Friday, January 01, 2010

A Labour-Tory coalition after the general election?

Martin Kettle has a piece in the Guardian this morning floating the idea that a hung parliament after this year's general election might result in a Labour-Tory coalition.

Though Labour-Tory coalitions are by no means unknown in local government, the article is all a little tongue in cheek. Still, we Lib Dems would do well to bear Kettle's conclusion in mind:

It seems innocent to assume that either Labour or the Tories would automatically turn first to the Liberal Democrats in those circumstances – or that the Lib Dems would necessarily deliver.

The big parties could calculate that they would be better off in a marriage of convenience with a historic enemy they respected, from which they could withdraw with dignity when the moment was right, rather than to embark on a more permanent entanglement with a Lib Dem party which at bottom they each despise.

That does not sound so silly to me.

Another interesting question is how the Liberal Democrats would react to such a development.

When Labour and the Tories work together in local government, we tend to be outraged. But if our favourite analysis that the other parties share a conservative view of the world and we are the true radicals is correct, isn't such a coalition at Westminster just what we should expect?

7 comments:

Tim (Kalyr) said...

While it could well benefit the Liberal Democrats in the short term, a Tory-Labour coalition has the potential to be deeply unpleasant to live under - especially if the baser authoritarian instincts of both parties come to the fore. It will be like having Paul Dacre in No 10.

Alex said...

Might have long term benefits as well - we'd then be the offical opposition whilst being proven the party of serious change in the doubtless short period before it fell apart and we had another election, at which point we'd likely see serious gains.

I still don't find it particuarly likely. Any such coalition at the national level would be fatal to the image of both parties and they know that.

Matthew Huntbach said...

The Grand Coalition is what we should be working for. Our line should be clear - the current state of the country arises from the 1997-2010 Labour governments carrying on the policies of the 1979-1997 Conservative governments. Therefore the choice for the electorate is them or us -carry on with Labour/Conservative, or get rid of them with a purely LibDem government.

We should be pushing this again and again - the mess we are in is not the fault of Gordon Brown, it won't be put right by David Cameron. Brown has just carried on pushing us down the dead-end Margaret Thatcher started us with. Cameron only promises to push us further and deeper down it. It's Britain as a spiv society - supposing it can make money by everyone selling their houses to each other, but really relying on a tiny City elite dragging in global money for them to manage and the rest of us catch the crumbs from their table, or work in servile industries looking up to them (and they can jet off to work elsewhere, or bring in complacent people from elsewhere to work for them if we make a fuss about it).

It is clear now, with Britain still in recession, and all those European countries that were looked down as old-fashioned and useless for not being so spiv-oriented as we were now doing better, that we have been misgoverned by all that lot - Conservative then Labour so desperate to get the approval of Murdoch and win that it became Conservative as well.

Anyone on our side who fear the Grand Coalition should look at what happens to the FDP in Germany after Grand Coalitions.

Charlieman said...

If you go along with Martin Kettle's hypothesis, then it makes sense for Liberal Democrats to campaign more as liberals. Not as a mishmash of social democracy and Christian democracy (which is what many Conservatives aspire for their party).

Accept Kettle's proposal, for the sake of argument. The UK gets a government of the middle, the case that *Dahrendorf argued for in the 1980s. Lib Dems would be the opposition, and there would be an imperative to be different and thus more liberal.

So why not become more liberal today? It is what the party does best.

*I quite like Dahrendorf's arguments on class conflict.

Jane said...

I thought Martin Kettle's article was uncharacteristically whimsical. The Second National Government (which is what it would be called, whatever they called themselves) would be disastrous for the Labour Party. Their core membership would desert in droves. The Liberal Democrats could only benefit, although not all the deserters would come our way, and as Alex says we'd become the official opposition. But how likely is it. Even given the profound historical ignorance of most Labour members, I don't think they are that stupid.

Jane said...

Sorry -- it would be the Third National Government. I blush.

Unknown said...

Cloward–Piven strategy - Just a little light bed time reading for those of you who are interested. Its made me sit up and think, and not in a good way.

Yes I know it is all US focused, but just think about the words that have been used here, by some of the people we "trust" to guide us and run our country, and you know. I think they might be, well, you know.. Thinking this might not be such a bad idea.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloward%E2%80%93Piven_strategy