Fishburn Hedges

10.05.2010

As at 3.15 pm

After a weekend of political negotiation – where are we now?

After three days of fevered speculation and intensive media scrutiny, things are only just starting to become a little clearer on what the shape of the next government will be. It is to the credit of the negotiating teams around the leadership of the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats that there has not been a single leak about the content and direction of the discussions, but that hasn’t stopped the respective parties’ grandees, backbenchers and activists having their say. 

In many ways the situation is fairly straightforward. While the political comfort zone would be a Labour/Liberal Democrat coalition, the electoral mathematics simply don’t add up and a rainbow coalition including the nationalists would be terribly unstable. The only truly stable government would be a full coalition between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats, but there are genuine ideological difficulties with this on both sides, and not just the major sticking point of electoral reform. Despite the relative affinity of the two leaders, their respective backbenchers and activists are worlds apart over Europe, immigration, and fiscal and social policy. 

It may well be that a deal is concluded today with Liberal Democrat support for a minority Conservative administration or even a full coalition.  The question then is, will this deal be bought by the respective Conservative and Liberal Democrat backbenchers and party hierarchies?

While we wait for news from the negotiating teams, it is worth taking a look at the perspectives of the three major parties involved in this political drama.

The Conservative perspective

Despite the swing and despite the gains, the general election was a disappointing result for the Conservatives. It is only a matter of a few months ago that they could have reasonably expected a comfortable majority, perhaps even in landslide territory, with the Labour Party bankrupt and utterly demoralised. The reality of course is somewhat different, and the Labour core vote was found to be larger and more resilient than anticipated. It is because of this that Cameron will want a stable government, because going to the country early would be a big risk, particularly if he faces a Labour Party rejuvenated under a new, more media and voter friendly leader.

For Cameron, the bottom line has to be getting into government, and for that government to be stable enough to survive what are going to be very testing times ahead. After thirteen years in opposition, it is unthinkable that the Conservative Party would be happy returning to the opposition benches when parliament reconvenes on 18th May, not least because some kind of anti-Tory alliance would be almost certainly predicated on changing the electoral system to one that is unfavourable to the Conservative Party.

The other difficulty for Cameron could also be with his own party. An interesting story of Thursday night was the limited success of the Cameron A List Project. Only 38 of the 100 A List-ers won their seats - just 38 of a parliamentary party of 306. David Cameron may describe himself as modern one-nation Tory, but his party activist and backbench base are not, and it is no surprise to see the voices of the right being raised over the weekend in opposition to a formal coalition. 

The right will have their demands for what they perceive to be the failures of the election strategy, whether that is the scalps of some of those close to Cameron or the promotion of their own senior figures is as yet unknown.

What is interesting is that William Hague is leading the Conservative negotiation team, because Cameron understands that it isn’t only the Liberal Democrat leader who will have to sell a potentially difficult compromise agreement to his own party, and he will have to rely on those senior Conservatives whose political instincts are closer to the activist base than his own.

The Liberal Democrats’ perspective

There is no escaping the fact that Thursday delivered the worst possible outcome for the Liberal Democrats.  Not only did the Clegg surge fail to deliver a net increase in seats the new Parliamentary arithmetic leaves Clegg in a delicate position; determined to work in the national interest but leading a party terrified by the prospect of a deal with the Conservatives.

The Liberal Democrat activist base would certainly be more at ease with a deal with Labour than the Conservatives. Many current members are formerly of the SDP and ex-Labour sympathisers. Yet Clegg is convinced that Labour & the Lib Dems simply do not have the numbers to make the so called ‘progressive alliance’ a reality. Personal relations between Brown & Clegg are known to be frosty and the Lib Dem leader is convinced that a government headed by Brown would be seen as illegitimate.

After Thursday’s disappointment, reform to the electoral system has become even more pressing for the Liberal Democrats. Grandees (such as Baroness Williams) activists and some MPs will not countenance any formal coalition unless Labour or the Conservatives give ground on PR. Yet the Conservatives remain principally opposed and the Liberal Democrat leadership are sceptical that a rebellion from the Labour backbenchers would ultimately scupper Gordon Brown’s promise to deliver on this.

Of course electoral reform isn’t the only area of ideological disagreement between the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, but despite all of the barriers it may ultimately be that all parties come to view the health of the economy is the national priority and that a deal is made principally to address the deficit and ease the nerves of the city.

The Labour perspective

Every party has its problems, but it is looking increasingly unlikely that one of Labour’s problems will involve the headache of building a rainbow coalition. Douglas Alexander, the party’s election strategist, has a constant mantra at Labour HQ – “one hour of government is worth a thousand days of opposition”, but because of the curious mechanism of the Great British electoral system, a small Lib Dem surge saw the Labour core vote cushioned against the Tory attack. Labour activists are now wondering whether, under a new leader, a reinvigorated party could rebound much more quickly than was originally anticipated.

The Party now waits for any kind of movement from the Conservative / Lib Dem negotiations. As time moves on the Labour leadership will be aware that any kind of climbdown from the Tories and Lib Dems will be less likely.  Focus will move back onto the future of the Labour leadership and Gordon Brown. There is now talk of Brown providing stability for the Party over the next few months, much in the same way as Michael Howard after the 2005 election. This would pave the way for a leadership contest which culminated in Manchester’s Party Conference in September this year. For Labour this would be a neat solution, but presupposes that David Cameron does not call a snap election for the autumn.

Many senior figures in the party are playing a waiting game. John Mann, Diane Abbott and Kate Hoey were quick to stamp on any thought of a rainbow coalition over the weekend. Other senior figures like Malcolm Wicks are calling on Gordon to go sooner rather than later.

But all in all the Party is calm. There is no sense of rout or meltdown. Instead, given the result, given the fact that Labour took back a swath of local authorities in metropolitan boroughs across the UK, and given the imminent arrival of a new leader, there is cause for optimism under the red flag.