Political Narrative Battlegrounds for 2015 (the May 2012 Crystal Ball)

It's obviously far too early to be predicting the narrative battlegrounds on which the expected 2015 general election will be fought. So here goes...!

I think it's plausible that both the Coalition parties will have a similar top-level narrative:

The economy is on the right path again, but the task is not finished.

The country was in a terrible state five years ago. Britain was being dragged down by a dreadful deficit. The banks had got away with massive profligacy because of an unhealthy bonus culture. There was no money left to secure the future of our vital public services.

So when we took charge, we stopped the rot of Labour overspending, we clamped down on the banks, and we reduced taxes for hard-working people. Tackling the deficit needed tough, unpopular decisions. The country would be far worse off if we hadn't taken those  decisions.

Now, we need to finish the job. Get Britain working again. Use the solid foundations we have put in place to build a strong and lasting prosperity. Labour would put the recovery at risk. But we can make Britain the envy of the world once again.

Labour, of course, will be saying the opposite:

This incompetent government has unnecessarily damaged Britain's public services and created mass unemployment; if you let them get back in, they will slash-and-burn all that we hold dear.

Five years ago, the world was faced with an unprecedented international economic crisis, caused by bankers who only cared about their bonuses. But the Labour Government led the way in preventing a global meltdown, and put Britain on the path to recovery.

But this Tory-led government dealt with the world economic crisis in the worst possible way. It cut spending too far, too fast. It created an entirely unnecessary double-dip recession. Britain would have recovered years ago, if it hadn't been for this mismanagement. The Tories cut taxes for their rich cronies, while the rest of the country suffered unemployment and cuts to schools, hospitals and other public services. Trebling tuition fees. The Granny Tax. The Pasty Tax. Picking on the disabled. Privatising the NHS. The Liberals were complicit in all this.

Now, what about the next five years? The Tories don't believe in public services. They want to cut and cut until there's nothing left. Don't let them finish the job.

This is over-simplifying things a bit, but then political narratives need to be simple.

But come down a level of abstraction, and the narratives are murkier at this stage in the parliament.

Conservatives

The Conservative Party is torn between, on the one hand, traditional fiscal prudence (reducing government over-spending, and slightly increasing taxes to pay off debt); and, on the other hand, free-market libertarianism that says that a radical pruning of the state can set wealth creators free and thus benefit everyone. Critics say that belt tightening can slide into stagnation and diminished public services. Meanwhile, radical pruning is a gamble that might result in mass unemployment and inadequate safety nets for the most vulnerable.

It could change, but currently the prudence chaps dominate the pruning brigade.

The likely Conservative narratives, one level down, would therefore be along the lines of:

After the turmoil of the Labour years, the firm grip of the Conservative-led Government was absolutely the right thing for the country. Now we need stability and steady growth. We need to nurture the recovery; we mustn't imperil it again with Labour's wild spending.

We've put the economy on a firm footing, so now it's time for us to sort out other socialist legacies: Fight back against the EU's invasion into our affairs. End profligate subsidies for inefficient energy generation. Reduce taxes on enterprise and hard work. Cut bureaucracy in social services. Allow museums and hospitals to charge foreign visitors. Renew Trident. Fund our armed forces properly. Give schools back the right to select pupils... etc. etc.

Labour

Meanwhile Labour is torn between, on the one hand, the New Labour vision that public services deliver targets best when they are given as much freedom as possible from state regulation and are funded by partnerships with the private sector; and, on the other hand, the socialist ideal of the state looking after everyone in society, and spending money to keep the economy going. But critics say that New Labourism helped to create a situation in which irresponsible banks plunged the country into economic crisis; and in which hospitals and schools ended up lacking democratic accountability for their decisions. And the socialist ideal can easily slip, they say, into spending beyond our means and into weakening enterprise by sucking more and more of the nation's wealth into central government.

It's not clear to me how this tussle between New Labourism and neo-socialism will play out. Ed Balls was thoroughly implicated in New Labourism but Ed Miliband is (probably rightly) keeping his policy options open for now. My guess is that nearer the election there will be some kind of public catharsis: "It was Gordon Brown who wanted PFI. And the CBI was pushing for less regulation. We've learned from those mistakes."

It will be tempting, I think, to just stay on the attack:

Inhumane cuts. Ideological economics. Out of touch. Incompetent. etc. etc.

But journalists will press for firm plans, and the public don't like politicians who are resolutely negative without getting into detail about how they would do things differently. So a possible positive Labour narrative, one level down, would be:

We need government to offer alternative models to uncaring capitalism: Address our housing crisis using cooperative and mutual models. Give tax breaks to businesses that fund apprenticeships. Give energy consumers, hospital patients and parents the power to call managers to account. etc. etc.

Liberal Democrats

The LibDems have a number of narratives that don't offer alternative futures to each other, but compete for attention. For example, one narrative is about being in coalition in the first place:

The national interest demanded we help repair the economy while doing our damnedest to protect public services. We sacrificed our popularity to help the country overcome Labour's economic crisis.

A parallel narrative is a defence of the things the Conservatives were able to do because the LibDems weren't sitting on the Opposition benches:

Would you have wanted an unfettered Conservative Government? Or right-wing Conservatives in league with the New Labour zealots who got us into this mess? We helped tame the worst excesses of the Right, although you have to box clever when your Coalition partner is five times the size of you.

There's an obvious risk of a LibDem general election campaign consisting entirely of re-runs of the arguments about tuition fees, the Welfare Reform Act, the Health and Social Care Act, the so-called Granny Tax, etc.: the arguments that failed to convince the first time round.

