As at lunchtime, here’s what we know:
- Deputy Prime Minister – Nick Clegg
- Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills – Vince Cable
- Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change – Chris Huhne
- Secretary of State for Scotland – Danny Alexander
- Chief Secretary to the Treasury – David Laws
No particular surprises here, all canny moves in one way or another. Nick Clegg is wise, I think, to avoid holding a cabinet portfolio – he’s going to be quite busy enough in the next few years keeping the party together.
Vince Cable would have found it difficult to play number two 2 to George Osborne, but needs to have an economic portfolio – so business makes a lot of sense. Equally the party needs to have someone senior at the Treasury given the current economic climate – and David Laws will not lack authority or credibility.
Chris Huhne is a great choice at environment, and it will be fascinating to see how the climate change deniers in the Tory party feel about having such a green cabinet minister in the coalition. And finally Danny Alexander is a natural fit for the Scottish office, given the Tories have only one MP to choose from.
And here are the Conservative party positions:
Prime Minister – David Cameron
Chancellor of the Exchequer – George Osborne
Foreign Secretary – William Hague
Secretary of State for Education – Michael Gove
Secretary of State for Work and Pensions – Iain Duncan Smith (unconfirmed)
Secretary of State for Health – Andrew Lansley
Secretary of State for Defence – Liam Fox
Secretary of State for Home Affairs and minister for Women and Equality – Theresa May
Secretary of State of Justice and Lord Chancellor – Kenneth Clarke
Chief Whip – Patrick McLoughlin
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31 Comments
All seemingly good choices. Definitely Cable could not have been no2 at Treasury.
Noticeable lack of a woman (or ethnic minority) among the 5 LDs in cabinet. Indeed maybe reflects lack thereof in Parliamentary party- haven’t counted but think %ge is lower than Lab or Cons? Hopefully a few will creep in more junior posts.
Not that there are that many amongst the Cons, but at least a couple in Cabinet. Also interesting bringing in IDS given all the work he has done on poverty etc.
What happens to the ground-war locally? Do Lib Dems fight by-elections to defeat the Conservative? Or do they pass by (as happened last time we were in coalition with Conservatives). We are second in 248 Constituencies, that has not happened in the last 60 years, either…something the commentators have not picked up on (Michael Crick is a bit slow these days), but he did ask the first question of this paragraph the other night and nobody has answered it.
Second, don’t forget, that the long held Liberal policy of fixed term parliaments and a clear date already agreed for the next general election in five years time (which goes back to at last the 1970 General Election if not before that), the rank and file MPs can bust it and do what they please….The 1922 Committee, the representative committee of Tory MPs, only got its name because of a backbench revolt in 1922 when Conservative backbenchers felt they couldnt stomach working with Liberals any longer, and saw a chance to get out of a coalition by organising a backbench revolt….so effective was this they formed a regular committee, which takes it name from the year they dumped the Liberals.
Clever move by Clegg, I agree.
I suspect he will be somewhat of a roving trouble shooter. Keeping an eye on the Tory led departments, something he would be less able to do if he was busy leading a ministry of his own.
The Liberal Democrats are contesting Thirsk and Malton against the Conservatives, so I assume they will contest any other seats that come up for by-election. Doubtless the argument to be made will be that Liberal Democrat victories will increase the liberal influence within the coalition.
My concern is what will happen come elections. I live in Guildford and I’m struggling to think how we’ll be able to present ourselves in the next election given that we’re challenging the tories for the seat.
Real shame about the lack of women, especially Lib Dem women; but this is only a reflection of our parliamentary party and our PPCs. We fielded a fewer proportion of female PPCs in this election than we did in 2005.
I am really glad that we’re a party of government, I only wish we could claim to be a diverse party of government.
See my blog about it here: http://tiny.cc/mxpnt
IDS seems like the Tory you’d want in that job.
