Gordon Brown’s ‘progressive alliance’ pitch to the Liberal Democrats is a sure sign of weakness and a realisation by Labour of the probable loss of its parliamentary majority.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brown-trains-his-sights-on-a-new-politics-ndash-with-the-help-of-the-lib-dems-1949585.html
However, the contemptuous reaction of ex-Tory student activist Nick Clegg in describing Brown overtures as an ‘act of desperation’ is the worst form of hypocrisy. A hung parliament is the height of Clegg’s ambitions under the current electoral system and its emergence as the media paradigm for the 2010 general election is beyond the Liberal Democrats wildest dreams. After all in last year’s European Parliament elections they came in 4th behind UKIP and Labour in the popular vote.
http://www.europarl.org.uk/section/european-elections/results-2009-european-elections-uk
Things that hang around tend to cause a problem. A bad smell. A volcanic ash plume. Kids on street corners. And hung Parliaments.
Whilst the liberals are busy knitting ministerial name plates from recycled yoghurt cartons ‘just in case’ that nice Nick has managed to swing it for them the left should be cementing its support to campaign for a decisive left victory.
Whilst the labour years have oft been a marriage of convenience with the unions, and sorely tested by one party’s adultery with a certain Mr Mandelson and Co. a hung parliament would be far more painful than a clean split divorce. Both parties trapped in unhappiness but not in a position to make or respond to either’s demands.
Whilst I do not believe that a large parliamentary majority services democracy well neither does a hung parliament. History has shown us that it makes for weak and fractious government. Italy notoriously having over 40 different governments in as many post-war years.
The Lib Dems are playing their cards close. They have not committed to a pact with either Labour or Conservative. Nor would they at this stage. They may wear socks with their orange Crocs but they are not entirely stupid. In a hung parliament they will choose their bedfellows carefully and the demands, starting with proportional representative in one form or another would be the obvious one. But there is a more sinister side we should fear. Whilst nice Nick has played the sensible bloke down the pub card in his recent television debate he is most definitely to the right of his party. He has (and aint they all) attacked public sector pensions and made no attempt to reconcile the fact that schemes, like the local government pension shame, is in fact funded with contributions coming from public sector workers wages. His policies on immigration are also flawed. Whilst the left may well welcome an ‘amnesty’ he has also proposed an arbitrary system of regional dispersal, bound to make migrant populations the ‘pass the parcel’ of regional politics.
Then of course there is taxation. The liberals came unstuck in 1997 with their pledge to increase income tax to pay for the NHS. It didn’t work because voters might say they want to invest in public services but will vote differently when they have to pay for it. So the Lib Dems have changed tactics, agreeing that there needs to be swingeing public sector cuts, whilst their forked tongue has already offered tax cuts. Their tax plans have already come under fire. The Lib Dem pledge is that the first £10,000 of UK earnings would be tax-free for low and middle earners, which they will say will leave millions of people £700 a year better but at a cost to the treasury of £17bn. The Fabians have already pointed out that people on incomes of up to £100,000 will also receive the same tax cut, with 70% of the proceeds will go to the better-off. This is not an accident the Lib Dems policies have always supported the middle classes. This is not redistribution. It is recycling tax back to those who are already better off paid for by cuts in public services that will have the most damaging impact on the poorest.
Then of course there is the Euro. Nice Nick has admitted his calls to join the Euro would have left us worse off during the financial crisis but he is committed to joining ‘when the time is right’. As far as the left ought to be concerned there is ‘no right time’ to have our domestic economic and social policy dictated by the Bundesbank.
Nice Nick may though be the least of our problems. Whilst the Lib Dems will bed hop until they get what the want (Cleggover is allegedly practised at this) the real balance of power could rest with a nasty coalition of Plaid Cymru and the SNP bringing with it renewed calls for the break-up of the UK - a disaster for the Scottish and Welsh left movements. And one that would have left both Scotland and Wales de facto bankcrupt states during the banking crisis. Sammond was quick to say yes to the rescue money flooding into Scotland’s banking system but he will no doubt develop a coquettish ‘may be’ to anyone willing to lead him by the hand to the cabinet table of Downing Street for the price of a referendum on break–up of the union.
A hung Parliament will be to the left what volcanic ash is to the airline industry – something we need to avoid at all cost.
Anna Rose
