The Lib Dems in coalition. Time for a break?

Michael Charlesworth makes some interesting points about the future prospects for a coalition involving the Liberal Democrats.

Of course Labour, and the Tories for that matter, are being beastly to us. Some senior Lib Dem politicians have recently been equally beastly to them. It's called politics as it has been practised here for many years, and which many people find distasteful and something that the Lib Dems once campaigned to try to change.

One thing most of us would, I believe, agree with is that it is at the moment nigh on impossible to predict the outcome of the 2015 General Election. That no one party will achieve an absolute majority is almost certain, unless the electorate really is holding its cards closer to its chest than the pollsters realise. I think we can be pretty certain that the Lib Dem representation will not increase; but not decimated to the extent predicted by some, thanks ironically largely to FPTP!

It might not be as simple as Mr Charlesworth implies to have two general elections in one year any more. Under the Fixed Term Parliament Act of 2011, a dissolution of parliament requires either a two thirds majority of MPs or a motion of no confidence in the government staying on the table for 14 days without any party or parties coming forward to try to form an alternative administration.

So, unless two thirds of the new house are really gluttons for punishment, it looks pretty likely that someone will have a go at cobbling together a coalition, only, please, don't try to do it in a week as happened in 2010. I'm not saying that we should take as long as the 18 months or so that it took to form the last Belgian government but a longer period of deliberation nearly five years ago might have avoided some of the pitfalls our first peace time coalition government in the modern era experienced, which did much to undermine its and our own party's credibility even amongst those who had initially wished it well. Who knows, a new 'rainbow' coalition could limp on for years, as did the Labour government in the 1970s, aided and abetted largely by the Liberals.

As far as any Lib Dem participation in the next coalition is concerned, my advice, for what it's worth, would be to try to sit this one out, to regroup and to sort out whether we want just to be the go-to protest party of choice, that many of us still think we are (and fondly wish that's all we were) or whether we want to provide a responsible yet radical element to any future coalition government that truly reflects the pluralism of modern politics. Perhaps the most we should offer is 'supply and confidence', which many feel should have been our response to the Tory offer in 2010.

Until we get a voting system that accurately reflects this pluralism and a decision, one way or another, where our future as a country belongs, it will simply carry on being Groundhog Day. Let's not forget the rest of the world. Former US statesman, Dean Acheson, famously said in the 1950s that Great Britain had lost an empire and had yet to find a role. It looks as if the search is continuing.

With the possibility of Nicola Sturgeon emboldened by an upsurge in SNP numbers at Westminster in 2015 playing Oliver Twist to any future UK government, especially if its largest component is provided by Labour, and the distinct possibility of a Brexit from the EU unless we wake up in time, together with the uncertain economic and political situation around the world, the next few years will be the most challenging for our little island since we stood alone following the fall of France in 1940, or, am I being a tad too melodramatic?

Cllr John Marriott