Iain Dale raised a good question: what do Con and LD members call each other in the House? Hon.friend seems too chummy, Hon.member too distant – but the latter is better, need to keep a distance between the parties in harmless ways.
Oh, and when the House meets, Frank Field for speaker – get rid of that slimeball Bercow.
@Jo: Very much agreed.
Challenge the tories on the differences in the manifesto on which we abstain; i.e. nukes, europe, further political reform.
Gives us yer vote – we are in government, give us more MP’s and we can make more change……
“Hon.friend seems too chummy, Hon.member too distant – but the latter is better, need to keep a distance between the parties in harmless ways.”
Honourable collaborator?
“No particular surprises here, all canny moves in one way or another.”
Er… wouldn’t say that. Two people have been shadowing the Scottish Office before the election… neither of them were Danny. I think in PR terms it might have been better to have a Tory do it not because they know much about Scotland but simply because the coalition may be a pretty hard sell for us north of the border. I think if we’re honest we should admit amongst ourselves that Danny has this office because of his role in the negotiations and his close relationship with Nick; he’s neither particularly on the right of the party, nor has he been shadowing the office, nor is he especially senior. I say that as someone who likes him enormously.
“# Chief Secretary to the Treasury – David Laws ” – While this strengthens Vince’s position I have to say it’s a major disappointment not to see David with the education brief. The two big parties have never really cared about education and it would have been a great reassurance for a liberal to have the brief, especially seeing as they appear to be giving way on a number of our policies in the area.
Good to see Chris getting Environment though. And Vince’s appointment makes sense if they are serious about being serious about financial regulation. We’ll see whether they let us break up the banks but it’s good to have Vince in a position where that forseeably could happen.
Out of interest which do you think would look worse for us: if we didn’t field a candidate in Thirsk or if the majority of our votes went to the Labour candidate?
If Clegg had been really smart, he’d have got Lynne Featherstone in there in a minor position. She has a habit of making things happen when surrounded by opponents. Oh well, can’t win them all.
One really striking thing is the Lib Dem presence in key economic posts. Laws 2nd in tresasury, Cable at Business, and to a lesser extent, Huhne at energy. All three are economists, unlike George Osborne.
In contrast, the Tories head up the service delivery posts – ironically, with a Lib Dem, Laws, wielding the whip for them to make cuts. I hope we have enough influence to make sure the cuts are well-targeted and compassionate.
It fits in with another interesting irony, pointed out elsewhere on a Tory blog: “raising the tax allowance and no increases for NHS spending? Why were these not our policies?!” It always annoyed me that the Tories and Labour were exempting the NHS from cuts, when that would lead to disproportionate and utterly savage cuts elsewhere to make up the difference.
I think one of the reasons our negotiators did so well, is because, secretly, the Tories admired a lot of our policies anyway.
@George Kendall: You make an interesting point there about convergence between our policy and the Tories, and with a remarkable amount of influence on the economics side of things there’s a good chance of seeing these policies come to fruition.
@Duncan Crowe: Perhaps it was felt that convergence in this area was sufficient not to try and push a Liberal in? Would certainly have been nice though.
“I think one of the reasons our negotiators did so well, is because, secretly, the Tories admired a lot of our policies anyway”.
As a Tory, I think our partnership was a good excuse to dump policies that proved unpopular in the election campaign. Once in the campaign you cannot back out of policy positions. It has given both parties the lattitude to quitely dump those policies that caused the most negative reaction.
I have noticed our unpopular inheritance tax policy was dumped as was your unpopular illegal immigrant earned citzenship policy.
I am not at all dissapointed Michael Gove got education, I think he has been excellent throughout our campaign and he is firmly in the Liberal conservative centre ground (many of us would like to detach from the more rightist/tebbit/1980’s parts).
I really wish David Laws had got business, inovation and skills as he has all the skills, background and dynamism.
I would have liked to have seen Vince in the treasury and Ken Clarke – those are the two very experienced heads, that we could have done with. At the very least along side boy George, who I will openely admit may well need the experience next to him.?
