In 2008 – when the general assumption was that the Tories would win an overall majority – the Hansard Society published a collection of essays on the impact of a balanced parliament on British politics, titled No Overall Control.
One of its contributors was Simon Hughes, then the Lib Dems’ shadow leader of the House, now our deputy leader. So how does what Simon said over two years ago about a hypothetical future measure up to what’s happening in the current reality?
Pretty well in most respects is the answer. While arguing that a balanced parliament was a less-than-likely eventuality, Simon noted that, when it did happen, it would prove “fascinating and interesting and stimulating”; if anything that’s an understatement as a characterisation of the last two months in British politics.
And Simon was an unapologetic advocate of coalition politics as the best way to reflect popular opinion:
A balanced parliament would be desirable because immediately from the election the largest party would understand that it could only govern if it wins and holds wider support across the Commons. At last, the breadth of public opinion, which had shown no party majority support among the electorate, would have to be reflected in the House of Commons. … As a welcome by-product, many more voters would feel that their votes were actually influencing the policies that government could successfully pursue in Parliament, and even more voters would realise how every vote counted in bringing about the election result and the policies that follow.
That final point – that some 60% of the population are now seeing at least some of the policies advocated by the party they supported being enacted in government – may well help explain the currently very positive approval ratings for the coalition (+41% according to YouGov’s post-budget poll).
Simon also notes an important point for the health of Parliament as a legislative body, with political balance on select committees and public bill committees: “debates and decisions in these places would better reflect the political balance of public opinion”.
On one element, though, Simon’s prediction has come partly unstuck:
Speaking for myself and my party I can envisage no circumstances in which Liberal Democrats, after the next general election, would contemplate or do a deal with either of the other parties without their commitment to introduce and vote for legislation which would lead to a politically proportional parliament.
In reality the Lib Dems ended up with the promise only of the alternative vote, a non-proportional system, and with the Tories free to campaign against even this measure of electoral reform. But then the party lost MPs, putting us in a weaker position to take a stand with the Tories than might have been the case if we had emerged with c.80 MPs as many of us hoped.
Simon also considered a wildcard: that coalition politics would, literally, re-shape the Commons: “A balanced parliament might give real impetus to the debate about redesigning our parliamentary chamber, so that the Commons catches up with most parliamentary chambers of the world and has a semi-circular debating chamber, rather than a rectangular one”. The expense involved in such a move might have been considered pre-credit crunch. It’s off the agenda in these straitened times.
But perhaps it’s Simon’s final point which gives the biggest clue to his enthusiasm for the coalition, and indeed for the pivotal role he’s taken on as deputy leader of the parliamentary party:
… it is probably much easier for individual parliamentarians and parties within Parliament to be influential when no one party can presume it always gets its own way. Some of the greatest periods of radical politics and political momentum have occurred in a context like this. It is a great opportunity and not a threat.
Iconoclastic individuals driving radical politics: it’s pretty clear what could have attracted Simon Hughes to a balanced parliament.
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12 Comments
“balanced parliament might give real impetus to the debate about redesigning our parliamentary chamber, so that the Commons catches up with most parliamentary chambers of the world and has a semi-circular debating chamber, rather than a rectangular one”.”
Sounds like vandalism to me. It’s the Mother of Parliaments, not something knocked up with parts from Ikea.
A lot has been learnt about coalitions now we have had the circumstances that require one, but a lot still needs to be learnt.
One of the things learnt is that one cannot say much about what sort of coalition one would form and under what comditions, until the point is actually reached of having to form one. We saw how silly is the “Which party would you go into coalition with?” question, asked of Liberal Democrats for years and years, when we found in practice this time the situation tied our hands and meant only one of them was a realistic option. The other thing we learnt is that political uncertainty is damaging to the country, so a vote-by-vote support or not for a minority government, or weeks spent arguing until the other party agrees to our demands (like Simon’s PR point), is not as easy to do as we might have supposed, and will damage us if we try it.
