Thoughts on the 'hung' parliament in the UK, and what the LibDems should be doing with their new-found influence
[This is slightly adapted from a comment I made on LibDemVoice.org]
There appears to be an assumption by many activists within the Liberal Democrats that Labour is “progressive” and that the Conservatives are not "progressive". This assumption is deeply flawed. Is Labour’s rough-shod trampling of civil liberties really “progressive”? There is also a tendency to confuse “change” with “progress” – is the ID Card scheme “progressive”, or is it just change? Is the dumbing-down of school academic standards “progress”? Is the rampant abuse of the Parliament Act to bypass democratic process and force unpopular legislation through “progress”? No.
The black-and-white characterisation of the Conservatives as being on the side of the “rich” is also very shallow. By instinct the Conservatives are on the side of the moderately well-off, and the few “rich” happen to benefit as well from tax changes designed to help ordinary people. In the end, given the current economic crisis and over-arching need to cut the deficit, it’s not an argument that needs to be had today.
The Lib Dems and the Conservatives share one key idea: the subjugacy of the state to the individual. Labour views the state as the solution to all problems. Their solution to the current debt hole is to keep digging: borrow yet more money to employ yet more people in the public sector, and then somehow magically rein in spending in a year or two. To do the latter they would have to shed all the newly-created jobs anyway, albeit conveniently delaying that truth until after the election.
Standing back, I can easily imagine Clegg and Cameron working together. Both leaders are “progressive” by instinct. Sadly, both parties are full of fearful and unthinking political bigots, but that’s human nature, and the true mark of Clegg and Cameron’s leadership will be whether or not they can bring those people with them.
I also believe that a combination of the two sets of policies could be better aligned with the national interest than any single party’s set of policies.
Lib Dems: get rid of the silly and tokenistic “scrap Trident but replace it with something else equally expensive” policy, and drop the daft and unworkable “regional immigration” idea (which might work in a nation the size of Canada but is plain nonsense in a nation where you can drive from one end to the other before teatime), but push for a rebalancing of tax policy (in fact, push for a wholesale reworking of the tax system which none of the parties seem brave or “progressive” enough to suggest) in favour of those at the lower end of the financial spectrum. Crucially, hold firm on PR.
Conservatives: wake up and smell the coffee on PR. Many in this country, including many Tory voters, will never forgive you if you block it now. And give up on the silly soundbite politics (how many times has Cameron said “jobs tax” as though it’s a new tax rather than an increase in an existing one?) which is so 1990s. Reach a compromise on immigration: the LibDem regionalisation idea is daft, yes, but their instincts are right.
Possibly the biggest gulf between the two parties is their attitude to Europe. The solution there is probably to agree that any significant new European legislation should be put to referendum, and that any overt Conservative moves away from Europe will be put on hold for the lifetime of this parliament. It’s a moot point anyway: the EU – particularly the Euro-zone – is in deep trouble at the moment, and more EU political reform wouldn’t wash with the other large nations so any potential policy clash won’t arise for a number of years.
During the negotiations LimDems should concentrate on two priorities only:
(a) working with the Conservatives to resolve the financial crisis
(b) taking advantage of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for electoral reform
The reality is that with the scale of spending cuts and tax increases that are going to be required for (a), there’s little room for many nice frilly hand-outs anyway, at least not until the end of this parliamentary lifetime.
A solid and lasting arrangement – coalition or otherwise – with the Conservatives represents the best chance EVER to reform our outdated, unfair and nonsensical electoral system. That is the long-term prize. The short-term one is a stable and strong government that can dig our nation out of the economic mire. Anything else can, and will have to, wait.
). I think, therefore, that IBM has some work to do in connecting the dots between largely incremental change in 2010, and the grand vision for "Project Vulcan" going foward. Watch this space in 2010, and particularly at Lotusphere 2011, for more, has to be the message.