Another narrative is:

Look at all the liberal stuff we managed to deliver, despite our under-representation in Parliament: shifting taxes from low and middle earners to the richest; getting extra money to schools to help poorer children; creating more new apprenticeships than Britain has ever had before; creating the world's first Green Investment Bank; restoring the link between pensions and earnings; setting up proper regulation of the banks; restoring many of the civil liberties thrown away by Labour; increasing social housing for the first time in 30 years; halting Labour's post office closures; and so on.

Unfortunately lists don't make for great narratives. It's also not easy to explain concisely what makes this good stuff "liberal" in the same way that Conservatives and Labour stances are easily grasped.

All of these LibDem narratives are also too rooted in the past: they don't impel you through to an obvious LibDem future. I'm sure the manifesto will be packed full of good ideas, costed and crafted as usual. But, again as usual, it will somehow lack a coherent narrative to string it together. Some random slogan combining "free", "fair" and "opportunity" won't cut it.

Another problem with these LibDem narratives is that they don't offer congruencies with both possible future coalition partners.

An alternative plan might be to piggy-back on a less antagonistic version of the first half of the Conservatives' message...

After the turmoil of the economic crisis, it was absolutely right for the Conservatives and LibDems to come together for the good of the country. Now we need stability and steady growth. We need to nurture the recovery.

... and then build a distinctively LibDem narrative:

We've got the economy under control, but what's to stop the crisis happening again? If big business is unaccountable to its employees, customers and shareholders, it will simply repeat the same risky behaviour. Meanwhile, if public services and quangos are unaccountable to the people they are supposed to serve, their spending of your taxes will again rocket out of control. We need to encourage  democratic principles and innovative models of mutualism and cooperatives, and not just unconvincing "consultations". We need to navigate a narrow path between cold hard capitalism on one side, and overweight statism on the other.

And we also need to make central government more accountable by devolving more powers to our cities and counties to kickstart local economies, to sort out endemic housing issues, to take advantage of green opportunities, to support your hospitals and schools...

And most importantly, if we don't take greater action on climate change fast, the global economy will be threatened by a crisis that will make the last few years pale into insignificance. We need a massive programme to build more renewable energy capacity; to increase home insulation; to encourage businesses that tackle their carbon pollution responsibly; and to enhance the Green Investment Bank. These measures will help prevent climate change wrecking our economy, but they will also help stimulate our industry and create jobs right now.

Concluding remarks

Crystal ball gazing is a notoriously unreliable practice in politics. And I have a lousy reputation for accuracy. But although the details may change rapidly, I suspect that many of the overriding concerns of Conservatives, Labour folk and LibDems are quite slow to change.

Narratives need to capture those concerns, to fix in voters' minds afresh what these parties stand for.

And narrative building takes years.

Acknowledgements

• The three battle pictures [1, 2, 3] are by Flickr user Dave Pearson, and are CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.
• The cats were adapted by me from Microsoft Clip Art [license terms]

LibDems: We must do better than this

Now I know how unbearably holier-than-thou my Labour friends must have found me when I incessantly derided their support for a Labour Government that took us to war in Iraq, that threw away hard-won civil liberties, and that contributed to causing the deficit crisis by overspending and under-regulating.

But here we are, just two years into a Conservative-LibDem coalition, and already the Government has passed the counter-productive Welfare Reform Act, gambled recklessly with our inestimable universities, and failed to fertilize the green growth that would invigorate this barren economy.

Now this weekend, Liberal Democrat voting representatives have shamefully failed to stop the Health and Social Care Bill, when it was within their power to do so.


Why "shameful"?

Well, I'm not going to rehash the arguments here about why this is a bad bill. Instead I will simply point out that despite all the efforts of LibDems to fix its flaws, the Bill still lacks a mandate, it is still dreadfully unclear, and it still has no professional buy-in.

But there's a far bigger failure here.

In his first inaugural address, talking about the deficit facing the US, Ronald Reagan declared "government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem."

He was wrong. Coming together as a country and electing a small group of people to make decisions to our collective benefit is, I think, generally better than not doing so. Where he might have a point is that in trying to do good, governments can often end up doing bad.

This isn't surprising. It's hard to get cost-benefit calculations right because even simple actions in complex societies can have unintended consequences, and because freedom, social justice and future states of affairs are so hard to quantify.

This means we as a country should be a little forgiving of governments getting things wrong. But if they fail to stick to their mandates, fail to study the research evidence, fail to engage with expert opinion, fail to commission pilots, and fail to be scrupulously transparent in their decision-making, we have every right to condemn them.

A key objection is that if governments take time to make laws, the Opposition seizes the media agenda and accuses the Government of dragging its feet, losing its way, being indecisive, etc.

Big deal. We shouldn't let the media management tail wag the legislative dog.

This is not a liberal or democratic way to make laws. LibDems must do better than this.

Doing some good

It is stupid to blame the LibDems for everything the Coalition does. The LibDems have very little power: the voters in 2010 gave them just 57 seats out of 650 seats.

So it is to the credit of the LibDems that they have managed to leverage this limited power to...

• shift taxes from low and middle earners to the richest
• get extra money to schools to help poorer children
• create more new apprenticeships than Britain has ever had before
• create the world's first Green Investment Bank
• restore the link between pensions and earnings
• set-up proper regulation of the banks
• restore many of the civil liberties thrown away by Labour
• increase social housing for the first time in 30 years
• halt Labour's post office closures

Do you think the Conservatives would have done these things if they'd had unbridled power?

