The Path Not Taken

[steepholm]

So the Lib Dems are talking to the Tories about forming a coalition - one of my nightmare scenarios. Still more worryingly, Clegg is making noises about the need to provide "good government in a time of economic crisis", which sounds rather as if he's being seduced away from what should be his number one demand, electoral reform. PR is his for the taking, if he can keep his eyes on the prize. But if he passes it up now in favour of being a member of an austerity government, he'll not get another chance.

ETA: After today's negotiations, Cameron's team reported that the LibDems were 'serious' people conducting 'grown-up' negotiations. I read that as code for 'Electoral reform is waaaay down the agenda'.

Comments

[hafren.livejournal.com]

He'd have to carry a proportion of the party with him first, no? So if they do buy the snake oil there'll be others to blame than him. I agree he really can't settle for anything less than a pledge on PR. But if the Observer's alleged memo on Europe from Hague is pukka, I don't see how Clegg can go with that anyway.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

A big sigh about things over there . . .

[calimac.livejournal.com]

I'm not so sure that PR really is there for the taking. The backbench Tories are vehemently against it. (As why should they not be? They'd lose many of their seats, and the Tories have more safe seats than all other parties put together, so, like Smaug losing a golden cup, the prospect has them all the more incensed.) And Cameron can't make them go along with it, any more than Heath could have in '74. In fact, it appears that most Tories are furious at their leader, for failing to achieve a majority win in an election they saw as a sure bet.

I'm actually amused at how panicked many Lib Dems are at the possibility of a coalition with the Conservatives. I have no love for the Conservatives either, but if you support what is, in practice, a third party, and you don't want to just remain in opposition permanently, and you don't want to devolve into an appendage to Labour (as the Australian National Party is to their Liberals on the federal level), then working with the Conservatives is something that's going to happen occasionally. You can't practice inclusive politics and tabernacle politics at the same time.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

I should have been clearer. I don't believe the Tories will give the Lib Dems PR either; but the Labour Party almost certainly would, at this stage. Of course, that alliance wouldn't be sufficient to form a majority in the House of Commons, but for a vote on a PR referendum they could probably count on the SNP, Plaid Cymru and the Greens, and maybe some of the Northern Irish MPS. Then they'd squeak it.

You're right that the Lib Dems would probably have to work with the Tories some time under PR, and shouldn't be afraid of that as such. But that should be after they get reform, not instead of it. If they haven't learned from last Thursday that as a third party under the current system their vote is always going to get squeezed like a lemon, they don't deserve any better.

[calimac.livejournal.com]

Of course the LDs are rooked without PR, and they're not going to get it from the Tories. One would hope that Nick Clegg's political instincts are at least as good as Jeremy Thorpe's, for goodness sake. In fact, I wonder what negotiations could possibly still be going on. In my view, the C-LD meeting should last about five minutes, and consist of Nick saying, "So tell me, Dave, can you deliver PR? And by 'PR' I don't mean AV. And by 'deliver' I don't mean a commission or a committee or a conference to discuss it. We've done that. I mean a bill with an enforced three-line whip." And when Dave replies, "You know I can't do that," Nick stands up, says, "Nice talking to you," and leaves, to make a call at Number Ten.

But the panicky Lib Dems I'm thinking of are not expressing themselves in the form of worry about a PR sellout. They're just opposed to the Tories. Period.