21 Comments

• stephen johnson 17th Jul '12 - 5:52pm

  I agree with the analysis.
  Two things to add – Lib Dems have most to gain by showing that Coalition politics can work over the whole 5 years, and most to lose if it fails.
  Secondly, reducing the number of MPs in the Commons and redrawing the boundaries will be bad for Lib Dems in terms of MPs. However another way of looking at this is that reducing the number of constituencies will make FPTP even more disproportional and unfair to third (and fourth etc) parties.
  This will increase the chances of an election result that offends popular sensibilities in terms of the injustice of the result, and such a result is the best hope for electoral and political reform.

• Alan Dean 17th Jul '12 - 5:54pm

  I agree with Andrew Rawnsley is last Sunday’s “Observer”. It’s the Lib Dems who are the grown ups in this coalition and the Tories who are the juveniles. Question: is it right to abandon the kids?

• paul barker 17th Jul '12 - 6:16pm

  There are 2 more arguments for trying again, first this is an issue that unites libdems & splits both labour & tories;
  second, the context may look very different in 18 months.

• Tony Dawson 17th Jul '12 - 7:06pm

  @stephen johnson :

  “.. reducing the number of constituencies will make FPTP even more disproportional and unfair to third (and fourth etc) parties.”

  Absolutely true. The whole AV thing should have been tightly-glued to the constituency reduction package (which could have been greater) and reform of the Lords as part of a single great Reform Bill. The patchwork we have suffered instead has been a disastrous mess for country and Party. Geoff’s options set out the problem completely. Trouble is, I do not particularly expect the parliamentary party to follow any of hem.

• David Allen 17th Jul '12 - 10:50pm

  Geoffrey,

  How do you justify the claim that the Coalition Agreement was first broken last week?

  The Coalition has implemented major changes in health and education which were not in the Coalition Agreement, and were way out of line with traditional Lib Dem principles (though no doubt that didn’t much bother Nick Clegg).

  The main electoral bribe offered to and accepted by the Lib Dems in the Coalition Agreement was, of course, the AV Referendum. And of course, Cameron didn’t precisely renege on that offer. He simply broke his unofficial half-promise not to take sides on AV, and spent a fortune to make quite sure AV would not actually happen.

  While the Lib Dems have repeatedly been abandoning their principles for two years, the Tories have made no concessions of any significance whatsoever. There has been huffing and puffing about gay marriage, but it hasn’t actually been legislated.

  Lords reform, which was rightly treated as a second-level issue when the Coalition Agreement was written, now seems to have poked its way to the forefront,for highly dubious reasons. The Lib Dem argument seems to be: “Look, Tories, we have been the fall guys on everything else, so, surely you could let us have a last-ditch consolation prize, couldn’t you?”

  To which a Tory might reasonably reply “Look, Lib Dem patsies, the world just doesn’t work like that. Never mind what was formally agreed in print. It’s a power struggle, isn’t it! And you lost. You showed us, time and again,that we could walk all over you. So we did. And now we’ll do it again over Lords reform. If you guys had wanted to show us you had a backbone, and that you would effectively stand up for your rights, then you should have done that long ago. As the man said, ‘Never give a sucker an even break’ “.

• JUF 18th Jul '12 - 12:12am

  @David Allen – too true 🙁

• Richard Dean 18th Jul '12 - 12:49am

  Agreements get broken. You soldier on. Capitulation is not an option, it makes us useless to anyone. Retaliation is not an option, it helps noone and will be seen as immature by voters. Mending the agreement is not an opton, it’s only partially borken anyway, and mending requires negotation and further unwelcome changes. The only option is to carry on, reduce infighting, look for common ground, argue hard but rationally, do the best for the country, make sure it’s known, and tough it to 2015.

• Geoffrey Payne 18th Jul '12 - 7:23am

  David Allen – your argument does not really disprove the Tories broke the Coalition Agreement. It was the party leadership that unilaterally decided to support NHS reforms regardless of party policy. They didn’t have to, they chose to. Nothing to do with the Coalition Agreement, that was something else.
  Richard Dean – I can’t tell the difference between what you call soldiering on and capitulation. If we do not retaliate then that means they would have got away with it and will be emboldened to keep on doing it.

