Martin Kettle recently wrote in the Guardian today of David Cameron:
The Tory leader is exploiting every opportunity the political situation presents him to drag his party rapidly towards the liberal centre. I believe in leading from the front, he said, and he is telling the truth. The many policy concessions to the Lib Dems, especially those which cauterise the Tory right’s pet issues like Europe, the Human Rights Act and inheritance tax only make sense in that light. The right’s indignation is eloquent proof of what is happening. The control grab over the backbench 1922 committee is the work of a politician who is set on marginalising the right, the mirror image of Tony Blair’s approach 15 years ago.
Many people in our party and in the media have derided Nick Clegg’s decision to “get into bed with the Tories” as a hypocritical betrayal. They rightly point out the savagery of Margaret Thatcher’s government in the 80’s. Gary Younge wrote:
I don’t have a phobia about Tories. That would suggest an irrational response. I hate them for a reason. For lots of reasons, actually. For the miners, apartheid, Bobby Sands, Greenham Common, selling council houses, Section 28, lining the pockets of the rich and hammering the poor – to name but a few. I hate them because they hate people I care about.
Younge’s is a view that I know millions of people in both the Lib Dem and Labour party share, and it is born of decades of electoral and ideological warring. But does it translate into a reasonable response to the Tories in 2010? As Martin Kettle argues, David Cameron is trying to drag the Conservatives, in some cases kicking and screaming, into the centre ground, away from Thatcher and towards liberalism.
This is not to say that we should be embracing the Tories as reformed characters. Their marriage tax breaks and inheritance tax plans showed the remnants of the right-wing, self-serving section of the party still hold considerable influence. Nor should we be rejoicing in a potential split in the Conservative party between leadership and backbenchers. A divided party means weak government, and we are now inextricably tied into that government. Our success in 2015 will be largely down to our success in government.
As long as this coalition remains intact we should not, in my view, get involved in any of the tribal nonsense which Labour may, wrongly, try to engage us with. The Tories are coming towards us, not the other war round. Of course we should still be wary, and if the more right-wing elements of the Conservatives begin to exert more influence on policy than they are doing then we should get out, quick. Thatcherism is not quite dead yet.
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34 Comments
There are one or two points which, rightly or wrongly (generally wrongly, in my view), could be laid at the door at the Tories but…
… Bobby Sands? I don’t rejoice in his death, but he was an active member of terrorist groups who chose his own fate: there are many ordinary Irish Catholics (and Protestants) who had no part in their misfortune. INstead, Younge goes for terrorist chic;
… allowing tenants to buy their own houses? It would have made more sense to cite Shirley Porter and Westminster Council;
… Apartheid? That wasn’t Britain, you know, and several Labour administrations had more direct responsibility for Rhodesia;
… Greenham Common? Yes, the background was a failure (assuming Younge thinks the downfall of the USSR was, on balance, bad).
Everybody seems to be assuming that the Coalition “manifesto” is all going to be put into practice. If it does then it will truly be the most revolutionary document in British political history! The probability is that the government will not do most of the things in the agreement, but will do lots of things that are not in the agreement. These are heady days but we need to start recapturing our grip on political reality.
I see little cause for optimism as regards a more progressive tax system. The proposed inheritance tax cut has categorically NOT been dropped; it has only been put to a lower priority (which could mean anything). Likewise the marriage tax break will go ahead, so I’m not sure why you imply that these policies have been nixed by the Lib Dems. They haven’t.
Cameron has already suggested cutting the upper income tax rate, and most observers expect VAT to go up. In comparison, a £10,000 threshold would be very small beer indeed, and the net effect of all these changes would be a much more regressive tax system than we have at present. Will Lib Dems “get out, quick” should this be the end scenario? I’d like to think so, but I’m not optimistic.
I suppose that if Labour can turn into an irrational authoritarian monstrosity then it’s possible for the Tories to turn into sensible centrists. If Blair proved anything, it’s that a party leader can take a party in a new direction.