Even more shaming: why did it take a Conservative-led coalition to do these things that a Labour government should have been doing?


But is it enough?

When it comes to the next election, the voters will do their own cost-benefit calculations. They will look at the Government's success in tackling Labour's deficit, and the inevitable costs to society.

And the voters will also separate out the LibDems' role.

Sure, they will look at the good things that were possible because the LibDems were sitting on the Government benches.

But the voters will also look at the things the Conservatives were able to do because the LibDems weren't sitting on the Opposition benches: the tuition fees debacle; the stifling of green growth; the many spiteful cuts that save little money but assuage Daily Mail readers; the Welfare Reform Act 2012; and the Health and Social Care Act 2012.

Is it enough?

I don't know.

But I do know that our bad bill-making practices are not winning us the media war in any shape or form.

We must do better than this.


Acknowledgements

• "pray" by Samantha Celera [CC BY-ND 2.0].
• "Alastair Campbell talking to staff in Labour's HQ" by the Irish Labour Party [CC BY-ND 2.0].
• "Beavers Breakfast" by Property#1 [CC BY-NC-ND 2.0].
• The list of LibDem achievements is derived from Mark Pack's infographic.

A LibDem narrative for 2015?

As Neil Stockley rightly reminds us frequently, we need compelling narratives in politics. If the LibDems can't make Nick Clegg the hero of its 2015 election narrative, it's difficult to see a way forward.

So what might such a narrative look like? Maybe a little overwrought, but here's an attempt...

At the last election, Nick Clegg was a star: providing clarity at a time of great doubt, idolised, a great shining hope. Of course, stars fall; they all do. The question is: then what?

Remember that in 2010, Nick Clegg alone lit up the hearts and minds of the country when he said firmly that the economy desperately needed sorting, that the banks shouldn't be allowed to get away with it, and that sleaze had to stop. "I agree with Nick" the leaders of Labour and the Conservatives had to admit. So much so, that when the people spoke on election day in 2010, David Cameron realized that he nee ded Nick's help. Nick Clegg's star was shining bright, in the country's dark economic times.

Then, in 2011, the star fell.

The dreadful deficit needed tough, unpopular decisions. It meant having to compromise with David Cameron on dearly held liberal policies like free university tuition. Nick won a deal that meant no fees until graduates were earning a decent wage. But people didn't care, because their star had fallen.

Nick ensured that schools in deprived areas got more, rather than less. He ensured a level playing field for cleaner, cheaper, safer energy. He built bridges with our allies abroad, instead of riling them up. But still people didn't care, because their star had fallen.

Coalition with the Conservatives meant constant tough negotiations, to make every bill more liberal, more fair, and more compassionate than it would otherwise have been. Everyone now acknowledges that it was only thanks to LibDem parliamentarians that the NHS changes originally planned never happened. Instead, the NHS is now protected from the excessive competition that Labour let in and that the Conservatives wanted more of. But people didn't care, because their star had fallen.

So now, in 2015, where is that star?

The economy is on the right path again, but the task is not finished. The country needs more jobs. We need to give more powers to our cities and counties to kickstart local economies, to sort out endemic housing issues, to take advantage of green opportunities, to support your hospitals and schools...

That remote, idolised star from 2010 is no more. But in 2015 Nick Clegg and the LibDems offer a guiding star. Lighting a way between cold hard corporatism on the one hand, and overweight statism on the other. Lighting a route to a healthy, growing, happy country.

The more LibDems in Parliament, the more powerful that liberal light.

Update 13 May 2012

I've since attempted a better narrative here.

A jumble of end-of-the-week thoughts on British political culture

Five-and-half related thoughts from this week about British political culture, and a joke at the end!



1. Lib Dem parliamentarians need to be more transparent

I complained a week ago about a need for better communications in relation to the Welfare Reform Bill (WRB). Elsewhere (too numerous to list) many Lib Dems have sought explanations about the Health and Social Care Bill (HSC), while the Tory attacks on subsidies for wind and solar power have filled a vacuum left by Chris Huhne's departure from the Energy Department.

But this week we've seen Tim Farron explain his reasoning on WRB, Jenny Willott make the case for the ESA changes, Shirley Williams offer balanced arguments about the HSC on BBC Question Time, and Ed Davey put down important markers on wind and solar power.

Even when I'm not entirely persuaded on some issues, such thoughtful explanations are vital for maintaining the spirit of a party committed to reasoned, evidence-based public discussion as the basis for policy. So well done Tim et al. Political parties the world over seem to find this spirit hard to maintain in government, and it certainly doesn't come naturally to British political culture, perhaps even more so when the government is a coalition rather than a one-man-band like the Blair, Brown and Thatcher regimes.

Yet if anything could save the Lib Dems from the long-anticipated mauling at the next General Election, it would be the public appeal of such a spirit. More opportunistically though, the narrative "We stopped the Tories doing worse things" needs a steady stream of good evidence, otherwise the public will wonder if a minority Tory administration would have resulted in fewer stupid laws. So to make this case we actually need there to be stupid proposals, but we also need to be seen stopping them.

Incidentally, I happen to believe that Parliament is the proper place for agreeing Coalition positions on bills. But I recognise that many sensible people think this is unrealistic.


