Today it’s make your mind up time for the Liberal Democrats
Bubble — By Nick Bourne on May 11, 2010 10:57 am
Bucks Fizz's Eurovision winner is a poignant backing track as the Lib Dems deliberate today
We know how in Wales in 2007 the LibDems’ failure to put national interest before party interest lumbered our country with four more years of Labour government. It handed a tired and discredited Labour Party the keys back to ministerial office and shattered the hopes of all those who had voted for change. It left us with an administration that has failed to get to grips with some of the big challenges of the day – unemployment, the gap between rich and poor, the gap in educational attainment – and the chance to set our country in a new direction.
That’s why today it’s make your mind up time for the Liberal Democrats.
And that’s why today I hope they will take a decision which has stable, sustainable government at its heart. It is neither good for the future government of this country, nor politics in general for the current uncertainty to continue.
There are some who may consider the LibDems’ behaviour to be nothing short of prevarication. Others may be more generous in their assessment and conclude that Nick Clegg and Co are simply keeping their options open. I find it inconceivable that an alliance between Labour, the LibDems and the other losing parties is in the national interest, short, medium or long term. It is a recipe for confusion, conflict and contradiction when what is needed is clarity, cooperation and consistency.
I am also alarmed at the prospect of a second unelected Labour Prime Minister taking residence in Downing Street, particularly so soon after a General Election. It is profoundly undemocratic and will, I believe, be fiercely resisted by the majority of the electorate. It would be a backroom stitch-up of the worst kind of Old Politics.
There are three points I consider central to this whole debate.
First, one party – the Conservative Party – clearly got more votes and seats than any other last Thursday. In that instance, the inherent fairness of the British people would expect a government to be led by David Cameron. Gordon Brown has no mandate to govern, less still the as yet unknown future leader of the Labour Party.
Second, the people of Britain voted for change. If the Labour-LibDem deal is sealed what we’ll get is the status quo, with a little bit more. Old Politics will have won the day when it was categorically rejected by the electorate less than a week ago.
Third, we need stable government. What is being talked about between Labour and the LibDems – and possibly others as yet unspecified – could not be further from that. If we think the current negotiation process is convoluted, imagine what it’ll be like with Labour and the LibDems traipsing around Westminster trying to cajole and coerce an unseemly alliance of fringe interests into supporting government policy on a case by case basis.
I can see the LibDems’ dilemma. But everyone accepts fixing the economy is central to everything the new government needs to do in the new Parliament.
Britain faces some massive challenges in the months and years ahead – not least to rebuild our shattered economy and reduce the massive debts built up by Gordon Brown.
That’s why the LibDems today stand at a crossroads and why which way they decide to turn will have profound consequences for this country for many years to come.
Tags: 2010 General Election, coalition, Conservatives, Nick Bourne AM, Welsh Conservatives, Welsh Liberal Democrats
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16 Comments
I find some of the Tory arguments on this issue quite desperate. I agree that as an individual party the Tories have the biggest claim to govern. However, a Lab-Lib deal has greater votes and a greater mandate still. I hardly remember Nick Bourne himself making the case that Labour should lead the Assembly whilst he was negotiating a Rainbow deal here. Whats the difference? His position above therefore smacks of inconsistency and hypocrisy.
Secondly the whole issue about an unelected Labour leader is smoke and mirrors. John Major was an unelected leader but the Tories were fine with that and he is not the only example. The fact is we live in a parliamentary system not a presidential one and to suggest otherwise is nothing more than an attempt to skew the publics understanding.
Steve wrote: “John Major was an unelected leader but the Tories were fine with that and he is not the only example. The fact is we live in a parliamentary system not a presidential one and to suggest otherwise is nothing more than an attempt to skew the publics understanding.”
Major wasn’t unelected for that long, about 18 months. In constitutional terms you are correct though, and leaders do not need a General Election mandate to govern as Prime Minister, they can switch mid-term. What made this a particular problem acute for Brown was that he was unopposed for the Labour leadership in the first place. I doubt his successor will be in the same situation.
“I agree that as an individual party the Tories have the biggest claim to govern.” So do I…
People seem to forget that Jim Callaghan, John Major, Alec Douglas Home, Anthony Eden etc were not elected by the people. Parliament is our version of the US electoral college and John Quincy Adams was not elected by the people.
