she has just turned 40!) told me that she had voted for the first time ever and to help elect Ian Swales in Redcar.
This is going to be hard work, but if we and the Tories get it right, it could be very rewarding hard work.
Walter, you are my kind of Tory. With such reason and sense, why aren’t you a Lib Dem 😉
In reply to Ellie (10:20 am) it is because of my ‘reason and sense’ that I am a Conservative! 😉
I truly hope that the events of the last few days will lead to a reduction in the political tribalism that has done this country such a great disservice for decades. As a LibDem supporter, I have always voted for a party that has proposed PR and, therefore, co-operative government. Remarkably, we now have it, and I must pay tribute to David Cameron and the Tory negotiating team who have had the good sense and, perhaps, vision to offer genuine change. It behoves all of us to support this venture with both our hearts and our heads.
Is it time yet for “Liberal Neil” to change his moniker to “Tory Neil”…….
I understand that you (the LibDems) were in an impossible situation. The very worst, really. To prop up Labour was going against the spirit of the election result, to prop up the Tories is revolting to all those of us who remember the Thatcher/Major years, while to do nothing and allow the Tories to govern as a minority would have left you open to the charges of being indecisive and/or not prepared to take responsibility.
I understand: a lose-lose-lose situation really. And would I rather a Tory only government, or a Tory government with LibDem brakes on it, well of course put like that the latter is the preferable option.
But I’m afraid you’ll pay a terrible price for this. The Tory party has swallowed up everyone who has ever shared power with them outside wartime. By the end of the last Tory-Lib coalition people like Sir John Simon were regarded as Tories, Liberals no longer. In 1931 Labour was vilified for not joining the National coalition in the “national interest” and punished at the ballot box in the snap election. But at the end of the day, the decision to stick to their principles and go into opposition saved the party from destruction – and they came back with a landslide 14 years later.
I like and support three party – or more – politics. But you’re playing the Tories’ game here, joining them on their “side” of the House, while Labour are on the other – and therefore now the only alternative. Two party politics – Government and Opposition – is restored. A moderate change of the voting system to AV – which your own coalition partners are going to campaign against and which will have all the money and press against – is not, in my opinion, a price worth paying for losing your identity.
Remember 1922 !
Stopping splits or event splinters will be hard work, also. Remember, the Tories 1922 Committee isnt just called that without reason…in 1922, the Tory backbenchers had enough of working with Liberals so called it quits, and pulled the rug from under the feet of their own Conservative Government and unilaterally declared an end to the coalition…backbench power rose up to kill it off, and the committee of backbenchers became known from that moment on as the 1922 Committee. What comes around goes around, except that in 1922 the microscope of 24 hour news and instant communication was not around to record every cough.
All good stuff. we also need to look at how we destroy the client state the labour party has built up. The review of party funding should make it far more difficult for unions to give money to labour without the annual individual apporval of their members.
We need policy renewal for the next general election. Much of our ammunition will be spent in this government, great, but we will need new ideas after some our best ones are implemented and some of our worst ones are ditched.
(Tory) Neil – I think my sister was attracted by the prospect of imminent revolution. She also wants to know whether the Clegg children support Real or Barca: she is concerned that they are closet Franco-ists!
🙂
@Philip Young
I am slightly sceptical of the cabinet posts awarded to the Lib Dems.
What does Deputy Prime Minister mean, is he PM in the event of Cameron being incapacitated? Does Nick C. potentially have his finger on the nuclear button, for instance? Laws has a real job and we can potentially say after 5 years, “Look at what he achieved.” Danny Alexander, how relevant is the Scottish office? Can see the relationship between Osborne, seen by many as lightweight, and Cable, a very intelligent and experienced man, as potentially difficult. Huhne has a real job, and one that a sensible government will afford great priority, but will the Conservatives be serious about the priority?
“After fifty years of pursuing a realignment of the left, how can we now throw in our lot with Thatcher’s offspring?”