@Andrew – Thank you, although I did think you said that Tories can turn into sensible dentists…
I agree with most of this. I wonder if some people are failing to realise that the Conservatives were in power for 18 years non-stop, and with a majority the entire time, the last time they were in at all. I do think that enabled them to cause a lot more harm than one term in coalition can. I do not see a “hypocritical betrayal” in forming the Coalition, because anyone who so objects to coalition politics, should not be campaigning for an electoral system that would make such results more likely.
More to the point, as a liberal minded Lib Dem, I am inclined to think that any moves towards a more liberal attitude in either the Conservative Party or the Labour Party is good news for the UK. It will help us to keep which policies were originally Lib Dem ideas clear in the minds of the public though.
Once the Tories ditch their right wingers (father time is taking its toll anyway) then perhaps we can also have a more Liberal foreign policy. Time to return bits of the world to the local owners. The Malvinas has to be first on the list, as the US have already told us. Better to be a stable economy in control of our own land than still pretending that Queen Victoria was alive and the map was still mostly red.
@RCM – The worrying thing to me is that Labour might well end up moving towards an Britain for the British BNP lite idea going by the amount of anti immigration waffle
@ Stuart Mitchell
Some of Cameron’s recent remarks about tax cuts were made in the Daily Mail, presumably to reassure his core support that he is actually a Tory. Until we actually see them debated in the House and made law (in which case I will be in the long queue to join the protests), then I stand by the opinion that the Conservatives are genuinely becoming more liberal.
Like RCM points out, we should be thinking about what is a positive direction for the UK as a whole to be taking. It is encouraging to see people across the political spectrum against ID cards, CCTV, massive DNA databases etc.
Should have checked before posting – Cameron’s tax remarks were a speech rather than in the Mail but the point remains the same.
Well, this just means that Liberal Democrats must differentiate themselves from the Conservatives the way they can’t replicate, or will split trying. Gay rights? Separation of the State and Church of England? Free the soft drugs?
@Ahm – Drugs policy, crime and immigration (but we need more thought through approaches in that area) are definitely areas we can quite easily differentiate ourselves from the Conservatives in
Chris,
you’re obviously trying to convince yourself that it’s a good idea and it’s all going to be alright.
Deep down though, you know the score.
“a view that I know millions of people in both the Lib Dem and Labour party share”
There aren’t millions of people in Labour and the Lib Dems, at best a few hundred thousand. I think we on the internet and the vox pops carefully chosen by TV news shit-stirrers vastly over-estimate the tribal hatred of many people in the UK towards the Tories. Most people realise it doesn’t matter one jot which party is in power or what they’ve promised, because we’ve had a Labour government for the last 13 years and inequality has actually grown since then – not to mention the stupid wars, the privatisation, the wrecked economy, and the pathetic rhetoric on immigration, and so on.
What matters is what the government does – and I think people are more enlightened than Labour tribalists or the handful of “disgruntled Lib Dems”. People just want to get on with their lives, and actually hope the government does well.
It surely can’t have escaped astute readers’ notice that the piece closes with the now seemingly obligatory swipe at Labour for being er, “tribal”. Pots & kettles?
If coalition implies a Conservative shift toward the ideological position of their partners, then the same surely has to be said of LibDems’ inevitably wider policy concessions, coupled as they are with a commitment to maintain the accord for five years. I don’t disagree with the suggestion that coalition suits the inner-party agenda of less doctrinaire Tories, but that invites similar speculations about perhaps the least left-inclined LibDem leadership in half a century. That’s not a gripe about coalition: it was a sound and legitimate move by both parties even if not the outcome I’d have preferred, far preferable in my view to a minority Tory government that would have left Cameron like Major dependent on the support of his own ultras. But it’s a warning against becoming too closely identified with coalition rather than with LibDem perspectives.
