Blog 2023 Malcolm Blair-Robinson

Labour Exit

Whatever the outcome of the talks, this Blog now takes a position. A deal with Labour cannot work. The party is in some disarray, speaking with many voices, not even united in the desire to stay on. There appears to have been no attempt to consult the MP’s or any part of the party’s organisation. Without the numbers this would be a disaster. Labour now has to go into dry dock for a refit.

The Lib Dems have consulted their party’s organisation at all points and the Tories likewise their MPs. More of this tonight. One thing we now know for sure. David Cameron will be Prime Minister by the end of tomorrow. The only question to be answered is whether it will be a coalition with the Lib Dems or a minority confidence and supply arrangement. Any government is safe until at least the autumn, when Labour gets a new leader. It cannot fight an election without one.

I doubt that even history will ever agree about Gordon Brown. He can gain comfort from the knowledge that his party gained 400 new councillors last Thursday and took control of 14 councils. That is a good straw to have in the wind. He may feel the  need to clutch it tightly.

Talks Latest

It is now obvious that the nature of the Labour party as presently constituted in the Commons after its defeat makes it impossible to deliver a deal with the Lib Dems which would work. Too many want to keep first past the post. More important the old hands know that the biggest bucket of do do in political history may very well tip over the new government and opposition in a hung parliament in the present financial crisis is the clever place to be.

The Lib Dems now have just a few more hours to agonise. Should they go into a government for the first time since 1940? Churchill by the way was not elected and became Prime Minister exactly 70 years ago. Clegg will have achieved a spectacular milestone. The problem is, if things go wrong, it may be the Lib Dems last. Clegg has proved himself a shrewd and nimble political operator. That may lead him to the conclusion that the right road is with Labour, but in opposition. Let the Tories through the Queen’s speech then let them sail as bet they can, waiting to sink them when a re-vitalised newly led Labour is ready to fire the torpedo.

A way Ahead

This blog has kept neutral throughout this election campaign. Most of its analysis has been born out by events. This is how things now stand.

Arithmetically in terms of seats a Con/Lib coalition looks sound and has a good majority, so, the argument goes, it would be stable and would offer strong government. This may be quite wrong. The Tory party sings form a quite different hymn sheet to the Lib Dems. The old Liberal party was ideologically close to the old Conservative party in the post WWII period. Both were anti socialist. Post Thatcher and post the SDP and the amalgamation with the Liberals to form the the current party, the Lib Dems are a progressive party of the left. They sing from the same ideological hymn sheet as Labour,the Nationalist parties and even the DUP, which though unionist, has working class roots and left of centre domestic policies. 

Therefore a Cabinet in which the likes of Redwood and Davis and Howard, brought in by Cameron to appease the Right, sit alongside the pro Europe Clarke, together with Huhne, Cable and Clegg has huge instability, not just within itself but in the various groupings of backbenchers making up what will then become the Con/Lib governing coalition. It may have a big majority in the Commons but it will be badly split within itself. Pressure from those groups (pro and anti Europe, cut now or later, voting reform or no) cannot allow government other than by perpetual compromise or fudge. The arithmetic is in its favour, but the maths are against it.

The maths are these. The Tories have 10.7 million votes (Thatcher always polled over 13 million and Major achieved 14 million). The progressive parties described above of which a Lab/Lib coalition would be built have a popular vote totalling 16.6 million. This shows why the issue of votes/seats is at the heart of the constitutional difficulties.

A coalition based on this huge electoral majority in terms of votes, which do have value in a proper democracy, would not be as unstable in the Commons as some try to portray. This is because though there may be arguments over detail, all agreee on the fundamentals. With the Con/Lib version they make a deal on the details, but disagree on the fundamentals. Your imagination can do the rest. 

The Con/Lib coalition is likely to become, as the Governor of the bank said, the most unpoular in modern times. It is doubtful whether there will even be a referendum on voting reform. Without it at the next election, the Lib Dems, as handmaidens to the perpetrators of the horrors of what is to come, will face oblivion. Labour, rebuilt by a new leader, will sweep back to power as the Progressive salvation to which all the 16 million will flock.

The Lab/Con coalition will push through electoral reform which will mean that, even if a new election is forced upon them, the likely outcome will be the progressive parties still get the most votes and the Lib/Dems will get the parliamentary status their voting tally warrants.They will live on as part of the core political structure of a reivgorated democracy.

By the end of today we shall know where we are headed and the Lib Dems will know wheter they have a long term future. If the Tories go into opposition they wil know that if they can force an election before voting reform a handful of gains will give them a majority.  After reform and the prize of government will be out of their reach for a very long time indeed.