I am a conservative activist and I helped to fight against Norman Baker in my conticuency, In an ideal world both of our parties would like to fully implement their political ideals to the full.
But as that is not what the vote turned up, I must say I am excited at the prospect of working with Lib Dems on shared Liberal Conservative/Liberal Democrat values.
One thing I am most hopefull of is that us liberal conservatives who have been hate figures because of Mrs Thatchers lack of social action or compassion finally get the chance to prove that we are not from that mold and many of us are different.
Good luck fellow friends…..for now….. in 5 years the quest for Mr Bakers seat begins again in earnest!!
@Andrew – Reports yesterday said we would have another 15 non-cabinet posts, so there is plenty of scope for Lynne!
@Jo – We lost Sue Kramer, and the men in Harrogate and Hereford *weren’t* replaced by the expected women…. We have fewer to choose from than we did. I agree it’s a pity, but our efforts were unsuccessful rather than not efforts at all.
I’m not wild about the way the negotiators have finished up in the cabinet. Weren’t they doing it for the parliamentary party rather than themselves? However, the Tories sent shadow cabinet members, and I suppose Nick Clegg recommended Danny Alexander because they had been working together particularly closely recently.
Cameron said in the press conference that Nick Clegg would be in charge of political reform. Not sure whether that also takes in the Freedom Bill but it will be a fairly substantial portfolio anyway.
@Duncan
“The two big parties have never really cared about education”
You really havn’t been followng recent Tory policy development effort, have you? I would have thought that Laws would have done a good job in education, but given the prominance this policy area had pre-election (well, in Tory circles at any rate) and Goves’s deep interest in the area it is maybe not surprising that Gove has been given the nod.
This is the first time Liberal Cabinet Seats have been occupied, since the WW2 Churchill Coalition when the Liberal Leader Archibald Sinclair was the Air Minister.The reason surely has more to do with the failure of any post War Government to deliver on any form for PR than the many generations of talented Liberal Leaders and MP`s since 1945?
The proof of the pudding is in the eating for the `grass-roots’ Liberal Democrat vote by May 7th 2015, if as is stated by Nick Clegg and David Cameron the `Coalition Government’ is set to last for the full 5 years.
Everything will depend on Nick Clegg`s conciliatory role as Deputy Prime Minister.
I wish our Leader and all of our L/D Cabinet Members every success in the passage of Liberal Democrat Manifesto pledges that 7 million voters supported in the UK.
I predict Nick Clegg will gain over time a majority `grass-roots’ backing for the `Coalition Governmnet’ deal struck with a Tory Leader that most L/D `s would have seen until now as a natural opponent in the election battlefields.
Once the policies begin to unravel for Fairer Taxes for the lower and middle income earners and a date to hold the Referendum on Fairer Votes and to help the worst off tax payers soon and to clean up politics I believe that our support will grow across the board.
At least we will not have a General Election and Local Election on the same date again in London on May 2014.
There will be much debate to come on AD as it is neither a form of PR or a real departure from FPTP but it would have provided an extra 22 L/D MP Seats on May 6th.
I would also like to see the changes recommended by the Tories implemented to make Fairer the size of all Constituencies at the same time, as the public and open and ongoing debate on the need for PR.The two prizes should go hand and glove.
The tories have us where they want us now that the entire negotiating team have cabinet jobs.
Whenever there is a dissagreement or when we have to flesh out greed policy details our negotiators will want to hang on to there jobs and will be much more agreeable. We now need new negotiators or we’re screwed!
Furthermore we should have gotten somone like Simon Hughes or Steve Webb a job to keep the social liberal wing of the party happy.
Finally if we get scotland sec (and I thought we wanted it replaced with one nations and regions job) it should have gone to our spokesman who is supposed to have done well in the scotland debates should be more popular with scottland.
Hope there’s no job at all for Paddy “I love Labour” Ashdown after his disgraceful Today performance yesterday. And I agree with Stanlet T about getting rid of Bercow, him and his awful wife have been taking the mick for too long.