One of the suppositions which comes from it just being assumed a government will be of one party which we have been tackling is the idea that a vote of no confidence in the government also means that Parliament has no confidence in itself so should dissolve. There was a surge of commentators saying that breaking the link was a terribly undemocratic thing to do. I do not recall any press commentary article putting the point which most LibDems saw pretty early in – that permitting Parliament to vote out the government without also forcing all MPs to resign was enhancing Parliament’s power over the executive, not vice versa.
We have not yet learnt how to deal with a government which contains members of more than one party. We have not adjusted to the fact that means ministers from our party may have to give public support to things we as a party and they themselves as individuals would be against had we been in full control. I am increasingly coming to feel that joining what should be two separate roles into one – the leader of the party and the leader of the parliamentary party group – is a bad thing. That is such an established part of British politics, which works if governments are not coalitions, that breaking it will be hard. Of course, our party already has a separate leader of the party position in the role of its President. That role has tended to be a purely internal and in some cases rather honorary one. However, we might usefully consider bumping its public profile up and making the President do a lot of the media public image stuff that has been done by the Parliamentary leader in the past. The President can speak for our party, the Parliamentary leader when the party is in coalition cannot, therefore the Parliamentary leader just should NOT be taken as the authentic leadership voice of the party. The Parliamentary leader should be considered a secondary leadership figure, doing a job delegated to him or her by the party.
Parliament may be the Mother of Parliaments. The Commons chamber was knocked together in the late 40s as a shoddy replica of the previous one.
Hardly any of the great really historical parliamentary events took place in that chamber or even in the same building.
“The Parliamentary leader should be considered a secondary leadership figure, doing a job delegated to him or her by the party.”
Absolutely.
NOT.
The public does not give a rat’s behind who the ‘leader’ of the Party happens to be when the Party is in Government. The LEADER is the PM. Period.
And he will always remain so as far as the public is concerned. As well he should.
Can you imagine a more silly and dysfunctional situation than one in which the PM rises to answer a question in the House, and basically says —- I will have to get back to you AFTER I discover what the Party leadership wants me to say. Not EVER going to happen.
And harping upon these ‘solutions’ to a problem that some LibDems have ‘in their own minds’ is not a productive way forward, imao. Now that you ARE the Government, what the Government does, is what you perforce support. That or rebel, and make a pest of yourself, and damage the Government and the Party in the process. But if you rebel on a Budget or Confidence Issue, you should expect to be ‘cast out’. Same rules as for the ‘big boys’.
Same rules exactly. You cannot both be the Government and the anti-Government at precisely the same time. Same reasoning for why you can’t claim any ‘opposition allowance’ while actually being the Government.
Part of ‘growing up’ is that you understand that ‘you can’t have your cake and eat it as well’, applies to YOU as well.
We finally get a coalition government at a time when thanks to the national debt there has never been a worse time to be in government.
Can I be pedantic & point out that (Hazlitts?) phrase refers to The People as being The Mother of Parliament. Britain wasnt even the 1st country to become a Democracy, that was New Zealand in 1893, we had to wait till 1928 or 1951 depending on how fussy you want to be.
On the building – the present HOC interior dates from the early 1950s & the outer shell from the 1880s.
Well I’m pretty sure I’m not the government. Ridiculous.
Precisely the point, and well-established in Lib Dem internal structure: the government does not represent the party. Hence, somebody needs to represent the party, since the government can’t do it.
One of the biggest weaknesses of constant elections that elect large majorities for a single majority political party is that the Government is encouraged to become a bully and even develop a thuggery tendency by an unfair electoral system.
This situation if left unreformed will continue to be unhealthy for our representative democracy for generations.
Under these circumstances when single majority FPTP majorities prevail there is no proper parliamentary debate when the Government is held to proper account over decision making nor can it be seen that a large majority is elected by the majority of popular votes. e.g. in 2005 Blair was elected PM on 36% of the total popular votes.
The increased public spending agenda that part is now being put into reverse was done by an unelected PM who was not held accountable by a General Election mandate to govern.
