The Conservative part of the coalition comprises a damagingly irresponsible mix of ideologues and amateurs, writes David Blunkett

Last month, Professor Anthony King of the University of Essex wrote of David Cameron in the Financial Times: ‘The recent comedy of errors has revealed weaknesses in Mr Cameron’s premiership that should have been evident for months. The prime minister, with his ever-jutting jaw, projects himself as a toughie, albeit a smooth-talking one; but in reality he is emerging as Britain’s first dilettante prime minister since Herbert Asquith. Mr Cameron’s motto appears to be “mouth open but hands off” … Mr Cameron increasingly gives the impression of being an amateur doing a professional’s job. It is an impression that could destroy him.’

As I would not be able to improve on this observation, and as it applies to far more of the Conservative frontbench than merely the prime minister, I could rest my case.

However, in reflecting on the two elements of the coalition and being somewhat long in the tooth, I was musing the other day that this government is very lucky that there is no equivalent of Spitting Image. For younger readers, this weekly satirical programme did the most enormous damage to a decent, thoughtful Liberal politician, David Steel. What such scathing comedy could now do to the antics of the coalition can only be for conjecture.

The British people, on the other hand, have to live daily with the consequences of ill-thought-through policies, an absence of coherence bordering on terminal contradiction, and a lack of humility ill-becoming of two parties who together defeated Labour but neither of which actually won an election.

It would, however, be a grave mistake to believe that within the Conservative party there is not a glimmer of clarity in relation to ideology. The failure of the Liberal Democrats to understand this is, at least in part, an explanation of why they blunder on supporting policy after policy which they would have savaged had it been introduced by a Labour government. Their defence of their Conservative masters is indeed impressive. Not only because in vast numbers they contradict everything they have ever said about independence of spirit, thought and voting by trooping through the lobbies to support the government, but because in public they provide a very helpful, if small, shield.

In simple terms, the Liberal Democrats now ensure that there are two parties defending government policy. We should not underestimate the impact this has in relation to the messages that the public receive, the culture created, and, in terms of the broadcast media, the diminution of the breadth and visibility of attack on the government. For normally there would be two major parties, both given space to pick apart the pronouncements of government ministers. In England, at least, there is now only one.

The Conservatives’ agenda, which I described in a pamphlet for Progress in January 2010 as ‘the hidden agenda’, self-evidently driven by a deeply rightwing dogma, particularly on health and education policy. This is underpinned, of course, by the great opportunity seized by the Conservatives to bring in their austerity programme far beyond anything required to mollify the bond markets and the predilections of the faceless credit agencies.

On this absolutely central point, the Liberal Democrats have staked their participation in government and their very raison d’être for collaboration. The Conservatives have to be afforded credit for the way in which they have manipulated their ‘partner’ into this situation in complete contradiction to the Liberal Democrats’ stance before the 2010 election and the views of the grassroots party, including in local government. In this regard, the Tories are succeeding. With the CBI reverting, sadly, to its traditional role as cheerleader for the Conservative party and its unequivocal pro-market stance, and with those facing the greatest pain having only Labour representatives to give them a voice in the mostly uninterested broadcast and print media, no one should underestimate the capacity of the Conservatives to turn logic on its head.

For at this very moment, when Labour has had two years of being blamed for not regulating the financial institutions and taking on the markets more vigorously, our opponents are busy rehabilitating the markets, defending the financial institutions and returning the role of government (the ‘small state’) to that of facilitator of private interests, and, under the guise of decentralisation, the undermining of public service.

Contradictions abound. Decentralisation is espoused so long as policies adhere to the diktats of the centre. A particular and very specific form of synthetic phonics should be taught in schools. A particular list of books in literature or history should be paramount. Yet, at the same time, schools are to be ‘freed’ from a mythical local government control which has not existed in any meaningful form since 1988. The same contradictions abound in relation to local government even down to what can or must be published at local level, and which powers will or will not be given to particular cities on a whim of a government minister.

So where does this leave the Liberal Democrats? Ironically, signing up to the Conservatives’ previously ‘hidden agenda’ has resulted not in their cherished dream of proportional representation (although they are returning to this in relation to the future of the House of Lords) but a wholesale boundary revision and reduction in the number of MPs in parliament. And the consequence? Well, in addition to the Conservatives mopping up Liberal Democrat seats as a result of their partners’ betrayal, reversal of policy and snivelling support for rightwing economic orthodoxy, Nick Clegg’s party now faces losing a further tranche of seats through the boundary changes.

But a word of caution. Cameron may well be a dilettante. Clegg may well in the political sense be a figure of fun and derision. But, the Tories, if not the Liberal Democrats, know exactly where their heart beats. Their strategists understand the voters of the south of England. They may at the moment appear to be ‘chums’ or ‘toffs’, and the recent shambles, ranging from cash for access through to hot pasties, jerry cans, Jeremy Hunt and Abu Qatada, may well have caused both amusement and derision. But these, nevertheless, are not hiccups which make or break a general election. Not even real tragedies end despicable indifference, such as one in five under-25-year-olds not having any long-term prospects. We discovered at our cost that the pain of over three million unemployed in the early 1980s was not enough to sway the electorate away from fear for themselves on the one hand and the illusion of promised prosperity on the other. No, it will, as Bill Clinton understood, be ‘the economy, stupid’. In addition, we should never forget that it is our own capacity to provide an alternative narrative, a vision of the future and a counterweight to the forces of global economic power, which will determine the outcome of the next general election.

In the meantime, participative, hands-on and very local politics should be the ground we till in order to plant for the larger growth and the oxygen of political understanding which will win over those who vote, and perhaps persuade some of those who do not that they are responsible for, at least in part, their own demise.

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David Blunkett MP is a former home secretary

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Photo: Cabinet Office