2. It shouldn't be this hard for governments to back down

Talking of stupid laws, private polling on Liberal Democrat Voice has found that Lib Dem members are opposed to HSC by a 2-to-1-majority. I also thought Ed Miliband had an excellent Prime Minister's Questions on Wednesday, focusing calmly on the key arguments about the Bill and its opposing voices, and keeping PMQ's ritual exaggeration, over-simplification and immature jibes to a minimum.

The bill is less disastrous than before Liberal Democrats & the professional associations began pointing out the problems, but the Bill is still alive.

Nevertheless, watching PMQs it did strike me that our democracy doesn't make it easy for governments to back down from stupid proposals. Cameron needs to be prepared to lose a lot of face if he is to scrap the Bill. And in fact PMQs forced him to entrench his position rather than giving him a way out. He has a choice now between insisting on an unpopular Bill and major humiliation. This is great for Oppositions, but scarcely in the best interests of the country.


3. Let's stay friends and build a wishlist

The quid pro quo of "Lib Dem parliamentarians need to be more transparent" is that Lib Dem members need to keep the lines of communication going too. It's tempting to storm off when stupid bills that are not part of the Coalition Agreement become law. But that reduces the number of voices within the party objecting, and we need those voices to build up a wishlist of things we want to put right if we get the opportunity in the next Parliament.

It's also tempting when angry at stupid bills to slip into the language of "betrayal" that is a beloved strand of Labour tradition. But it doesn't actually help improve those bills (or help get rid of them entirely, if possible) if the motives of Lib Dem parliamentarians are regularly attacked. There's obviously an element of trust that Clegg et al. are securing the best compromises they can and are not being out-manoeuvred by those wily Tories. Clearly there are some measures that really stick in the craw, but then this is a coalition not a Lib Dem government. So there are times when we have to agree to disagree with the compromises that have been obtained. That doesn't mean we stop being passionate about wanting better.

There are also obviously things the Coalition is doing that many Conservatives don't like, such as keeping the 50p Tax Rate, the Green Investment Bank, postponing Trident, Fixed Term Parliaments, and ending Control Orders). And things we would like to do that circumstances don't allow us to do (Voting Reform, a Mansion Tax and the abolition of university tuition fees being big ones). We have the excuse that we are the junior partner in a Coalition, and so we have a growing wishlist to put to the electorate. Labour had absolute power for 13 years and has no such excuse.


4. Er, I thought we liked discussion?

I've been baffled by the derision and animosity meted out by some normally calm and reasonable Lib Dems in response to the founding of Liberal Left. I've tried asking a few people on Twitter for why they feel so strongly about this group, but perhaps boiling blood is blocking their hearing. There's a calmer case against, but I didn't really understand it.

Looking for the commonalities with Labour, the Greens, the SNP and the like is precisely what a party that will be seeking future coalition options should be doing. Of course the mainstreams of these other parties won't make that easy. But, as I've argued before, Liberal Democrat tribalism is the real danger to furthering liberal and social democratic agendas.

Delivering on our growing wishlist for the next Parliament might very well depend on our relations with these other parties. No-one is forced to belong to Liberal Left. It's just another group of people exploring alternative policies to the agenda of the Conservative - Liberal Democrat Coalition. I'd be worried if there weren't such a group.


5. Ken Livingstone is no homophobe, but that's not the point

I've blogged separately about this. But in essence... I'm troubled that Ken has been misinterpreted so virulently; and I worry that presuming the worst about people engaged in public discourse degrades that discourse and consequently our political culture. We need a more tolerant, generous spirit.


6. The composer of "A Windmill in Old Amsterdam" has died aged 83.

OK, I don't know why I think that's important to British political culture.

I could make something up about how it's interesting that the windmill - a technology that was vital to life in the Middle Ages - might turn out to be a vital component in our future energy needs.

I could pretend that the idea of happy mice just doing their own thing in Amsterdam, doing no harm to others, and living a fulfilled life in an adapted product of an earlier age somehow represents an authentic vision of liberalism.

But I think I just like the tune.

Mind you, he also composed "Right Said Fred" and that song has a huge amount to say about British political culture. :-)


A joke

I put this on Twitter, and got a paltry number of retweets. I was really proud of it!

Last week a lorryload of molasses spilt near Tiverton. Story here. Devon Police have promised to investigate properly & not to fudge it

Maybe it's the way I tell them...

Liberal Democrat tribalism is the real danger

A Liberal Democrat friend was at a barbecue just before the AV referendum, and he was arguing (unsuccessfully) for a greater range of voices in politics.

"For example, I might not agree with everything the Greens want to do" he was saying, "and I certainly don't have much in common with UKIP, but a lot of people in this country do like what the Greens and UKIP are saying, and I think it's important those voices are heard."

There a little silence in the crowd, and then a cocky Labour voice quipped "I don't see why we need to hear the Greens or UKIP for christ's sake !!!"

Then Labour and Conservative supporters alike guffawed heartily in agreement together at the cheeky bravado of admitting to this in public.

I'm reminded of the pigs and the humans at the end of Animal Farm (oops, spoiler!)

And in fact we now know the AV referendum was won by an alliance of partisans, and not the gentle pluralists.

Don't you just hate the Labservatives? Don't you just hate all those who oppose progress? Don't you just wish a plague on both their unapologetically authoritarian houses?

Well, er... actually, no...

Over the past year, the Liberal Democrats have been on the receiving end of so much undisguised tribalist hatred that it sometimes seems impossible to ignore the bile. And the referendum and recent elections, gaffes and scandals have added to the misery. So it feels great to let loose a fusillade against the unprogressive majority.

But I think this might be a profound mistake.