• Jock Coats 18th Jul '12 - 7:46am

  I would not say the issue, or at least the proposed solution, “unites Lib Dems”. In fact I don’t think keeping a second chamber at all is a liberal idea.

• Caracatus 18th Jul '12 - 8:31am

  Or option 4 – Accept that the coalition agreement was flawed. Be relaxed about it being flexible enough over time to cover new events (was, NHS reform) and new ideas.

  Accept Lords reform is not going to happen before 2015. Start thinking seriously about what policies a Lib Dem majority Government would enact and start telling the voters. That would at least give voters a reason to vote Lib Dem and give a starting point for coalition negotiations.

• MAT 18th Jul '12 - 8:52am

  I don’t think it is right to blame the whole Conservative party (and “Toryism” in general) for the voting actions of one section which may have been an expression of conscience.

• Phyllis 18th Jul '12 - 9:40am

  It is interesting that Tory rebels against Lords Reform are being portrayed as ‘principled ‘ yet Lib Dems did not rebel against tuition fees or NHS reforms as an issue of ‘principle’ or ‘conscience’

• Christian De Feo 18th Jul '12 - 10:07am

  There is one further option. Walk away. Say that we’ll go for a confidence and supply arrangement until the next election if we can agree terms that will suit, otherwise, do go to the country and let them decide.

  I realise that this will be highly unpopular and that there would be a terrible price to pay should an election be triggered. But so what, principle sometimes has to triumph: if what the government is doing cannot be justified according to Liberal principles then we should not be doing it any longer. The sooner we go through this reckoning, the sooner recovery will likely ensue.

• jason 18th Jul '12 - 10:29am

  MAT18th Jul ’12 – 8:52am………………..I don’t think it is right to blame the whole Conservative party (and “Toryism” in general) for the voting actions of one section which may have been an expression of conscience………………

  I wish our leadership had an occasional ‘expression of conscience’ moment.

• Matthew Huntbach 18th Jul '12 - 10:53am

  The big problem with House of Lords reform, as with electoral reform, is that while we may see its importance, most people don’t. So us holding out for it is not seen by the general public as a brave stand for democracy. Instead is is seen variously as politicians being obsessed with themselves, Liberal Democrats having sold out to the Tories in return for something only they care about, elitists who are so out of touch with ordinary people that they give priority to abstract things like this rather than “bread and butter” issues. I very much regret that this means the more we push it, the more we make an angry stand on it, the worse it will be for us.

  Of course, to a large extent this viewpoint comes about due to a cynical manipulation of the public by the right-wing press. We saw it with AV, and we are seeing it now. Because it’s an abstract issue which no-one else is pushing but us, and we have no real friends in the press, most people are easily misled by arguments which when analysed are quite outrageous. For example, the line “An elected Lords will be full of political hacks” can quite easily be put down by two counter-arguments: 1) If you don’t want them, then don’t vote for them 2) And you think a House of Lords whose members are appointed by the party leaders is not? But are you going to see those lines in the Daily Mail, Sun, Times, Express? No. Just as you didn’t see populist lines against so much of what the Tories are doing, which could easily have been penned had the right-wing press an interest in doing so, and you didn’t see any fuss made against what was actually a huge constitutional change pushed through by Labour* last time they were in power.

  We are on our own on this. It would be very different if we had support from the opposition to this government but we do not. They too want the chance to be put into uncontrolled power by our distortional representation system with a second chamber weakened by its undemocratic nature, so that they can continue the (sarcasm font) good job they did last time they had it (end sarcasm font). So the predominant position of Labour supporters is to condemn the Liberal Democrats for their obsession with “irrelevant” issue of constitutional reform when instead they should be doing more to stop this Tory-dominated government doing extreme right-wing things. Labour people on the whole not being very bright, they are unable to see that we wouldn’t have this government in the form it is, if we had a more democratic constitution. Regrettably, since the LibDem leadership embarked on the rose garden “isn’t it wonderful we’re in power?” approach to coalition rather than “Sorry, we don’t like it, but it’s what your vote and our electoral system gave us”, we can’t use this winning line either.

