Lunchtime Legend

5 reasons why the Coalition will last.

My recent blog on why I think it is a mistake for the left to be focussing so much on the Liberal Democrats generated some interesting debate, on the blog, on Facebook and on Twitter.

Much of this debate focussed on the need to attack the coalition to try and bring it down as quickly as possible. Now I cant say that this would be anything other than a hot damn good thang! But I feel the need to write a couple of quick blogs about firstly how likely I think this is later how desirable it would be right now….

So first of all a “few reasons why I think the coalition will last”.

1. The Liberal Democrats simply cannot afford to be in a general election any time soon. With poll rating around 13-15% at the moment the Liberals could face being wiped out if an election was called in the near future. Whatever the morals, ethics or conscience of a particular vote bringing down the government at the moment would likely put many Liberal Democrat MPs out of a job.

   Now Turkeys may sometimes vote for Christmas, and I have no doubt there are a fair few MPs who would happily give up their jobs for a principle…. but I for one would not bet on enough of them doing that to topple the government any time soon.

   Much more likely if you ask me is that having taken the hit in terms of public opinion for the negative impressions of the coalition the Liberals are tied into hoping that their popularity increases if and when the economy starts an upturn.

2. This coalition is a once in a generation opportunity to try and get electoral reform. Nick Clegg recently claimed that electoral reform is not the be all and end all of Lib Dem policy, but the reality is it always will be due to the way First Past the post punishes third parties. For the Lib Dems (and for that matter and aspiring new party) changing the voting system is vital to them having any real prospects of influence.

   So it is of vital importance that the Liberals keep the coalition together to deliver a referendum on AV. If they pass up the opportunity to try and fight a referendum on this they might as well pack up their bags and go home.

   Combined with low ratings in the polls, if the Liberals cannot make the coalition delivery electoral reform, then they risk becoming a marginalised irrelevance for 20 years or so. I don’t think there is any realistic possibility of them taking this risk.

3. The Liberal Democrats need to be able to demonstrate that coalitions can work. As far as I can see there are very few people outside of the most tribal and blinkered Labour and Tory diehards who do not at least acknowledge that FPTP is unfair. But despite this many people have objections to the adoption of electoral reform on other grounds.

   One of the principal of such objections is the fear that coalition government is inherently unstable, weak and indecisive. People look at countries (usually those who operate straight party lists systems like Israel, Belgium or pre 90s reform Italy) and feel that coalition governments are necessarily flakey and prone to dissolving at the first sign of trouble.

   Again the Liberals have a once in a generation opportunity to try and change perspectives on this. Even if they suffer in the short term by making this coalition work, and last, they have the potential prize of demonstrating that a hung parliament is not a bad thing and can work. This, in the long term, is central to their chances of being an influential and successful political party in Britain over the long haul.

4. Next it is clearly suiting David Cameron having the Liberals forming something of a bulwark against the hard right within his own party, at least in the short term. A big risk of Cameron was always that the extreme of the party would be very unhappy with his urbane “Notting Hill set” style of leadership and political instincts.

   Being in a coalition allows him to be able to blame any such policies on the Liberals and the coalition even if he privately supports them and would have tried to do it even if the Tories had won the election outright.

5. The Liberal Democrats are providing a handy pressure valve for the Tories. It seems that the majority of the backlash, and negative feelings toward the Government are being held toward the Libs. They are being blamed for the bad stuff, and the left is focussing most of it’s ire on them (wrongly in my opinion).

   Insofar as this continues the smart tactic for the Tories is to maintain the coalition and hope that if things improve in the run up to the next election, then it will be them and not their coalition partners that ream the reward.

I have long thought for these reasons it is fundamentally wrong headed to assume that it is going to be easy to bring down the government. I find it hard to imagine a situation in which an early election is going to be good for the Libs, and it can’t see the Tories wanting an election unless it starts to look like a shoe in that they are going to win the next election.

So anyway that is part one, next blog about why I am not even sure it is desirable, right at this moment, to bring down the coalition.

21. August 2010 by Ralph Ferrett
Categories: Activism | Tags: Coalition, ConDem, Election, Government, Liberal Democrats, Right, Tories | 5 comments