‘England does not love coalitions.’ Disraeli’s aphorism has been quoted on numerous occasions since the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition agreement was signed on 11 May 2010. The Liberal Democrats have come to learn the truth of this the hard way. They have nosedived in the opinion polls, and suffered the ignominy of falling behind the British National party and an independent candidate in the Barnsley Central by-election of 3 March 2011. In a well-argued piece on ProgressOnline on 13 March 2012, ‘A truth universally ignored’, Stephen Bush set out a case for the difference the Liberal Democrats have made in government, the ‘very real progressive victories’ which include ‘helping to secure a fairer tax system, preventing a tax break for married couples while single mothers have to pay to chase down non-paying fathers’.

But are the Liberal Democrats really making a significant difference? How do they fare in comparison with previous junior partners in the previous (unloved) peacetime 20th century British coalitions? The test for junior coalition partners is in the phrase itself: is the minority party a genuine partner or, in reality, the trusted agent of the major party, only occasionally able to influence its principal?  One way to judge this is to look at what the various governments said and did: was there anything that could not have happened had the larger party been in government with a majority on its own?

The first government of the 20th century was a coalition. From 1895-1905, the Liberal Unionists and the Conservatives governed together (the two parties fused in 1911). Yet one of the great standout figures of this government was a Liberal Unionist, Joseph Chamberlain. Chamberlain’s ‘Tariff Reform’ campaign may have split the government, but he was the man with the big idea: a wall of tariffs around the British Empire which could fund social programmes at home. The Liberal party in opposition seized on the political weakness: namely, that such taxes would increase the price of bread, but, as Winston Churchill put it, ‘Big Joe made the weather.’

The 1918-22 Lloyd George coalition was a continuation of the wartime administration. The prime minister came from the minority party. In addition, while the Conservatives did eventually decide to go it alone at the famous Carlton Club Meeting of 19 October 1922, the Lloyd George Liberals could argue that they had made a significant contribution, not least the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 6 December 1921, which may not have been possible under a single-party government.

The National Government of 1931-40 also had, as its first prime minister, Ramsay MacDonald, despite it being Conservative-dominated after the general election of 27 October 1931. Over the course of the 1930s, the government became less ‘National’ and more Conservative. One Liberal faction, including Herbert Samuel, and the former Labour Chancellor Philip Snowden, left the government as a result of the Ottawa tariff agreements of 1932. By 1940, it was clear that the government had ceased be ‘National’ in any meaningful way as a new wartime coalition was formed to be truly representative of the whole nation. Yet even this 1930s government passed at least one significant measure in the face of diehard Tory opposition: the Government of India Act 1935, which paved the way for independence 12 years later.

What each of these historical examples illustrates is that the portico of coalition government has to rest on columns from all parties participating in it. Adjusting the angle of the portico is insufficient if the columns determining the level are from one party only. Now, the one event which would never have happened under a Conservative majority government is a referendum on the electoral system. However, that was lost and can hardly be claimed as a ‘Liberal Democrat achievement’. That particular column has disintegrated. In the past month, the Liberal Democrats have had two other major opportunities in government. They have seized neither. First, they could have prevented the new health and social care bill from reaching the statute book. Second, they could have insisted on the introduction of a genuine mansion tax rather than the stamp duty hike they have had to settle for and attempt to call a ‘mansion purchase tax’.

History shows that being in coalition is not a credible alibi for failing to make a significant difference. ‘Muscular Liberalism’ is totally meaningless without genuine major contributions to the government. Rather than England not loving coalitions, the Liberal Democrats will discover at the next general election the proof that, in the modern day, the phrase could be expressed more accurately as ‘England does not love junior coalition partners.’

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Nick Thomas-Symonds is the author of Attlee: A Life in Politics published by IB Tauris (2010)

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Photo: Damian Entwistle