Not all Lib Dems are of the Left. I suspect the so-called Orange Bookers and those clustered around Liberal Vision are quite pleased with the outcome. That said, I don’t know just how representative these people are of the Lib Dems.
Clegg has done to the Liberal Democrats what Blair did to the old Labour Party – ripped its heart out.
We have to ensure that while we support Lib Dem ministers in this Frankenstein partnership, we continue to fight the Tories on the ground. I have spent my entire adult life being extremely rude about Tories, and I am not going to stop.
Sesenco:
Smiling! 😉
@allentaylorhoad
Genuine question – didn’t Blair fundamentally alter the power structures in the Labour party and stifle all dissent? I am, frankly, astonished that the Fed Exec (described by an anonymous MP as “an awkward bunch of buggers”, which I think they should be very proud of) voted this through almost unanimously. I am sure they do not intend to make a habit of it. But they did.
“We have to ensure that while we support Lib Dem ministers in this Frankenstein partnership, we continue to fight the Tories on the ground. ”
I just don’t see how you’ll be able to do this, can you explain?
@Paul McKeown “Does Nick C. potentially have his finger on the nuclear button, for instance?”
Would you like him to? 😮
“After fifty years of pursuing a realignment of the left, how can we now throw in our lot with Thatcher’s offspring?”
Realignment of the left has clearly failed dismally – the supposed left now consists predominantly of authoritarian centralising mangerialists epitomised by the last 13 years of Labour government.
FWIW many of those Liberal Voice peoples and Orange Bookers are leftists in the broad tradition (even if they don’t recognise it) – they want redistribution of power to the lowest level to give people a say in their own lives. They support market based policies (correctly or not) to redistribute power to individuals so the poorest can access better services rather than be lumped with the lowest common denominator of ‘one size fits all’.
Now the Tories aren’t leftists (although there is a more left wing aspect of the party) – they are generally interested in rigging the market for more efficient government and greater power to their preferred interests (this is the true Thatcher legacy – and the one New Labour built upon)
I just hope the liberal, left wing aims of the LibDems can reign in the false-liberalism of the Tories.
@Sesenco ‘I have spent my entire adult life being extremely rude about Tories, and I am not going to stop.’
Good 🙂
In local government coalitions are formed and the LibDems campaign against their coalition partners still (and vice-versa). I think people expect it too.
I hope the LibDems still keep fighting the Tories and Labour.
Walter West – THANK YOU 🙂
@Andrea:
Given that our policy was never unilateralist, it has to mean yes, if “Deputy Prime Minister” means “new Prime Minister in event of the chosen Prime Minister being incapacitated”. Would never want to think of a serious decision to use these monstrous weapons having to be taken, don’t think anyone would in any political party. What is your question actually?
We should have some clarity about what the role means.
Birthright and Pottage come to mind.
Clegg never seriously explored the possbility of a deal with Labour.
Under the intellectually indefensible ‘cover’ of allowing the minority party with the largest vote share ‘first go’ he insulted Labour by not conducting parallel negotiations from Friday am. That would have been a perfectly proper thing to do if he had had any openness to a deal with Labour – but he didn’t. And it was not for him to tell another Party who its leader should or should not be – but Labour even accepted that and Brown resigned to facilitate a deal.
And that deal would have involved almost immediate AV on the statute books plus a referendum on real PR.
The numbers were there to do a deal for those two huge gains and maybe just a coalition for one or two years in respect of other matters. But clearly Clegg had other priorities than fair votes for the future.
If you say -‘ but Labour couldn’t deliver the legislative changes in the House ‘ – well that would have been up to them wouldn’t it ? If a traffic light coalition for electoral reform had not started to deliver before the summer recess Clegg could at that point have withdrawn honourably from it and if desired tried a different option .
But the truth is now apparent : that he wanted to join up with Tories all along. And fair votes are the absolute loser – and it didn’t have to be like that.
A moment of transformation indeed.
under the system being proposed, the vote of no confidence in the house to call for a new election would have to be 55%, as opposed to 50% +1 mp as it stands now.
