The coalition is going to fall. Not today, regardless of what happens in the Commons later. Not tomorrow. But soon. The Liberal-Conservative alliance is entering its terminal phase. They have exhausted the supply of topics that they can agree on, and their ability to avoid the issues on which they cannot be reconciled is also slipping away.
Now that the memoirs have been published and the diaries released, we forget that, from outside, the height of the Blair-Brown feud was, like the Time War in Doctor Who, largely obscured to all but its combatants. Yes, we all knew that New Labour’s two fathers couldn’t stand each other, but it’s not like they could be seen exchanging punches through the windows of Downing Street. And even the most savage of briefing wars tended to be in the guise of ‘sources close to’, ‘senior Downing Street officials’ or ‘the Treasury camp’. That is a world of difference from a situation where, in the last few days, a senior advisor to Nick Clegg – the departing Richard Reeves – and a Liberal Democrat minister – Nick Harvey, a junior minister – have both taken to the pages of the Independent and the House, respectively, and threatened the Conservatives. That is several degrees of magnitude greater than anything that happened between Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.
Remember too, that Blair and Brown had largely symmetrical political objectives: yes, there were disagreements over public sector reform and tuition fees, but a lot of that was about positioning and personal rivalry. Ultimately, both their ends could only be served through a Labour victory: that’s why, even at the height of their acrimony, in 2005, they were able to combine to defeat Michael Howard. While David Cameron and Nick Clegg might have more cordial personal relations than Blair and Brown did, they have divergent political aims. Barring the best debate performance since Demosthenes, the Liberal Democrats will go into the next election looking to stem the tide of losses. That means a straight fight against the Conservatives. For the Conservatives, the lowest-hanging fruit is yellow. Don’t forget that this battle about Lords reform and the boundary changes isn’t just about a yawning gulf between Liberal and Conservative conceptions of democracy: it’s about party advantage.
Just as importantly, the unifying mission of the coalition – to eliminate the deficit by 2015 – has foundered. They came together to reduce the deficit. That is no longer on the table. Even after the referendum on AV – which did more than any other single event to break the bond of trust between the coalition partners – Liberals and Conservatives could rally around the flag of Osbornomics. Now that that is a busted flush, what keeps them together? Open battles of the kind we are seeing over the Lords will become more common. The coalition might last to the end of 2012, but it will be over before the end of 2013.
But, reply the sceptics, would the Liberal Democrats really sacrifice their red boxes and their parliamentary seats so easily? There are few who now believe that the coalition is held together by philosophy, but many think that ambition and venality will keep things ticking over until 2015. But that is to misread the Liberal Democrats: they’re not opportunists, they’re ideologues. Like most ideologues, their values are out of step with ordinary people, which is why many of the concessions that they have won from the Conservatives fall on deaf ears. Yes, like the other two parties, they are capable of breathtaking opportunism: like the embrace of a graduate tax, which most thinking Liberal Democrats recognised at the time does not work. But as with Labour and the Conservatives, there are things that they cannot do. The battles over the Lords are a precursor of greater battles to come over Europe and the banking sector. The coalition will last as long as the Liberals want it to. And their will to endure is fading fast.
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Stephen Bush writes a weekly column for Progress, the Tuesday review, and tweets @stephenkb
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I have to disagree. I don’t think the Lib Dems are ideologues at all. If anything, I think the Tories and Labour are much more ideological, especially on their – very strong – left and right flanks.
I think the coalition will last – because of the very unideological reason that the Lib Dems will be completely scuppered if the country goes to a vote now.
I share Tom’s scepticism on the alleged imminent demise of the coalition. I think there are elements within the Labour party that want to believe that the justification for voting or talking out Lords Reform is that it will hasten the Coalition’s fracture and demise. Although I can understand the attractions of our tribal response to Lords Reform, I do think in this instance we’re being short sighted. There is a longer game we could be playing. Helping the Liberal Democrats and sympathetic Tories achieve Lords Reform (however imperfect or not to our specific liking) would help build trust for when the time comes when we will need to construct our own multiparty coalition government post 2015. The idea that Labour will win an outright majority in 2015 is delusional. And remember even if we did manage to scrape a majority we would still have our own internal ‘awkward squad’ on our left and the right to manage. We still harbour this tiresome misrepresentation of a marxist outlook that the worse it gets for the British people the better it gets for us – our party’s history shows that this idea is clearly without precedent.
Cameron = iconoclast in the extreme. First the NHS, now the Lords. Was Blair one too? Perhaps.
The Tories shall remain conservative and at loggerheads with themselves for as long as the Sun shines from the East in the morning. Some things don’t change. The Lib/Dems made the mistake of aligning themselves to them ; but its never too late to redeem themselves and “we” should accommodate sinners who are begging for redemption. Here endeth the lesson in Manners and Savvy.
the coalition will not fall until labour stops being the tory light party,and put,s it,s own alternative progressive argument,s forward,and stop,s mimicing the condems in bashing the weakest in society;;more of the same will not wash with an allready dissafected british public
So you think Ed M is “Tory lite”? I have a contrary view – he is successfully differentiating himself in a number of areas that are very important to our society – Banking being the most recent.
what about the public sector workers,disabled ,those unfortunates that have lost their jobs, and are now getting their bnefits cut,pensioners,utility bills,tuition fees,and a total lack of respect of the trades unions;;;get real???