It's true that despite being the junior partner, opposed on both sides by the sizable authoritarian elements within both the Labour and Conservative ranks, the Liberal Democrats are managing to be nimble about helping to encourage policies in liberal and social democratic directions.

There are many examples of positive achievements...

• the pupil premium
• the higher income tax threshold
• halting ID cards
• higher Capital Gains Tax
• the restoration of the earnings link for pensions
• the Great Repeal Bill
• ending the practice of imprisoning the children of asylum-seekers
• maintaining NHS spending
• prison reform

... and many examples of defensive achievements, in the sense of forestalling potential illiberal initiatives such as:

• more PFI
• enforcement of the Digital Economy Act
• new and worse kinds of control orders and imprisonment without trial
• upfront university tuition fees
• the enfeebling of local government
• another illegal war
• NHS dismemberment
• knee-jerk law-making
• secret support for torture

But this state of affairs is only possible (paradoxically) because of traditional Conservative discipline in following the party leader. Cameron, for all his faults, has set a mostly liberal Conservative agenda, and has been a man of his word in keeping to the Coalition Agreement. And this state of affairs is also only possible because the Labour leadership has decided to indulge in gratuitously oppositional politics, so that it has been easy for the Conservatives to maintain party discipline.

Coalition intensely irritates the tribalists within the Conservatives and Labour because it sidelines the Conservative right-wing and obliges Conservative ministers to negotiate formally with Liberal Democrat ministers rather than to make backroom deals with the authoritarian elements in Labour.

Of course, given the nature of Coalition, triumphs are rarely unalloyed. For example:

• It would be better to repeal the DE Act and start again, but authoritarian elements within Conservatives and Labour would resist this.
• The funding of Higher Education in England is a mess: there has been a huge leap in tuition fees; and while the repayment plan is better for students, it is far worse for the taxpayer. All parties are now however committed to the fees principle for this Parliament.
• Reforms of the libel and privacy laws are moving slowly, shaped more by the judiciary than politicians. Over-regulation of media activities is a risk. As too is under-regulation of media ownership.
• Conservatives and tribalists within Labour united to defeat the AV referendum.
• Conservative traditionalists and Labour tribalists will again unite to try to defeat the introduction of democracy into the House of Lords.

However, if the diverse authoritarian or partisan elements within the Conservatives and Labour were able to maintain common cause over the course of this Parliament, as they did successfully over AV, the liberal and social democratic agendas would be lost. Moreover, if the next election sees the (unwarranted) smashing of the Liberal Democrats, only the liberal and social democratic elements of the Conservative and Labour parties can keep alive liberal and social democratic influences over law-making.

So despite a good record in government over the last year (for which they will never gain credit) Liberal Democrats do not have the luxury of mopping up the middle ground by antagonising supporters of Labour and Conservatives. Liberal Democrats need to foster liberal and social democratic elements in the other parties. Building common cause, not indulging in tribalism, is the only way to keep these ideals alive.

It means looking for those at the barbecue who are not guffawing quite so loudly with Napoleon and Pilkington... those who are, deep down, a bit uncomfortable with a simple binary divide of all political thought... those who would like to hear what others have to say.


Credits: Photo "Kitbash Mercenary" by Shaun Wong

Coalition with the Devil

I'm really starting to really appreciate the Coalition.

Not especially for what it's doing. (Although I'm not knocking the pupil premium, the higher income tax threshold, higher Capital Gains Tax, the restoration of the earnings link for pensions, and the Great Repeal Bill)

More for what it's not doing.

A minority Conservatives government would have been able to win Commons votes thanks to the sizable authoritarian cohorts within the Labour ranks. Whatever the 2010 Conservative manifesto might have said, who knows what right-wing initiatives would have sprung up by now? A renaissance for ID cards, PFI and the DE Act? New and worse kinds of imprisonment without trial and control orders? Upfront university tuition fees? The enfeebling of local government? Another illegal war? Secret support for torture?

Of course Labour could have chosen to play silly politics by opposing all Tory bills on principle, good or bad. But if one believes (as I do) that this particular Labour tendency is motivated more by honest conviction rather than by low politics, it's quite likely that such initiatives, originated under a Labour government, would by now be becoming embedded under a minority Tory government.

Instead, the Coalition is constantly forcing the Conservatives to negotiate formally with the Liberal Democrats rather than making deals with the Labour authoritarian tendency.

This is such a good thing.

Of course this liberal moderating influence of the Liberal Democrats is making the Conservative Party a better party than it would otherwise be. That's good for the country. Not so good for the electoral prospects of the Lib Dems in 2015. And not as good for Labour in 2015 as it could otherwise be. No wonder Coalition upsets the tribalists.

But what are the limits of this? Should, for example, the Social Democrat Party of Germany have joined a Coalition with Hitler in the 1930s, to act as a "moderating influence"? No, obviously not.

So there are bound to be circumstances in which a shared programme for Government, mutual trust and effective inter-party communication are impossible to develop. Labour wasn't ready for Coalition in 2010, for instance. But provided the conditions are propitious, Coalitions can help minimise the chances of parties energetically pursuing sudden and under-considered brainwaves.

Coalition with the Devil? No. But Coalition with Occasionally Redeemable Sinners - that'll do me.

The Big Society v Liberalism

(wild cheering)

In the BLUE corner... from the Home Counties of England... weighing in at... not-very-much... with no knock-outs but one win on points... and with a right hook that's pulling punches... the challenger... BIIIIIG SOCIETEEEEEEE!!!!!