As for that “tribalism”, Labour’s job is to oppose, it’s how our system’s supposed to work and it’s a concept with which one might have expected LibDems of all people to have some familiarity. LibDems’ job is to steer this government onto a sensible, humane course, not to take umbrage at the idea that – horror of horrors – someone might actually be opposing it.
Yes, the Tories are coming towards us.
And what big teeth they have …
Interesting to see the Lord President telling Andrew Marr:
“No-one went into politics to seek to deliver cuts but we all know as a country it is necessary. It is going to be painful and controversial.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8699117.stm
These are the cuts he was warning us against only three weeks ago. Now “we all know it is necessry”. Hmm.
@Andrea, if Labour were to go that way, yes it would be quite worrying. I did not mean to imply that they necessarily were getting more liberal, just that it would be good IF they did. The response to the Lib Dem policy on immigration was a bit disturbing, I thought it was really practical myself.
I was pleased to see how many people did not want ID cards, but I thought it was a shame that Labour failed to respond by dropping the idea. I think it may have lost them some seats to the Conservatives in some places, especially if people were really looking for more left wing economic plans, but without the authoritarian moves that Labour were making. Of course voting Lib Dem solves that in many places, but down here in Brighton Pavillion, FPTP makes that a quite risky option.
@ Dave
I was picked up on a previous piece for suggesting that ideology was a negative thing, I expect your objection to my use of “tribal” is on a similar theme. Firstly, you rightly say that “tribal” has become obligatory in reference to Labour. I repeated it because I wanted to suggest that this was a view that many shared, including many who have written on this site. Secondly, to clarify, tribalism/ideology is great if ,like you say, it is used in a considered, reasonable way as the basis for opposition to the government. What we have seen from Labour however is the “I’m right you’re wrong” kind of tribalism that is not constructive, and in the case of Lib Dem-Labour coalition talks was destructive. Stephan Tall’s piece that I linked to above elaborates on this.
@Chris – it will certainly be interesting to see how the new government’s approach to civil liberties plays out. Labour claimed to be the champions of civil liberties when they came to power, and in fact they did score some notable (though only grudgingly acknowledged these days) advancements – HRA, FOIA, gay rights / civil partnerships etc. Of course Labour then undid their good work by becoming obsessed with terrorists and databases.
The Tories had an appalling civil liberties record when last in office and I’ll be astonished if they’re much better this time, for all this lofty rhetoric of shared liberal ideals. It’s easy for them to agree to things like scrapping ID cards (which are useless and expensive), but I’ll be fascinated to see what the outcome of the “urgent review” on control orders will be. I suspect it will be a continuation of control orders, with poor Nick Clegg forced to go on the Andrew Marr show to explain why he’s been convinced they’re a jolly good idea (much as he had to do this morning, talking about the impending cuts, or “savings” as he has now been told to call them!)
on one issue I’m looking at tis the other way round. if the liberal democrats help the conservative’s execute a badger cull in england (I am in the cull area in wales set up by Labour/Plaid Cymru assebly governemt) I’ll never vote for them again, and I have only ever voted Liberal or Liberal Democrat in 29 years. The science doesn’t work out. And the civil liberties at issue here are huge
take a look, masked men with photo id and no names http://bit.ly/cUSbdi
It’s quite funny to read Nick Clegg’s explanation of why he completely changed his mind about the timing of spending cuts in the four days between the election and the approval of the coalition agreeement:
Marr: “Why were you wrong when you said that 6 billion pounds of cuts this year was too much, too early?”
Clegg: “I don’t think we anticipated THEN – I don’t think anybody COULD have anticipated then – quite how sharply the economic conditions in the Eurozone would have deteriorated and that the NEED to SHOW that we were trying to get to grips with this suddenly became much greater. I think there was a much more BENIGN – well, benign is probably pushing it a bit – but there was a much more – there was a less volatile economic environment …”
Marr: “You were being a bit complacent during the campaign, then, about the economic situation?”
