This morning’s Observer abandons its usual hostility to the Tory Liberal Democrat government with an editorial that praises coalition politics and which concludes that this sort of partnership is good for democracy:
In particular they point out how ineffectual Labour’s faux moral outrage has been:
Labour campaigned against Conservative economic policy on the grounds that Mr Cameron planned to form an administration run by the “same old Tories”. Lib Dem support for maximum austerity makes that line hard to sustain. But instead of promoting an alternative agenda, acting leader Harriet Harman has devoted disproportionate energy to attacking Nick Clegg’s MPs for a perceived betrayal of their principles.
That approach does more to gratify Labour’s sense of itself as guardian of the “progressive” moral high ground than it does to drive a wedge between the coalition parties, which is presumably the aim. While many Lib Dems might be uneasy about alliance with the Tories, they are unlikely to be shamed into sabotaging their own government by opposition sanctimony.
Labour needs a more sophisticated approach to the coalition and it needs it in time for next year’s referendum on electoral reform. In that contest, the Tories and Lib Dems will be campaigning on opposing sides. Part of the argument against a changed voting system is that it might lead more often to inconclusive results, and power-sharing. By next May’s referendum, Britain will have had a year to taste coalition politics. Whether it is perceived to be a successful model could make a big difference to the result.
The “No” campaign will be quick to point out how manifesto pledges were jettisoned in order to stitch up a deal and will cite this as proof that coalitions are bad for democracy.
The riposte is that no single party won the election, but the Lib-Con coalition represents 59% of voters. There is evidence, not least in the existence of the referendum, that policy is a genuine hybrid of the two party’s pre-election platforms.
Meanwhile, the requirement to compromise and be pragmatic has, in some areas at least, forced ministers in the coalition to consider more imaginative policy agendas than either of their parties might have done alone.
A clear trend in British elections is for no single party to emerge with a claim to speak for a majority of voters. So for the long-term health of British democracy it is vital that coalition politics be made to work as a respectable way for government plausibly to represent different, sometimes conflicting constituencies.
It is not easy. But the Lib Dems and the Conservatives are so far doing a better job of it than many in their own ranks feared; better too than many on the opposition benches blithely hoped.
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“It is not easy. But the Lib Dems and the Conservatives are so far doing a better job of it than many in their own ranks feared; better too than many on the opposition benches blithely hoped.”
A far better job to be 100% honest. The ‘opponents’ of the Coalition, which in political terms is completely in control of the ‘centre’, appear either as childish and unrealistic ( Tory Right , ex-LibDem Left), or crassly opportunistic and unprincipled (Labour).
This editorial merely acknowledges the obvious. It must have been very painful for the Observer to have written. Even the hostile ‘left’ can’t ignore the Coalition successes.