We are therefore redifining the concept of absolute majority, interesting, very very interesting
Zeefrog – My instinct was that this wasn’t good, but actually if there’s a move to even AV and more coalition governments, this kind of makes sense.
On the point of the Scotland Secretary, this is possibly more important than you might think. The Tories don’t really have a mandate in Scotland, with only 1 MP, and it remains to be seen if he’ll even be a minister (Cameron apparently doesn’t rate him.) Danny’s job will be to hand over more powers to the Scottish Parliament, so at least we could make a case of us defending Scotland within the Government.
Don’t misjudge the seriousness of the potential problems for us ahead in Scotland, particularly next year.
Just a couple of points. Firstly, this is a coalition not a merger Electoral competition will continue, 3-Party politics will continue.
I expect our poll ratings to rise sharply & stay high till the autumn at least.
Kl
the only sense it makes for the next five years is that the tories have just ensured they stay in power no matter what.
even if AV (and this is still a poor version of PR and only in place in only one country on the whole plannet ie Australia) passes in the referendum, it still won’t apply until the next election
and i am sorry but absolute majority is absolute majority, how can you touch such a basic concept of democracy just to suit your ends, it just beggars belief…
KL – yeah, your right, of course. Scot Sec. is important, he will have a high profile due to the difficulties north of the border
What is Vince Cable going to be given? It has to be something important and high profile. It would be farcical if he got some bobajob, he’s a big hitter with a big brain.
I just wanted to write and congratulate the Libs Dems on what is an imense and historic event. To those predicting the demise of your party I honestly do not think this is likely. I am a Conservative voter myself but having seen the dignified and statemanlike behaviour of the Lib Dems over the past week I would now seriously consider a vote for yourselves rather than the Conservatives next time around (time will tell if this remains the same). Those who are decrying the deal are, I suspect, those who regard you as the provisional wing of the Labour party or “Labour Lite”. Yes you will probably loose some of your current voters but I think they will be more than replaced by people who will now see that a vote for the Lib Dems is not a waste. I am hoping for 5 years of progress and a successful coalition from which the country will benefit.
Business Secretary. Good.
” I am immensely proud and excited that Nick Clegg is Deputy Prime Minister (pinch me!)”
Change the ‘i’ to a “u” in pinch and i may well take you up on the offer! – How exactly can you be proud that Nick Clegg is propping up a Tory government?
When i read comments like this I am so glad that after nearly 20 years I decided to vote Labour. They may have lost but at least they can hold their heads high!
Richard: “Not all Lib Dems are of the Left. I suspect the so-called Orange Bookers and those clustered around Liberal Vision are quite pleased with the outcome. That said, I don’t know just how representative these people are of the Lib Dems.”
Actually, feelings are mixed, as they are in the whole party. Some LV people were keen on a Lib-Tory coalition because we desperately need to restore the civil liberties Labour destroyed and dismantle the client state which Labour created. Neither could we afford five years of Labour’s tax-and-spend “investment.”
OTOH, some LV people are also deeply concerned about the Tories anti-immigration policies, their “pro-marriage” lifestyle interventionism, and their own brand of economic interventionism.
But what most of us agree on is that the country needed stable government and there was only one way to achieve that. The Rainbow Coalition that some seem to have had hopes on was absurd: the numbers only stacked up if we were prepared to shield Scotland and Wales from cuts, which meant cutting even deeper in England. Explain that to 90% of the electorate! Reconcile that with our vaunted “fairness”. It was nonsense and I suspect that the only reason we even pretended to entertain it was to encourage the Tories to shift on PR.
The overall list of policies the two government (that’s us, folks!) have agreed on looks promising, by-and-large (though I’m disappointed that the marriage tax policy survives, for example). Let’s hope that promise is delivered.
“the two government”
A Freudian slip, perhaps 😮
I really do struggle with the idea that some people have that we are as Lib Dems should automatically align with Labour.