(wilder cheering, thunderous applause)

And in the YELLLOW corner... needing no introduction... from quite-a-long-time-ago... slightly doddery, but still standing... the very disputed heavyweight champion of political philosophies... IIIIIIIT'S LIIIIIIBERALISM!!!!!

(polite clapping)

I'm not sure Nick Clegg did exactly say that "Big Society = Liberalism", as reported, but he has said in the past that "David Cameron’s eloquent description of what he calls the Big Society is what I would call the Liberal Society". So the report is not very far off.

So what to make of this upstart idea "Big Society"?

I would suggest that the question is not whether the Big Society idea captures all of liberalism (pace Cameron the would-be political philosopher, the answer to that is obviously no), but whether the Big Society idea is compatible with the aspects of (what is commonly understood to be) modern liberalism that are relevant to Big Society themes; or, more specifically, how the Big Society compares with the contemporary vision of the Liberal Society.

Mark Pack of Liberal Democrat Voice has compared Cameron’s vision of the Big Society and mainstream Liberal Democrat beliefs in community politics, and found "grounds for agreement, grounds for disagreement".

Pack highlights a common dislike for an overly bureaucratic, centralised, top-down state. Such a state is not only inefficient but disempowering.

There is a consequent shared demand for (1) decentralisation of power, particularly in relation to planning decisions and control of local assets; (2) an unbundling of public services, so that anyone can offer to provide them; and (3) volunteerism and philanthropy.

The areas of disagreement or tensions that Pack notes lie firstly in language, such as whether one is primarily talking about personal responsibility or the freedom of the individual; secondly, in the extent of the decentralisation, whether simply to local government or beyond that to neighbourhoods and communities; but perhaps most pertinently in relation to the fraught question of who should provide public services.

My view is that the key tensions here are less about freedoms, localism and diversity, in relation to which Cameron conservatives and Lib Dems share a huge amount in common; and more about democracy:

• Not so much "Who takes which planning decisions?" but "How should the decision-makers be held to account?"
  
• Not so much "Who controls which assets?" but "How are stakeholders in the assets involved in decisions about those assets?"
  
• Not so much "Who should provide which public services?" but "How should providers be held to account?"
  
• Not so much "How do we support volunteerism and philanthropy?" but "How is it decided what should be left to volunteerism and philanthropy to provide?"

It is telling that Cameron's speech makes no mention of democracy or of councils, of mutualism or stakeholders; or even of "decisions". The closest he gets to mentioning accountability is in relation to public service providers being "held to account with transparent information to enable people to make informed choices". I would suggest he means consumer choice rather than stakeholder choice or voter choice. He also draws attention to a form of market accountability in that if the business community (taken as a whole) is socially responsible the result will be economic stability, lower taxes and minimal regulation. These two mechanisms may be liberal but there's no sense of direct democratic accountability for actions.

In conclusion, this is not at all a boxing match between ideologies: it seems we are all pragmatists now. It's entirely possible I've misunderstood the Big Society idea. However, my worry is that this agenda of decentralisation, public service unbundling and third sector growth will be pushed without sufficient attention to the kinds of mechanisms that would provide the democratic checks-and-balances that a healthy democratic society needs.

Betrayal

Dec 9 is not about betrayal. It's about honest but slightly naive people trying to squeeze a better deal for students from the Tories.

Three Futures for the Liberal Democrats and Tuition Fees

There are of course more than three possible futures for the Liberal Democrats and their wretched pickle about tuition fees.

But here are three futures:


Future 1: "The best policy in the circumstances"

Nick Clegg, Vince Cable and several Liberal Democrat members of the Coalition Government vote in favour of the bill on tuition fees, having wrung a couple more concessions from the Conservatives, and having abstained on an artificially-created and largely symbolic Commons vote relating to the level of the cap. The rest of the ministers and a few backbench MPs abstain (as allowed by the Coalition Agreement). The majority of backbench MPs vote against. The bill goes through.

Some commentators and students eventually acknowledge the benefits of the policy over the current situation, and there is scepticism about the role of the NUS, but the failure to honour personal signed pledges overrides all. The whipping of MPs on a bill that goes against party policy enrages the party membership, but the Coalition continues, with the Liberal Democrat Party's credibility severely weakened. The AV referendum is lost in a petty anti-Clegg vote. Within the government, liberal values are crowded out by authoritarian influences.

Clegg is consequently ousted in 2012, but the 2015 general election ends in disaster with MPs in university constituencies wiped out, whether they kept their pledge or not, and despite the Liberal Democrats being the only party with a policy to abolish tuition fees. Under FPTP, Labour forms a majority government with 41% of the vote.


Future 2: "The price of stable government"

Pressure from the grassroots, backbenchers, and ministers in vulnerable seats leads to a collective decision to abstain on the bill. However nearly all backbench MPs vote against the bill, along with some ministers, who resign from the Coalition Government. The bill falls, leading to an immediate motion of No Confidence.

This fails, and crisis talks between David Cameron and Nick Clegg eventually result in an agreement to continue the Coalition Government, provided there are no more such rebellions. The AV referendum is won, and a liberal government makes good progress in relation to civil liberties, social justice and climate change. However Nick Clegg's standing within the party is severely damaged, resulting in a leadership challenge in 2012.

He survives, and in the 2015 General Election the Liberal Democrats are seen as the plucky terriers who stood up to the Tory rottweilers and won. Enough additional seats are won to form a LibLab Coalition.


Future 3: "For the good of the party..."