  While I’m very much committed to constitutional reform, I regret we cannot push it if it is just seen as a “LibDem thing” We have to win the case for it amongst the general public first. We have to be prepared to use populist arguments as our opponents have used against us, but unlike them not in a way which is patronising and untrue. Given the mess that was made of the “Yes” campaign for AV, I have no confidence there is anyone close to the current leadership of the party capable of doing this.

• Matthew Huntbach 18th Jul '12 - 10:57am

  * The big constitutional change made by Labour was the introduction of the cabinet system in local government. Or, as it is better put, the abolition of voting rights for councillors. To my mind, this was a huge issue, bigger than House of Lords reform in terms of its impact on ordinary people, but it went through hardly noticed because it was in no-one’s interest (except us and anyone interested in true democracy) to make a fuss about it (and we – to our great shame – did not make the fuss about it we ought to have).

• Brian Robinson 18th Jul '12 - 2:31pm

  @Tony Dawson

  Yes, your idea of a single great Reform Bill is what should have happened; I didn’t think of it until I read your comment but I see now, that is what should have been put to a referendum. Combining AV and Lords reform with reducing the number of constituencies would have forced Tories to campaign for the whole package in a referendum if they wanted their policy implemented. All or nothing. If only we could go back and do it again.

• jedibeeftrix 18th Jul '12 - 3:05pm

  @ Matthew – “And you think a House of Lords whose members are appointed by the party leaders is not?”

  essentially why i tepidly approve of reform.

  the lords has historically, as far as i am concerned, done its job very crediably, but labour introduced a broken system that will be abused by whichever part is in power.

• stephen johnson 18th Jul '12 - 3:22pm

  Would Lib Dems still be in favour of Lords reform if voting arrangements were amended to allow voters an alternative short vote – ‘Independent’ for a raft of ‘official’ independent candidates sponsored by an independent Lords appointments commission in addition to the 90 independents planned?

  Candidates approved by the Independent Commission would have a collective advantage over ‘wildcard’ independents. The voter would benefit from being able to vote for a ‘quality assured’ raft of independents with a short voting choice.

  Politically such an arrangement might be attractive to those who see the present proposals giving too much power to the Parties at the expense of Independents and might also help to reassure some who fear PR would give Lib Dems or the deciding vote in House of Lords divisions.

• Mike Barnes 19th Jul '12 - 2:33am

  I do enjoy it when people fret about a snap general election! “We’ll be wiped out!”” they cry.

  Erm, sorry to break it to you, but the wipeout is happening regardless of the date. Doesn’t matter if it’s tomorrow or if it’s 2015, the anger isn’t going away, it’s going to happen.

  What magical event are you banking on happening in the next 2 and a half years to recover the millions of voters lost since 2010? Really, even an economic miracle recovery (incredibly unlikely with Osborne in charge) is going to benefit the Tory party, do you think you’ll get any thanks whatsoever and suddenly recover from 10% of the vote (as now) back up to 25% or so? Never going to happen.

• Andy 22nd Jul '12 - 2:30am

  The only referendum on HoL reform worth agreeing to would be a multi – option one. One that stops opponents simply opposing along simplistic yes /no lines and forces them to use detailed argument to gain support for their particular favoured option – In fact ,the status quo shouldn’t even be among the options as no parties favour that . AV was lost largely due to wrong person ( unpopular Clegg); wrong time (middle of a recession) ;wrong place (wrong coalition partners- the Tories opposed, Labour supported) I don’t understand what would be different this time really. Seems like another trap.

  And even then , any referendum could be lost due to people voting no to having only 80% elected – opposing letting the bishops remain. You’d be in the ” No to AV, Yes to PR” trouble again , where people, who in principle are in favour, either don’t vote or vote against because the proposals are so half baked and lacklustre .