The outgoing Labour government was one of the most illiberal in British history. It had an pervasive and unerving authoritarian, controlling streak that goes against everything that a Liberal should stand for and believe in. Hopefully that will change under new leadership, but frankly I am not prepared after the last 13 years to give them the benefit of the doubt.
The BBC reports that Iain Duncan Smith is getting a Cabinet job. This is the Iain Duncan Smith who nearly brought down the Major government with his obsessive opposition to the European Union, and who set up the Centre for Social Justice, a socially conservative think tank that calls for nut groups (like Philippa Stroud’s church) to be given responsibility for vulnerable people. This is Monty Python’s Flying Circus.
you now need 55% of mps to bring a vote of non confidence, tories have 47%
can you do the maths yourselves?
Tim Willis
“They may have lost but at least they can hold their heads high!”
That is after they have wiped Cheney’s and Murdochs’s boot polish off their tongues, I take it?
its amusing to see tory voters and journalists saying what a great statesman clegg is when he was called a shyster and traitor a day ago when it looked like he was going to support brown.
to be fair even though i support labour ,the tory /lib alliance was the right one. the alternative one would have been unstable and have led to blackmail by the smaller nationalist parties. constantly demanding money for support.
am i the only one who regards cameron,clegg and ex labour leader blair as essentially liberal tories who are interchangeable?
Ryan – If we are talking illiberal perhaps you should also take a closer look at the leader who has just taken you into a coalition with a new Tory party – many of those newly appointed Tory MPs have recently been described as “Thatchers Children”
I despaired at the election of Clegg – a Blair lookalike without any real scrutiny of his ideology or substance. Listening to Clegg he has always sounded more centrist Tory than Liberal, now it looks like my fears were well founded!
My Dad always chastised me for considering voting Lib Dem saying “they’re just Pink Tories” – well now I am starting to see that he was right!
re sesenco “think tank that calls for nut groups (like Philippa Stroud’s church”
maybe she could pray to drive the demons from iain duncan smiths head.
Ed, bless you for summing up so well the weird mixture of pride and nausea many of us feel today. I know you know your Liberal history so I ask you to ponder two words from our party’s past which might give us cause to shudder for the future:
‘Coupon Election’.
I agree largely with Rhys. Clegg was wrong to hold to his stated objections to Brown remaining. Once the election was over and the results failed to deliver a clear winner, a new situation emerged. He should have welcomed talks with both Labour and Conservative immediately. There was no way he could both essentially demand that Brown step down and expect that Labour could immediately enter complex, far-ranging negotiations for a ‘progressive coalition’ when at this point they would have to spend a few months regrouping. Essentially, they bought into demonizing Brown, something perhaps understandable during the campaign phase, but inappropriate afterwards. I also think his price for coalition should have been a plebiscite referendum for various different voting options, i.e. let the people decide on this and if he couldn’t get this, then let the Conservatives form a minority government. During a subsequent election, many people who had hesitated about voting LibDem would realise that if they supported them more they would have more influence, that voting LibDem was getting to the level, numerically, where they might reach a tipping point in terms of successful outcome.
I hope the coalition works. But as someone above pointed out you still have adversarial situation with the government on one side and the opposition on the other. So now the LibDems sit with the Tories and are bound to be identified with them.
That said, I am truly surprised by the extent of the agreements, policy-wise, between the Tories and LibDems, something no doubt due to exceptional leadership by Cameron. So perhaps there is a fresh start politically here, although I doubt it.
Finally, all three parties should have considered Coalition with Cameron as PM, to last one year or something, focusing on economics, and working together to be able to come up with legislation that would pass through Parliament. That would have been a truly non-adversarial approach with no one Party getting to be in Opposition against the other two.
As one of the “Orange Bookers”, increasingly despised it seems, I’m cautiously optimistic. There are unpleasant elements to the Tories, their euroscepticism and anti immigration stance as well as the disturbing core of the “social conservatives”. But there are unpleasant elements to Labour, which is illiberal, statist and becoming increasingly dogmatic, in hock to its union supporters, harking back to the 80’s. They’re interested only in buying votes with bread.