The grassroots get organised enough to threaten the deselection of MPs who fail to honour their pledges. This, combined with plunging opinion polls and a sense of duty to their voters, causes the parliamentary party to present Nick Clegg with the fact that they cannot in good conscience do other than vote against the bill. Clegg argues fiercely that a renegotiation of the Coalition Agreement is impossible, but an impasse is reached. Clegg resigns.

The interim leader, Simon Hughes, presents the party's view to the Prime Minister. David Cameron notes that it would be a breach of the Coalition Agreement for Liberal Democrat ministers to vote against the bill, and should any do so they must leave the Government. The party votes overwhelmingly against bill, with Nick Clegg, Vince Cable and a few ministers abstaining. The bill falls, and Cameron calls an immediate General Election.

The Liberal Democrats are portrayed in the campaign as weak, divided and lacking the maturity to govern. Since the AV Referendum has not been held, the FPTP system applies, and the Conservatives form a majority government with 38% of the votes.

Warning: I am notoriously unreliable when it comes to predictions. Nevertheless, I love making them, because they help test the strength of my understanding of current political circumstances and of the variability of the factors affecting the future. This does have the consequence that I'm wrong a lot of the time! And certainly less to be relied upon than analysts who make few predictions, or vaguer ones.

At this moment in time my gut reaction is that the three futures described above are in descending order of likelihood. But I'm interested in hearing about alternative futures.

Jumping all over the fence

For all the inherent mishmashedness of the construct, I'm a natural Liberal Democrat.

Not a liberal in toto, because the ideological purity of that philosophy needs for me the counterbalancing of a concern for freedom with concerns for social justice, democracy and our environment. I have had plenty of animated discussions with friends who have argued that liberalism properly understood can encompass all that I need from the latter concerns, but I think the debate is far from settled; and when it comes to a framework for shaping political decision-making I'd rather run the risk of amalgamating philosophies that lead to potentially contradictory conclusions (that can be pragmatically compared against each other) than have conclusions that omit the above concerns because the arguments are too subtle.

Whatever. Philosophically, it's a mess. But I'm certainly not a conservative or a socialist.

So when it comes to the charge of "supporting" a Tory government or "propping up" a failed Labour government, I am uncomfortable, as are many Liberal Democrat voters.

Looking back over my tweets from the last week, I find evidence of this discomfort.

I started with...

I don't relish Nick's choices. My gut feeling is to permit - but be no part of - a minority Tory govt, & explore new HoC's opinions on STV

This got me accused of being a soft Tory, which of course stung. But, I reasoned, coalition with Labour would be seen as keeping a failing government in power. The parliamentary arithmetic is dodgy, and would lead to an unstable government, beholden to tiny parties. Struggling on like this would also lead to both parties hemorrhaging popular support. At the same time I thought that coalition with the Conservatives would be unlikely to work given the sharp policy differences and instinctive psychological antagonisms. And I believed the Conservatives were temperamentally incapable at this time of handling compromise, and so would screw up coalition. Either option would lead to a quick second general election in which (without electoral reform) tactical voting in favour of the two larger parties would lead to electoral wipe-out for the LibDems.

A minority Tory government might protect the LibDems to some extent, gain some minor policy concessions, and lead to cross-party agreement on electoral reform. In this scenario, Labour and LibDems would work in opposition together to block the worst excesses of conservatism. The Tories would screw up minority government and a second election would lead to gains for both Labour and the LibDems. The downside would be that this option would play to the "hung parliament = instability" accusation.

The importance of electoral reform in all this is not purely party self-interest, by the way. Firstly, our current voting system allows a party to attain absolute executive power with a small share of the vote. As Mark Pack put it, "It's not about academic debates on the features of different electoral formulas; it's about the gritty realities of taking power away from the political establishment and giving it to voters". Secondly, the fact that about half the parliamentary seats never change hands between parties leads to complacency and abuses like the expenses scandal. Thirdly, the quality of our national debate suffers because so few voices outside the Labour and Conservatives are heard in Westminster. There are more than just two views in the country. And it's not just the Liberal Democrats: Green and UKIP perspectives deserve to be heard in Parliament since they speak for many in the country, albeit not at the level of the two large parties. But at a more obvious practical level, a British coalition would struggle to survive if the leader of the larger partner can choose to call an election as soon as the polls favour it, and see tactical voting in the FPTP system squeeze the vote of the smaller partner.

So when the Liberal Democrats began coalition talks with the Conservatives, I was of the #dontdoitnick movement:

I agree #dontdoitnick for unworthy reason: Tories can't handle compromise, so will screw it up. But not good advert 4 PR

At this point Twitter and the blogosphere became almost unbearably tribalist. Conservatives suddenly began to be unsettlingly nice to LibDems; Labour supporters frighteningly antagonistic.

The presumption on both sides was that this was all about party advantage. One minster was quoted as saying "If the Liberals do a deal, they will be toast at the next election... You can write the leaflets now". This truth disproved the assertion that a LibDem-Conservative coalition was about party advantage, but no-one seemed to notice. "Party advantage" quickly elided into "A seat at the top table for Clegg", "Trading principle for ministerial cars" and the like.

On Any Questions, Shirley Williams reached the conclusion, as I had done, that there could be no coalition without electoral reform, but allowing Tory government would be possible. Meanwhile, John Redwood thought that calling the LibDem's campaign for fair votes a "pet project" would set the proper expectations.

