UK Politics VI

[The Iceman of the North]

On BBC they are talking as if the Deputy PM is a big deal, is that really the case? Isn't this just a honorific position?

[DJDonegal]

Deputy PM doesn't get summer holidays, right? Clegg will be in charge then, I guess. When there's nobody left in the country to govern for 6 weeks.

[Maltaran]

On BBC they are talking as if the Deputy PM is a big deal, is that really the case? Isn't this just a honorific position?

Not directly, but the deputy usually gets given a proper ministerial job as well - John Prescott got the Environment and Transport portfolios when he was deputy PM under Blair.

[john]

Titular honours are quite a big deal in the house of commons. This is a place where people sit on padded benches and talk to each other through a bloke on a throne. Honourary stuff is important.

[Werthead]

Liam Fox as Defence Secretary, so it sounds like the Ashdown thing was premature. Also Cable possibly up for Osborne's deputy rather than Business Secretary.

Simon Hughes as Home Secretary? Sounds a bit of a stretch.

[Anya, Vengeance Demon]

That seems to be a contradictory idea, unless you believe that many more British voters would approve of a political party showing themselves to be backstabing, word breaking bastards than would want to punish them for this behaviour.

I didn't say that British voters would approve of it. I'm just saying that if British voters otherwise approve of the Tories because the economy has improved and suddenly David Cameron looks like a genius, how many people would really care that much that he had broken a promise?

[Werthead]

A fixed-term for five years?

Sounds very optimistic. They're not expecting Europe to come up as a major issue at all in the next half-decade? :shocked:

[Werthead]

It's done. Unanimous approval by the MPs for the coalition, one single dissenting vote in the federal executive. That's overwhelming LibDem support for the deal.

Paddy Ashdown's reaction: "Hurrah!"

[williamjm]

I just realised that I voted for this government*. :stunned:

* to understand my shock, you must realise that I have voted in five General Elections and never before voted for the eventual government.

Same here, this is the first time I've voted for an MP who has ended up in a governing party (since the Lib Dems won the Cambridge seat), although the same happened in one Scottish Parliament election I voted in.

I was just thinking that we now have a good diversity of parties represented in Government if you include all the devolved governments - in Westminster there is now a Conservative/Lib Dem coalition, in Edinburgh there is the SNP, in Cardiff I think it is a Labour/Plaid Cymru coalition and in Belfast there's the Democratic Unionist/Sinn Fein coalition.

[Horza]

Damn. My prediction ultimately didn't go far enough.

[The Marquis de Leech]

One would have thought the Liberal Democrats would have learned from the experience of the last time they (as the Liberals) went into coalition with the Tories.

Sorry, Clegg, but your "Nazi-Soviet Pact" is suicide. Extracting a favoured form of PR from Labour would have helped your party for generations to come.

[Horza]

But for the fact that Labour weren't really interested, yeah.

[Werthead]

Sorry, Clegg, but your "Nazi-Soviet Pact" is suicide. Extracting a favoured form of PR from Labour would have helped your party for generations to come.

The LibDems shacking up with Labour in a 'rainbow coalition' would have made the LibDems unelectable for another generation to come, though, and was never a realistic possibility without the LibDems being able to deliver a majority coalition, as appeared possible based on their post-debate polling figures. Once that was gone, a LibDem-Labour pact became untenable.

According to Mandy, Brown has shown "giant dignity," whatever that means.

[The Anti-Targ]

The LibDems shacking up with Labour in a 'rainbow coalition' would have made the LibDems unelectable for another generation to come, though, and was never a realistic possibility without the LibDems being able to deliver a majority coalition, as appeared possible based on their post-debate polling figures. Once that was gone, a LibDem-Labour pact became untenable.

According to Mandy, Brown has shown "giant dignity," whatever that means.

I agree, once Labour + LibDem < 326 seats became a reality, esp requiring at leat 3 other centre/left parties to pass legislation / survive a no confidence vote, coalition with the Conservatives became the most (only?) viable option for the LibDems, regardless of what offers Labour may have made.

[Werthead]

I agree, once Labour + LibDem < 326 seats became a reality, esp requiring at leat 3 other centre/left parties to pass legislation / survive a no confidence vote, coalition with the Conservatives became the most (only?) viable option for the LibDems, regardless of what offers Labour may have made.

I don't think coalition was quite inevitable. A deal where the LibDems agreed to abstain or support the Queen's Speech and the budget and then let the Tories get on as a minority government was also possible. However, this would be inherently unstable as well: it wouldn't take much for Labour and the LibDems to join forces and defeat unpopular Tory policies, which would effectively render the government frozen and unable to act, resulting in another election (which the LibDems and Labour would be blamed for and would likely suffer heavily).

This deal is indeed somewhat dubious when seen purely through the prism of LibDem ambitions and ideology. However, the UK needs a strong majority government to deal with the economic crisis. If this had happened say ten or five years ago, then the minority government, ad hoc approach could be a better option, but in this situation we don't really have that luxury. When Clegg said the parties needed to work for the national interest he wasn't kidding, especially since this could still blow up for the LibDems in the long run.