Let’s be honest here, it’ll all end in tears and when your party rightfully disintegrates then the natural home for the Social Liberals is the Labour Party.
Who we will welcome.
The rest can osmose into the Conservative Party and the Conservative Way Forward Group.
In fact I can just imagine the scenario….
Two years from now, the Liberal Democrats gripped by in-fighting…….
Some defect to Labour, some stay to rescue whatever husk is left……..
Clegg loses control…….
Press conference……..
Clegg:- “Against the spirit of our new politics with our partners in government the Conservatives, the Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Party cannot come to a consensus on our future direction in this new age of progressive politics………I have decided to stand aside for a new leader. I shall be taking the Conservative whip and am delighted to accept the invitation to stand as the Conservative candidate for ************ in the next election. I shall continue my duties as Deputy Prime Minister of this country and work with my fellow party members and our leader David Cameron to reduce the national debt.”
Sweet of the author to say he doesn’t give to sh*ts that people will deflect to Labour or Greens after the lack of transparency and dialogue by the Lib Dems.
And some of you dare to call Labour party as having a herd mentality?
Why don’t we stick a picture of brother Nick Clegg on Lib Dem voice and never question what the great man says.
George SMith,
Will we be expected to baptise outselves in Iraqi blood?
I believe that this is a moment of self-destruction for the Liberal Democrats.
Many people feel cheated and conned that their central policy, the liberal raison-d’etre of pursuing proportional representation has been shelved without the slightest compromise achieved.
It is clear that the Liberal Democrat party has lost its way, become obsessed with obtaining power at any cost and that many people feel dismayed, betrayed and cheated.
It is a sad day when you leave the party you have supported all your life, look around for other parties to support and find there is no other political party that you identify with or support your key values.
It is a very dark day for democracy in the UK
Sesenco
The writing is on the wall for you guys and you all know it.
If you think you’ll come away after 5 years smelling of roses, with the support of your centre-left core vote, without PR, possibly without AV and without the prospect of another coalition then your in for a rude awakening.
Labour has made mistakes.
But Labour will endure under new leadership.
The Liberal Democrats will not.
I live in Surrey. Can anybody give me a vaguely coherent argument to use on the doorstep for next May. Vote Lib Dem get a Tory. We have millions of them. So the obvious place for the non Tory vote is labour. We’re effectively finished here. Won’t tear up my card but will wait for Nick to join the Tories and then we’ll rebuild again. So sad.
@Chippy
You are right about there now being no vaguely coherent argument to vote Lib Dem. They are a discordant mess of Tory wannabees with vacuous pledges, promises and policies that they have no real intention of ever delivering if they are faced with a choice between values and power.
As much as I dislike the Conservatives, at least they are truer to their support and grassroots than the Lib Dems have exposed themselves as being.
“I am immensely proud and excited that Nick Clegg is Deputy Prime Minister (pinch me!) ” – Great, but not a mention of policy in your op-ed. Just about your party, Clegg as deputy PM etc. and a sort of “I agree with Nick”. The prospect (and now reality) of being in office after never having held it was, understandably, overwhelming, but politically it moves the Lib Dems permanently for to right and cements the power of the Tories – albeit in ‘modernized’ forn for decades to come. A Lib-Lab bloc is and will increasingly be unthinkable and like Germany’s FDP you will be a support pary of the right.
For anyone on the centre-left who isn’t a Lib Dem party member with the kind of blinding my-party-right-or-wronmg attitude you have and investment of a half life you have, support for the Lib Dems is now totally unthinkable. Strategically, the centre-left now needs the Lib Dems to be wiped from the political map, so we can return to some form of two party politics, which will reflect the basic left/right division that Clegg has set up
I am a supporter of some form electoral reform, but now I see the first step must be to vote against AV – a ‘reform’ intended only boost the fortunes of your party and force disillusioned centre-left voters to into a form of hidden tactical voting for you.
You won’t fool us a second time.