At about this time, Evan Harris (praise be upon him) wrote that Labour offered the closest value match. The quest for a Rainbow Alliance of red, yellow, green and others was underway, and I got caught up in the enthusiasm for a #progressivemajority.

If it can work, brilliant.

Interestingly, though, the abuse from Labour supporters did not ease up, even after the LibDems opened talks with the Labour party. Conservatives wallowed lovingly in the phrase "Coalition of Losers", but it became apparent, as Ed Balls sabotaged the talks, that Labour seemed psychologically unprepared fora Progressive Majority. The SNP were publicly rubbished; electoral reform was batted away. Perhaps, as some younger Labour supporters notes, there are quite a few conservatives (small c) among the Labour old-guard. Or perhaps 13 years of unthinking authoritarian ways has cut Labour off from the progressive movement.

The irony is, a progressive majority could have been possible if there had been more LibDem MPs and fewer of these old-style Labour MPs. It truly was a case of "Vote Brown; get Cameron".

Finally, with the tribalist abuse reaching fever pitch, a deal was struck. My MP Ben Bradshaw offered warm invitations for Liberal Democrats to join the Labour party. I reserved judgment on the deal itself, until I read the details, but declined Ben's kind invitation:

Let me think... climate change, Iraq, STV, #debill, expenses, banks, authoritarianism, #nuttsack, Vince... no, I'm good thanks

Labour spin doctors insisted angrily that Nick Clegg made David Cameron the Prime Minister. I prefer to think that the voters did that, albeit through a bad electoral system. Things could have been very different if Labour had honoured its promise on voting reform.

When the coalition agreement was published, I read it carefully. I was pleasantly surprised:

I've read the coalition agreement. There are so many good things there, that I can probably live with the bad.

Following the election, few Labour tweeters, bloggers or politicians seemed to want to engage LibDems in policy discussion, and yet this Liberal Democrat - Conservative coalition agreement includes policies for a pupil premium, a scrutiny of Trident's value for money, the restoration of the earnings link for the basic state pension, an increase in the personal allowance for income tax, an increase in Capital Gains Tax, the tackling of tax avoidance by the very rich, the halting of the Conservatives' planned cuts in inheritance tax for the very rich, the replacement of the Air Passenger Duty with a per-flight duty, the establishment of five year fixed-term parliaments, a referendum on electoral reform, a power of MP recall, PR for the House of Lords, a statutory register of lobbyists, the removal of big money from politics, the devolution of power to local government, the phasing out of the default retirement age, the repeal of Labour's assault on civil liberties, the scrapping of ID cards, a review of libel laws to protect freedom of speech, the ending of storage of internet and email records without good reason, plans for home energy improvement, support for renewables, the cancellation of the third runway at Heathrow, measures to promote green spaces, a national recharging network, prohibition of public subsidy for nuclear power...

So many good things that would have been unlikely without this coalition.

I'm still very wary:

Particular concerns about STV, welfare, nuclear energy, Higher Education, marriage tax bonus, slimy bastards & electoral oblivion

... but coalition on the basis of these policies does, on the whole, seem better for the country than the unstable Tory minority government I originally favoured.

The "I voted LibDem; now they've let in the Tories; I'm never voting for them again" meme was, and continues to be, highly virulent. It's nonsense of course: LibDem votes have prevented both a Tory-only government and a continuing Labour-only government, both of which would have been dreadful for the country. I fully expect the LibDems to be shafted by the slimy bastards, and, if the gamble on an electoral reform referendum fails, to be wiped out at the next general election. But that is the price to be paid for getting so many progressive policies implemented.

RT me [can't quite believe this situation] It's amazing Tories are willing to implement progressive policies & Labour isn't.

Broadsheet: A coalition is right for the next general election

Labour needs to go. The Conservative Party is the natural party of government. However a Conservative-LibDem coalition is the best outcome for the next election.


It is clear we are reaching the end of the Labour Party's time in office. Its failures have included: the mishandling of bank regulation; costly, unnecessary wars; an over-complicated tax regime; wasteful spending on public services; and rules on MP's expenses that have brought Parliament into disrepute.

The rank-and-file of the Conservative Party knows what needs to be done: the reintroduction of calm, sensible administration rather than frantic law-making, overweening bureaucracy and throwing other people's money at problems.

Yet David Cameron seems to be continuing the spinning and posturing of the Blair years. He delights in wrong-footing Gordon Brown, but does not seem to be able to lead. One of Cameron's closest advisors, his PR chief, left the News of the World after some very sleazy practices. Cameron's prospective Chancellor is a gaffe-prone lightweight. Cameron's highly-paid policy guru obsesses about "style" and "the brand" rather than actual policy. This spin works wonders: Cameron somehow came out well from the MP's expenses scandal, despite the unacceptable expense claims of his most senior parliamentary advisor and Cameron's own questionable expense claims.

Somewhat surprisingly, the Liberal Democrats offer an attractive alternative to Labour. They have been proposing for some time the measures that are now accepted as necessary to clean up British politics. None of their MP's have been "flipping" state-funded second home mortgages. They have, in Vince Cable, the most widely respected candidate for Chancellor. They are instinctively opposed to ill-thought-out foreign escapades and big government. They are also the party most likely to be able to get Europe doing something useful for a change: saving the country from the damaging effects of climate change by obtaining global agreements on carbon emissions.

Of course the Liberal Democrats won't win the General Election. But that doesn't matter: a Conservative-LibDem coalition would combine the strengths of the conservative majority file with the sensible liberal approach that the country needs right now, while mitigating the worst excesses of Cameron's spin machine.