Clegg: “I don’t think ANYBODY – I don’t think ANYBODY – could have predicted – and I’ve spoken to the Governor of the Bank of England, and he said no one could have predicted – the situation in Greece would have had this KNOCK-on effect, which has created IMMENSE anxiety IN – on our European doorstep – a market, remember, the European union market, into which we export the vast majority of our services and goods, so we’re intimately connected with what’s going on in the Eurozone, and that’s why WE need to show at a more ACCELERATED timetable than I’d initially THOUGHT that we’re going to get to grips with our – with this great black hole in our public finances …”
Marr: “My only point is that this is what the Conservatives said during the election campaign, and they were right and you were wrong, and now you’re having to defend their policy.”
Clegg: “Well I think WE are right as a coalition government in a sense – and this is OUR government – this is a Liberal Democrat Conservative Conservative Liberal Democrat government – whatever way you want to say it – it is a partnership government; WE will take responsibility for ALL the decisions as much as ANYBODY else in the government, and we ARE advocating EARLY cuts and savings because of the VERY very deteriorated economic conditions elsewhere in Europe and the NEED to show an EARLY instalment of the kind of decisions which need to be made they’re PAINFUL, they’re DIFFICULT, but they need to be made to bring some sense back to the public finances.”
Anthony – – Clegg himself called for savage cuts at September’s conference. Just because he is the party leader doesn’t mean he personally supports every single policy. Don’t think Laws was opposed to it either. It’s called democracy – same as Cameron probably didn’t entirely stand behind all their policies.
I agree the way the coalition is shifting the Tories to the centre is welcome.
It’s possible this may make it harder for us to oppose them in future elections. But if we believe in Liberalism, then we should welcome the change, even if it’s not in our political interest.
But I think this shift can be overstated. There will still be a large contingent of right wingers in the Tory party, and they’ll mean Cameron’s party is never convincingly Liberal.
But I think we’ll find being in a coalition with them will force us to re-examine our own prejudices. Most right wing Tories are not bigoted racists. We may disagree with them, but I think we’ll find they are better people than we gave them credit for being.
@Andrea – Clegg has indeed called for cuts (as did all the parties), but right up to the election he was insisting that the Tory plan for swift cuts would destroy the economic recovery. See his conference speech of 14th March. I don’t expect Clegg to agree with everything George Osborne does, but he made a fool of himself by going on the Andrew Marr show this morning and saying that the Tory cuts were a great idea afterall.
“Anthony – – Clegg himself called for savage cuts at September’s conference. Just because he is the party leader doesn’t mean he personally supports every single policy. Don’t think Laws was opposed to it either. It’s called democracy – same as Cameron probably didn’t entirely stand behind all their policies.”
It’s difficult to work out quite what you’re trying to suggest, but if you read what Clegg actually said, you’ll see that he’s claiming that he altered his view on the _timing_ of cuts because the economic situation changed fundamentally within a few hours of the polls closing, in a way that nobody could possibly have foreseen.
It had nothing to do with the fact that the Lib Dems were negotiating a joint policy position with the Conservatives at the time. That the two things happened simultaneously was just a happy coincidence.
Wouldn’t it be nice if just for once politicians stopped treating us like a bunch of abnormally gullible five-year-olds?
Since I’ve started visiting this site, one thing that has constantly amused me is the constant stream of articles and comments stating that the Lib Dems are dragging the Tories to the centre. It doesn’t seem to occur to people here that it is also the Lib Dems that are being dragged to the centre (and if a lot of the comments are the general view amongst the Lib Dem community, it is a case of being dragged kicking and screaming).
I’ve noticed it here with the comments on “married couple’s allowance”, which is of course a misrepresentation of the facts. It should of course be regarded as a break for those in committed relationships as it includes civil partnerships, it is also designed as a sign post saying that the government values committed relationships, rather than punishing them as per the left agenda. I would think that by now the majority of people believe that children mostly do better when 2 parents are involved in their upbringing; most people probably recognise that civil partnerships can be just as effective as the more traditional form of marriage. The fact that the LD Party has had to shift to the centre on this is can only be beneficial to society as a whole.