[Horza]

Yeah, the important thing for the Lib Dems here is time - another election in the short term would have seen them wiped out as they'd be pilloried again by both parties and the public would decisively go Tory to prevent another hung parliament.

[The Anti-Targ]

One would have thought the Liberal Democrats would have learned from the experience of the last time they (as the Liberals) went into coalition with the Tories.

Sorry, Clegg, but your "Nazi-Soviet Pact" is suicide. Extracting a favoured form of PR from Labour would have helped your party for generations to come.

National/Maori Party/Act/UF has nearly made it 2 years. Though things are becomming a bit wobbly with the Maori Party at the moment. Lucky for national that they don't really need the Maori Party so they can pull up sticks and Nationa/Act/UF can carry on as if nothing happened. (And the Maori Party knows this so they probably won't throw their toys out of the cot; though it will be a hard thing to sell to their constituency continuing to side with a govt that appears to have shafted Tuhoi out of what they see as fundamental to achieving an acceptable settlement).

Minor parties often fare badly even in a coalition that's seen as successful. Most voters give the kudos to the major party so they tend to pick up vites at the expense of the minor party (Some LibDems could jump to Labour in the next election, or give a protest vote to a minnow party). The swing vote will mostly solidify behind the Conservative. If the Coalition is seen as ineffective / a failure then swing votes will go to Labour away from both the Conservatives and the LibDems. Either way I see LibDems with a smaller vote share in the next election and probably even fewer seats. Their best hope of retaining seats and vote share is in a successful coalition, so it's in their interest to make it work to the extent that their idoelogical differences will allow. The only way around this lose/lose situation is if the LibDems squeeze some policy / legislation out of the Conservatives that is seen as both popular and successful and strongly associated with the LibDems rather than the Conservatives. The Conservatives will be working damned hard to make sure that doesn't happen.

Next election will see an outright single party majority. Whether it's Tories or Labour who knows. Though I think it won't be a huge majority if it's the Tories. If it's Labour it could be a big majority if this coalition thing turns out to be a massive cluster-f&#k.

[The Anti-Targ]

I don't think coalition was quite inevitable. A deal where the LibDems agreed to abstain or support the Queen's Speech and the budget and then let the Tories get on as a minority government was also possible. However, this would be inherently unstable as well: it wouldn't take much for Labour and the LibDems to join forces and defeat unpopular Tory policies, which would effectively render the government frozen and unable to act, resulting in another election (which the LibDems and Labour would be blamed for and would likely suffer heavily).

This deal is indeed somewhat dubious when seen purely through the prism of LibDem ambitions and ideology. However, the UK needs a strong majority government to deal with the economic crisis. If this had happened say ten or five years ago, then the minority government, ad hoc approach could be a better option, but in this situation we don't really have that luxury. When Clegg said the parties needed to work for the national interest he wasn't kidding, especially since this could still blow up for the LibDems in the long run.

True. And NZ managed 3 x 3 year terms of stable minority govt (the argument of course is always over whether it was a good govt but that's a different matter and stability can't be argued). But that was after having already had a few goes at PR coalition govt. Expecting a country to go from one party absolute majority rule to stable minority govt is a big ask. Formalised coalition is almost a necessary intermediary step towards stable minority rule, and it requires enough minor / minnow party votes within the same ideological ball park for it to fly (even if they agree to only abstain on confidence and supply). My understanding is that the Tories lacked the right / centre-right numbers to realistically govern as a minority.

[Aemon Stark]

It's fair to say that Canada does not have "stable" minority rule, but we've never had a non-wartime coalition government at the federal level either. The Conservatives and former Progressive Conservatives have never had prospective coalition partners among the smaller parties, though it's fair to say their most natural partner would be in the Liberals. Conversely, the Liberals have cooperated formally (1972-74) and issue-by-issue (1960s, 2005) with the (socialist) New Democrats; in the past this meant considerable influence on national policy. The Liberals have become progressively weaker over time, however, and thanks to FPTP they won only about half as many seats in 2008 as the Conservatives, despite a vote spread comparable to Labour and the Tories in this past UK election. The electoral system further exacerbates problems by significantly over-representing the Bloc Quebecois - it has 12 more seats than the NDP despite winning about half the number of votes. This tends to make coalition building difficult.

As a general rule, I favour cooperation and consensus-building; it's true that not everyone gets what they want, but such is life, and it is appropriate that policies acceptable to a larger (even majority!) proportion of voters are implemented. Hence my preference for PR, though I wonder whether our parties are sufficiently focused on serious policy rather than tactics for it to work. Minority government certainly isn't working too well, since the opposition (well, the Liberals) seem in a constant state of "fear" about an election and otherwise lack any kind of convictions to stand up to the regressive scumbuckets on the government side.

[Ser_not_appearing_yet]

A fixed-term for five years?

Sounds very optimistic. They're not expecting Europe to come up as a major issue at all in the next half-decade? :shocked:

I give it five months.