Daran wrote: “Major wasn’t unelected for that long, about 18 months”
Does the length of time actually matter? Nick Bourne is here attacking the idea of an unelected Labour leader that has not even announced his/her candidacy let alone taken office. He is attacking the principle yet it is not constitutionally wrong in anyway and has precident including under a Tory government.
“That’s why the LibDems today stand at a crossroads and why which way they decide to turn will have profound consequences for this country for many years to come.”
It is of course possible they will not turn at all, that is, there will not be a formal coalition with either Labour or the Tories. They may simply stand back and not vote against the Finance Bill and offer a confidence and supply arrangement.
Admittedly this is a less stable arrangement and could lead to a second general election sooner rather than later.
I am not sure if I am stating the obvious but I recall that Nick Bourne was quite happy to be in a coalition of losers that the Welsh people had not voted for.
Let’s get it into perspective, whatever Clegg and the Lib Dem do or don’t do they will be
praised and mocked
glorified and insulted
insinuations of this and that
accusations of bad and worse
It’s an odd and difficult situation the Lib Dems find themselves in, one that bring much change with lots of criticism along the way.
People asume that only change can happen in a con-lib dem pact, but the lib’s would really energise
a lib-lab administration and will have a much greater role in that pact, rather than be a peripheral tag along under a tory led govt
On Sunday, Chelsea won the Premier League title. They got the most points and scored the most goals.
However, if you add up the points and the goals scored by Manchester United, Arsenal and Tottenham then you could argue that a fantasy “North London/Manchester United” should really be the champions.
Thats totally absurd isnt it. Oh, wait a minute, apparently not……
Poor analogy. Chelsea didn’t need to get more points than all the others combined to be crowned. A political party does.
That’s a truly awful picture of Bucks Fizz accompanying this article; any one of Messrs Cameron, Clegg or Brown would be preferable to this hideous colour montage. Has no one told Nick Bourne that it’s “be nice to the Lib Dems” time in the Conservative party ? If Michael Gove can manage it I’m sure he can…..
Adam, I was making a deliberately bad analogy for a purpose; this is a bad and unedfiying debate.
I know what the game in town is but the idea that the way to run the country, if not through an alliance of the losers, but at least an alliance of people who, often, loathe one another as much as they loathe the Tories, is utterly preposterous and needs to be called out as such.
Whilst I have a huge amount of sympathy with Alun Davies’s position elsewhere on this blog (I think he is at least sincere), the idea that a “rainbow” coalition – still short of an overall majority-has more legitimacy than a Conservative minority flies not only in the face of logic but the democractic will of the people. I voted Labour, want a Labour govt but even me in my card carrying member nerd status can see that we lost. Attempting to try and deny anything else is as mental as my metaphor.
There’s a lot more to it than an election result. It has highlighted a growing shift towards a motley collective of ‘progressives’ including Liberals, Labour and nationalist parties who have an agenda that has more to do with power and the redistribution of wealth, something with which the Communists failed but is now being insideously brought in through the back door. A Rainbow team led by Bungle and Zippy demonstrates this move.
Notwithstanding that, as with all parties, there is an internal spectrum of interest and the Liberals to the right of their party need to wake up and smell the coffee. They would hold on to the element of integrity that they gained by Clegg’s initial post-election statement.
One thing is for sure that the Progressives have blown their cover. They can see their interests lie as part of a federal Europe that than a UK sovereign state – progressives do not add-value, they take someone else’s added value and redistribute it. Why should entrepreneurs bother? I am saddened when Wales is so impoverished through the imposition of progessive policies that it has to barter power for hand-outs.
Take a leaf out the USA’s book and see the turmoil that a self stated socialist progressive President with a green/Marxist entourage has created. The individual States are seeing their loss of power to Washington and ‘big Government. Translated into terms of Europe if the progressives are allowed free rein then that is when we lose our sovereignty to ‘big government’ in a federal Europe. U.S.A. Watch out for the final phase of a U S E!
So, let’s hope that Bungle and Zippy don’t get power for their Rainbow team and the progressives not progress too much further too drag us all with them.