I would say another area that sticks out like a sore thumb is the 6 bn cut, I would say it is very mainstream to want to cut out waste in the public sector, in fact it only seems to be the left that thinks it is a good idea to constantly pour money in without worrying to much about outcomes/accountability. Regardless of the reason given, in the long term the fact that the Party has moved to the centre ground can only be to the benefit of the UK.
Also, if the inclusion of the Younge article is supposed to imply that his views are common within the LD Party, then I would suggest a move to the centre is long overdue. I would have hoped that believing minority interest unions have the right to bring down elected governments was a thing of the past. I definitely thought that the glorification of Irish terrorism was also a thing of the past, except in the extreme left of course. On the latter point, I would definitely have to concur with “Kehaar (nee Alec) ” and add that the true heroes were the young NI Catholics who put on a uniform and went to NI to defend the rights of the people of NI to determine their own fate.
A few people have commented on the Younge article. It is in the post not because it is a representation of the typical LD view, it is there to show the outdated nature of tribal Tory hatred.
I am not a liberal democrat or a tory however I am shocked at the relish both parties seem to have for hack and slash pushing unemployment up with no dissent from anywhere. I think the liberals who I saw as a mitigating force are now tories and that unfortunately there will be no party next election as the lib dems are now so right wing it it vote lib dem get tory vote tory get lib dem – same old same old – power corrupts – i see that cleggie has got his lovely mansion – he is taking part in the cuts – only half the mansion for him
Indeed: particularly with the example’s that he gives as reasons to hate the tories, Gary Younge’s article represents a kind of “trendy” leftism that I originally came to liberalism in order to oppose.
@pat: “hack and slash”?
Did you miss the bit where Lib Dems pushed through re-investing half a billion of the savings into apprenticeships, social housing and frontline services?
Also, as Byrne rightly said – there’s no money left. We simply cannot continue to spend money WE DO NOT HAVE.
@Chris_Sh
Honestly, I shouldn’t be gratifying your post with a response but I suppose I’m easy to be trolled…
First things first. LDs CAN’T be dragged away from their position. Google the triple lock – internally the party is quite democratic and there is limited scope for forcing the party in a given direction, especially over such a short time. Clegg has been courting his backbenchers, gaining their assent by exploring all options, holding special conferences. Cameron is suddenly talking about liberal values and breaking up right-wing backbencher committees in his party. If a party’s being dragged, it ain’t the LDs.
As for the second paragraph – not rewarding =/= punishing. Saying that two parents are always better than one is complete bull as well, say with a straight face that an alcoholic abusive father would be better than none at all. Even Tories I know don’t buy into this – my mother is a lifelong Tory voter and a single mother – if she thought two parents were always better than one then she would have taken some time in the last twenty years to get married. In fact, I think she would be delighted by the opposite what with married couples mostly already having two incomes and all. I’m pretty sure it’s an issue LDs can abstain on anyway – if it gets through it’ll probably be by a whisker.
Cutting waste is a nonsense term. If it was as easy as all that then every party would do it fairly routinely so they could plug more money into their pet projects. As it is, actually cutting waste is like getting blood from a stone. It is also not a political position if you’re actually talking about cutting waste rather than framing something else as cutting waste.
Did you even read the article if you thought the Younge article was supposed to be something good? I think it might just be an example of “tribal nonsense”. Also, wee hint. Centre ground is not by definition where you stand. Also, while I’m here, an unbiased news source is a different thing to a news source that matches your bias – a lot of people in the right wing have issues with that one. Nothing to do with your post though.
