The
Liberal Democrats are carrying out a mid term review of the
coalition. Here's my version. The first thing is that when caught up
in the moment – particularly this moment with bruising encounters
going on around the NHS, welfare cuts and particularly brutal
treatment of disabled people by Iain Duncan Smith and his department
- we don't always remember why we are here.
So
first of all a reminder – we got here because in May 2010 the UK
economy was in desperate need of stable government and the
Conservatives had won the most votes and the most seats. So we
negotiated seriously with them. There were two alternatives – let
the Conservatives govern alone, or join a rainbow coalition with
Labour. Labour were in a mess, and, whatever they're saying now they
were not capable of negotiating seriously. The Parliamentary maths
did not add up. And the prospect of shoring up Labour with the
megalomaniac Brown in charge and their plans for the database state
would have given us as many ideological and political problems as the
Tories have done. You have to deal with the world as it is, and not
the world as you want it to be, and although many of us, myself
included, would instinctively choose Labour over the Tories, that
would not have been a sensible choice in 2010.
The
economy remains our main concern, despite it not being top of the
agenda at the moment. (It may well return there if the Euro crisis
breaks out in spots again.) So the rationale for the coalition
remains as it was in 2010, and is likely to remain so right up to
2015. And then, to lengthen our perspective the other way, towards
what may happen in 2015, as usual voters are most likely to vote on
the state of the economy, together with the perceived competence of
the incumbents.
A
lot has happened in these nearly two years that I like, and a lot has
happened that I dislike. My greatest regret about the first part of
the coalition is that we let the poisonous Iain Duncan Smith anywhere
near welfare. But, on the whole, my feeling is that we have done good
things – we have demonstrated, and will continue to demonstrate
that coalitions can work. We have done very well on taxes for poor
people, and with a variety of other issues – pupil premiums,
affordable housing, apprenticeships, the green investment bank. MarkPack's infographic explains it all very well
Given
that we have approximately 1/6 the number of seats the Tories have
(despite having two thirds of their vote, but that's not a popular
topic at the moment), that's a pretty good result. Maybe we could
have done better at reining in some Tory excesses, but on the whole
we have done well at a time when a lot of unpopular decisions were
necessary. The noise coming from our Parliamentary party is that
getting in to government and finding out how it all worked was a
steep learning curve, not least in learning how to keep an eye on
absolutely everything going on in each department. We have more
experience now and more staff which means we're better prepared for
the second half of this government than we were for the first. The
second half promises to be very different – I'll come on to that in
a minute.
We
have had to compromise on a lot of things, and we have learned that
compromise can be a minor and polite disappointment, but it can also
be downright painful. As I haven't been in government myself (and,
no, I couldn't do a better job, thank you), I've had the luxury of
being semi detached. I like what we've done on pupil premiums, I
dissociate myself from the cesspool Lansley is creating for the NHS;
I like what we've done with personal tax allowances, I can say the
filth and lies Iain Duncan Smith's DWP is peddling about disabled
people is nothing to do with me. But if I'm to be honest, I can't do
that. I have to accept that my party is part of government and has
been party, willingly or not, to decisions I abhor and despise.
Welcome to government. People can point the accusation of
inconsistency at us (as if they haven't been doing that all along –
say one thing in one place and another along the road, all things to
all people etc etc, yawn). Labour are pointing the finger often. I
wonder how many Labour supporters feel completely comfortable about
the Labour government's decisions to invade Afghanistan and Iraq –
no, didn't think that many. This government, to my shame, is causing
deaths*, but not on the scale Tony Blair did.
I
think it is possible that we are changing the temper of politics,
which can only be to the country's good. We have been working openly
and productively with people we dislike as well as people we like.
Vince Cable is now famous for saying we have discovered the Tories
are calculating, ruthless and tribal – but that doesn't mean we
can't work with them.
. This week at PMQs (7th March) Labour tried to score a
point by asking Cameron what he thought of Vince Cable's leaked
letter on industrial policy. What Cameron said and also how he said
it were both revealing and to my mind potentially very hopeful. He
neutralised the question completely by saying straightforwardly that
he disagreed – he gave a number of reasons why. But he did it in
measured and polite tones. It is unheard of for a Prime Minister to
disagree so publicly and on such a stage with a Cabinet colleague.
But he did, and he did it in straightforward, polite and measured
tones. For once we had people at PMQs – some of them anyway -
acting like adults. One of the worst kept secrets of contemporary
politics is the fact that people disagree. In the febrile and
juvenile atmosphere of PMQs any slip, any suggestion of anything
other than complete marital harmony draws horrified gasps and
journalistic metaphors of slit jugulars and mortal wounds. But here
was Cameron saying he disagreed with a colleague, and doing so in
such ordinary tones that it was not possible for any journalist
observing to do their usual impression of a ferret on crack rushing
round screaming “Disagreement, government in chaos, it's all
falling apart. Leave the country NOWWWWWW!!”
It
is just possible that this is one of a few signs of grown up
politics, and that will be a very good thing both for the Liberal
Democrats and for the country. If we can demonstrate not just that
coalitions work but that they work very well, then, whatever happens
after the next election we will have done the country a power of
good. When people are actually allowed to disagree and debate, you
get better decision making. And we LibDems will probably do ourselves
good too, because people will see that we have contributed to that
measured tone. We are, after all, quite good at it. We are famous for
the way we “argue” with each other. Only, what other people call
“argue” we call “debate”; and the policies that emerge from
that cauldron of debate are the better and the stronger for it. We
have seen several internal groupings emerge recently, to the usual
chorus from some that we are suffering splits that will lead to our
inevitable decline (again). But to me they are just signs that we are
organising even more and better debating platforms than we have had
in the past, and we will formulate good resonant policy out of them.
We're
being told that the main legislative programme for the coalition is
going to be complete well before the end of the Parliament. There may
be nothing else that we want to do. Even if we do, there may be
nothing that we can agree with the Tories. It would be wrong to go
looking for things to legislate about. As all the best doctors often
do, leave the patient alone. If you've got nothing to change, then
govern.
In
the absence of any really contentious legislation (politicians being
politicians, any legislation will be contentious, especially if
there's nothing more important to fight about), then I think there
are two things for the LibDems to do. The first is to work for
fairness in the application of the laws we have. Mostly that means
finding ways of reversing some of the nastiness that has come from
the Conservative end of government, particularly the vicious
treatment of claimants, and especially disabled people, emanating
from Iain Duncan Smith and the other Tory ministers at the Department
for Work and Pensions. I fear that there are scandals to come, with
continuing exposes of A4E's ways of working, which may enable the DWP
to deflect attention. I also hear suggestions that A4E may not be the
only offenders. (What do you expect? If you give people an
unsupervised money making machine, they will take advantage.) But
that will not detract from the fact that a lot of good can be done by
purposefully using the machinery of government – influencing the
way regulations are laid, how policy is enacted, and the ways in
which select committees and other inquisitors can hold the government
to account. That is a full time job for the next three years.
While
doing that we should be extending the conversation. We should be
going out to the country (all the different parts of it, but if you
care about the union, do pay particular attention to Scotland). Using
our eyes and ears as much as our mouth. Debating with people what a
fair society is and what they want to see in order to achieve that
will serve three purposes. It will show people that fairness really
is at the heart of what we try to achieve; it will give us a clearer
sense of what will work in terms of making Britain a fairer place;
and that it turn will give us a very clear idea of what we can offer
that will resonate with the country for 2015 – 2020.