So we shouldn’t have a non-Tory government in the UK and shouldn’t redistribute wealth because:
a) the President of the United States is allegedly a “green/Marxist” (the CPGB will be happy).
and
b) “Progressives” want to form a European federal super-state and diminish UK sovereignty, despite this objective being cunningly hidden from the manifesto of every mainstream political party that contested the General Election.
UKIP, right?
Lesson learned? UKIP diluted the vote.
The next election could be a different kettle of fish if UKIP realise that they could have helped deliver exactly what they opposed.
Now that’s a big ‘IF’!
Stan.
Sounds like you watch too much Rush. cant say I have seen any KGB operatives in reddest Kansas.
It will be interesting to see where this all ends. The question is Cameron another Baldwin immediately springs to mind? Yesterday saw the creation of another National Government but with no National Labour this time. Baldwin was a natural coalition man who saw coaliton as a means of controlling the extreme right in the Tory Party. Perhaps Cameron is in the same mould and it will be interesting to see how the Tory right react.
As for the Liberal Democrats they are definitely sailing into uncharted waters. Two previous occasions where Liberals ended up in coalition with the Tories in the 1880s and 1930s the eventual result was their absorption into the Tory party. Both Joe Chamberlain and Selwyn Lloyd who became famous Tories had started off as Liberals. It also reflects the fact that ideologically the Liberal Democrats have been a party that contains right wingers such as Clegg and Laws who without Thatcher and the Tory attitude to Europe would have become Conservatives. Where all of this leaves the left of the Liberal Democrats including ex members of the SDP is another matter. Looking at the deal what have the Lib Dems gained? For 20 MPs they will obviously become ministers with a ll the perks of offcie but bound by collective responsibility to support the coalition in public. They gain the raising of the tax threshold to £10000. Although most Tories would not be unhappy with this since it gives all middle class families an extra £700 a year whilst hardly helping the really poor. They gain a referendum on AV. But what is this worth in the long run? There is no guarantee for a start that such a referendum with Tory MPs campaigning against could even be won. If it is lost then PR is dead for a generation. If it is won then FPTP will be replaced by a system which isn’t very proportional. But what have the Liberal Democrats lost?The Tories will control policy on Europe and immigration. On Defence the Tories will ensure in the next few years that the key decisions will be taken that will lock the UK into replacing Trident. By 2015 it will probably too late to reverse the process . The Liberal Democrats will also be forever associated with the cuts and tax increases of the next few years. It will be interesting to see what message Liberal Democrats in Merthyr, Newport East and Swansea West push on the doorstep in next year’s Assembly election.
How all of this will pan out with the wider electorate only time will tell. If the economy improves then the odds are that the government after an initial period of unpopularity could win the 2015 election. But whether this will benefit the Liberal Democrats is another matter. A UK public which is not used to coalitions could give the Tories all the credit and yesterday’s decision could cost the Liberal Democrats as they are squeezed between the Tories and a resurgent Labour . The Fabians have already produced a paper which suggests that the coalition deal could lose the Liberal Democrats at least 18 seats to Labour. Except for the 20 government ministers the Liberal Democrats are going to find it difficult to get their views across to the public. No more Liberal Democrat time at Prime Minister’s questions because they are now part of the government. No more Liberal Democrat spokespersons on Newsnight. Even on Question Time the position of the Liberal Democrats is difficult. Even if they are allowed to appear everyone will be watching for any differences with the Tories. A real innovation in this election was the Leader’s debate. It will be interesting to see how Clegg performs next time when he will have been Deputy Prime Minister for a few years. A Labour Leader with an ounce of ability will run rings around him.
Ironically yesterday’s decsion could see a realigment of British politics but not in the way many Liberal Democrats imagined it. The project to replace Labour has well and truly been scuppered. Instead unless Labour repeat the mistakes of the early 1980s and I can’t see this happening British politics in the future could be dominated by a Tory Party which resembles despite its opposition to Europe , a European Christian Democrat Party and Labour which will be the only party representing the Progressive Left of centre in British politics. In many parts of England and Scotland in particular left of centre Liberal Democrats who left the Labour Party in the past will start to move back to the only party which with all its faults is capable of forming a progressive left of centre government in the future.