@Chris_sh: I don’t think Gary Younge’s views as you discuss in the last paragraph are common in the Lib Dems. I’m not sure where you get the bit about unions, since he doesn’t mention them in the linked article. However, the SDP-Lib Alliance voted in favour of some of the Thatcher government’s union reforms. On glorifying Irish terrorism, I think that if there were a significant element in the Lib Dems (or predecessor parties) supporting that position, then it would seriously harm the party’s relationship with the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland. The IRA-apologist position was always largely confined to the extreme left (even Labour in the 1980s never adopted it), an example of its knee-jerk anti-Britishness. [Its most prominent advocate was perhaps Ken Livingstone, with his unwise and inappropriate intervention in Northern Irish politics as GLC leader.] It has a contemporary equivalent in equivocation among many of the far left over Islamism (again, including Livingstone).
Also on right-to-buy, correct me if I’m wrong but I think the centre party voted in favour at the time.
I think that Lib Dems and moderate Tories have a lot more in common than many in both parties would care to admit, and that the coalition reflects this. If the coalition causes the Lib Dems to lose the “tribal anti-Tory” vote, then I won’t really be sorry, since to me that is not what liberalism is about.
@DunKahn
“I’m easy to be trolled”
Don’t worry, I’m not really too worried about being accused of being a troll, I fully realise that challenging entrenched views can create discomfort and may cause people to lash out.
“LDs CAN’T be dragged away from their position”
They have been – I’m fully aware of the triple lock, I’m also aware of the LD rhetoric prior to the coalition (see 2 examples I quoted).
“second paragraph”
I realise that you were obviously het up so you didn’t register the qualification “mostly do better” – i.e. not all cases. There are plenty of people where I live that deliberately stay apart as they are better off (mother lives in a council house, father lives in a council flat). They are “day time” parents who maintain separate night time life styles to boost their income.
I’m glad that it worked out for you; however as someone who was brought up watching a mother struggling to juggle various things due to the early death of my father, I can assure that I think both she and I would have been better off with a second parent to share the burden.
The amount is fairly minimal, I didn’t imply that it would solve the world’s problems, but it may start moving things in the direction where people would be able to commit without an excessive financial penalty (and the mad situation regarding the day time parents I mentioned wouldn’t be needed).
“Cutting waste is a nonsense term”
That is the attitude that has probably left us on the verge of going into the trillion pound debt club. “It’s nonsense, so let’s not bother”.
Over 2 years ago I did a job for a large multinational. They already had a tough travel policy, but as soon as they saw what was coming they put a stop on all travel unless it was signed off at a very high level. They managed to do this because technology has moved on; they now mostly use web/phone/vid conferencing. Bearing in mind how much Whitehall spends (approx 1 Bn), perhaps a lot of that could have been redirected/saved years ago.
Only £5m will be saved by using pool cars instead of ministerial cars, but again it puts a sign post up for the way ahead. If that amount had been saved 3 years ago, the debt would be circa £15 m less and we wouldn’t be paying interest on that amount in future years.
IT Projects – I’ve done some work on public projects, absolute nightmare, everything done by committee, changes of specs left right and centre, hanging around because someone forgot to make sure kit was where it was supposed to be – the list goes on. I’ve avoided these jobs like the plague since then as they are just to heart breaking when you consider it is OUR money that is being wasted. If you create a culture in all levels of an organisation that values the income, then you will reduce costs. Things can improve if people remember the old saying about looking after the pennies so that the pounds will look after themselves.
“if you thought the Younge article was supposed to be something good”
Yes I read it and I can’t recall saying anything about it was good, I also read the article from Chris (since clarified in the comments), where he quoted part of the article and then said “I know millions of people in both the Lib Dem and Labour party share…..”. The argument was obviously not framed well; it led the casual reader to believe that the items quoted were the beliefs held by millions, hence the clarification.
“Centre ground is not by definition where you stand.”
Funny that, I would have thought that this phrase should apply to everyone, not just people who aren’t LDs. If you take the centre ground as the majority belief, then I think you’ll find that most people wouldn’t believe that the points I highlighted are hard right, or even centre right, most would consider that it is common sense not to waste money etc.