Walter Bageot the British Constitutional historian said, `All power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely’.
This `Coalition Government’ is predicated on the `Coalition Agreement’ that 2 Political parties are signed up to that contains Liberal reforms that include a timely Referendum on AV.
At best this means of moving forward on a longer journey towards PR is one good step towards `Fair Votes’ when passed by parliament, under the Freedom Bill and then taken to the country for their say and final approval.
The proposed Government decision making it dependent on the AV referendum with a wide debate across the UK and final `Fair Votes’ and boundary changes passed by Parliament, will become the best piece of democratic reform by any Government, since Lloyd-George and the pledge of 1000 voting Liberal Lords in 1910, to pass the Parliament Act 1911.
There may be positive approval ratings for the coalition but no analysis of why voting intentions for LibDems is down.
@Geoffrey “We finally get a coalition government at a time when thanks to the national debt there has never been a worse time to be in government.”
I agree it isn’t the best time for us as a party, however you could also look at it this way – now more than ever it is a time for parties to work together to sort this mess out.
Dougf
Can you imagine a more silly and dysfunctional situation than one in which the PM rises to answer a question in the House, and basically says —- I will have to get back to you AFTER I discover what the Party leadership wants me to say. Not EVER going to happen.
This is not at all what I am saying, but it illustrates well the point I am making. You are unable to think past the assumptions made when it was assumed all government would be of one party.
The party as a whole cannot and should not have any say over what anyone elected in its name to public office should do. It sets its position out, it uses that to attract members some of whom may wish to be candidates for public office, and to select those members to endorse in their election to public office. It is a fundamental principle of liberal democracy that once in public office they should use their own judgment in making any decisions. If they wish to refer to the position of their party which helped put them there, they may do so, but they should not feel compelled to do so against their own judgment. The party has the sanction of not re-nominating them in the next election should it feel they have strayed too far from the position it expects its nominees to have. It may before that withdraw membership, but I think that a sanction which should be rarely used, only if the nominee takes action or makes known views which are completely incompatible with the party’s aims and objectives.
From what I have written above, you may see I am certainly not advocating that the PM should have to refer to his or her party to answer a question. The PM must do what he or she feels is right. The PM must retain the confidence of the House, that is all.
Patrick Smith
The increased public spending agenda that part is now being put into reverse was done by an unelected PM who was not held accountable by a General Election mandate to govern.
We do not have a presidential system, therefore there is no such mandate. We give a mandate to our members of Parliament to come together and support one of their number to be PM. That is all – power must ultimately lie with them and not with the PM. Of course there is much in government that requires quick decisions, we can hardly expect the PM to be coming back continually to the House for conformation of a decision. That is why just as we in electing a MP choose someone we have confidence will think and act as we would were we there and had the time and ability to do the job, so MPs must support as PM someone they have confidence in to make the right decision without continual reference back to them.
Bearing this in mind, the significance of decoupling no-confidence in the government from Parliament requesting a dissolution becomes clear. It is a key constitutional reform to restore the power of Parliament, and I find it astonishing to see so many commentators who could not see that as so wrote it off as the exact opposite.
Government must be about representatives we can trust coming together to seek a workable compromise which satisfies more representatives than any other compromise. That is what representative democracy should be about, it should not be about some mandate for a five-year plan which must be followed through regardless of circumstances. We have tended to suppose it must be such only because of assumptions that have grown through repeated single-party governments, and also, I am afraid, the malign influence of Leninism on assumptions of what political parties should be for and how they should operate.
We must work at re-inventing what a liberal political party should be. While socialism as a political theory may be bankrupt, somehow the socialist idea of what a political party should be lives on. It lives on in so much of the assumptions about how we operate and comments we are seeing here frorm people who are not socialists and yet have a little Lenin somewhere in their heads telling them how politics should be and putting forward his horrible model of a political party (taken up and refined, of course, by Mussolini et al). It is not done consciously, of course, it is done unconsciously because we just find it so difficult to break from conventions established over the years.