20 more ministerial posts apparently – I’d expect to see Lynne Featherstone, Jo Swinson and Sarah Teather all feature in there somewhere.
And don’t forget, being in Government means we get more representation on select committees too – and I’d expect that’s where senior MPs like Ming Campbell, Malcolm Bruce and Don Foster might go.
But please, no peers in our ministerial team!
It humours me that any of of you think the Liberal Democrats have the right to govern, the electorate was clear, LD’s were third in votes, and seats gained, yet occupy numerous government posts. Nick Clegg, made it clear when rubbishing the Labour party that electorate had spoken, and that they no had the right to govern (Labour got far more votes, and seats than LD’s). Ironic.
I know a lot of people may worry about how we position ourselves at the next general election. But the good thing about AV (if brought in) is that it should help us a bit if the coalition is a sucess. Many people may seek to re-elect another coalition by making the Lib Dems their second choice. Also I assume we will appeal to Tory voters more than Labour and to Labour voters more than Tories….
So let’s not worry about this. Let’s focus on doing a great job in government.
I’m very unenthusiastic with these cabinet appointments. If a coalition is going to work for us from an electoral perspective, we not only have to get PR through but actually win votes through our participation in government. None of these positions are in areas that are potential vote winners. I think we needed one of education, health or home office (although home office would probably be a poisoned chalice) so that we can (hopefully) go into the next election with something to shout about. I can’t see any of the positions we’ve got giving us that opportunity. The possible exception is Vince vs the banks, but I can’t see that being a vote winner in 5 years time.
And how is Huhne as energy secretary going to preside over the new nuclear power stations while the rest of the party maintain their opposition? Given that the building of new nuclear power stations is probably the biggest decision for the energy secretary in the next parliament I just don’t see how his appointment is going to work.
Have to admit I’m also not keen on the fact that all the negotiators got themselves cabinet jobs… it’s hard to disagree with any of them individually, except maybe Danny Alexander, and maybe it would have been those five anyway, but it just seems a little… seedy, somehow. Like a stitch up by the negotiatiors to get themselves jobs. Don’t get me wrong, I support the coalition and think the negotiators did a fantastic jobs, and I’m sure all five will be able ministers, but it just leaves a bit of a nasty taste…
It’ll also be interesting to know what happens when there’s a reshuffle. Do the Lib Dems keep the same five posts, or do they all shift around? And do we have separate reshuffles, for Lib Dems and Tories, or for the cabinet as a whole? It’ll be interesting to see what happens – surely implausible that the entire cabinet will stay the same for five years.
I just hope to God none of them have any scandals to come out. This is risky at the best of times, the last thing we need is some horrendous skeletons emerging later
Laura: “all the negotiators got themselves cabinet jobs”
Er – did Andrew Stunell? I haven’t seen him getting any baubles, but perhaps I missed something.
Philip: Labour were entirely able to go and negotiate with the Conservatives to seek a coalition, in exactly the same way as the Lib Dems were. They chose not to, just as they chose the electoral system that put them out of office and made any arrangement not involving the Tories unviable.
Lab-Con would have been a much easier coalition to build too – far more common ground to start from.
“This is the first time Liberal Cabinet Seats have been occupied, since the WW2 Churchill Coalition when the Liberal Leader Archibald Sinclair was the Air Minister”
Archy Sinclair although a very close friend and ally of Churchill, was not a member of the 1940-45 War Cabinet, only a “visitor”. The last (independent) Liberal Cabinet members were Herbert Samuel (Home Secretary) and others 1931-32 in the second National Government. The independent Liberal ministers resigned from the Government in September 1932, and so it is a 78 years since an “official” Liberal has sat at the Cabinet table.
Here are some more ministerial appointments:
http://blogs.ft.com/westminster/2010/05/ministerial-appointments-beneath-cabinet-level-a-fuller-list/