This past week has been an interesting one. The coalition remains intact, and largely quiet, regardless of internal issues over a new hastily thought up Tory social housing policy. Rumblings in the Ministry of Defence on the treasury’s plan to include the nuclear deterrent in the MoD budget for the first time continue. The prolonged absence of the ‘Invisible Man’ we all used to know as the Leader of the Liberal Democrats is even more prolonged. Vince Cables misgivings about a double dip recession have shattered the view that all is well inside the Tory-Liberal alliance. David Cameron has dramatically rejected the suggestion of an end to infant milk provision in schools. The news that Conservative support in Scotland is at an all time low has shocked us all. The controversial visit to the UK by the President of Pakistan, Mr Zardari, during a crisis of massive proportion for his country has drawn to a close. And it has all been topped off, for me, by the sudden, but no doubt expected, backlash of Lib Dem supporters after their terrible slump in the polls.
I have mentioned how Labour should approach the Liberal Democrat Party in previous posts. In one sentence, dismissively, and with the intention of giving them as much credit as their new status as Tory poodles allow. The facts are clear. The Lib Dems have betrayed their voters and membership in making this deal with the Conservatives. It is easy enough to say that a new government will renege on promises made during the election, every government does.
But we, as voters, are not naive enough to believe everything that happens to tumble from a politicians mouth. We also knew of the probability of a hung parliament, and therefore the choices between a) One party minority government; b) a re-run of the election; c) a confidence and supply agreement; or d) a multi-party coalition government. We know this because we were battered around the head with it by the media during the campaign. However, we were also under the impression that coalition meant compromise, even if the “junior partner” was a great deal weaker seat wise than the “senior partner”. As a Labour supporter I, along with my fellow campaigners, was faced with the prospect of either a Tory minority government which may have a confidence agreement with the Liberal Democrats, or a Conservative-Liberal coalition, if my own party failed at the election.
The fact that a hung parliament was on the horizon, for me, was a relief at the time. Just a year previously I was resigned to an incoming Tory government. But by the time of the dissolution of Parliament I was convinced a Tory majority would not be a possibility,. Instead I believed the betting was either on a continued Labour government or some kind of Coalition of Lib Dem choosing, as they would hold the balance (as the media constantly ranted on, Clegg would be the King maker). Either way, I was either happy that Labour would retain power, hold power with the Lib Dems, even if they were led by the insufferable Clegg (I’ve never liked him, this isn’t new), or a Tory-Lib Dem coalition where, thankfully, the Lib Dems could reign in, temper, control, slow down and, if need be, stop the Conservative onslaught.
As we all now know, that was a fantasy, and quiet a different scenario to the betrayal of the Lib Dems. Nick Clegg was always pre-disposed to a Tory deal, as was one of his right hand men, David Laws, who many assumed to be a secret Tory. Clegg didn’t get on with Brown, and in the end demanded his head as the price of a pact with Labour. As soon as this news leaked out, I resigned myself to the fact that Labour were out of Government. I was against any deal which would see one of the party leaders replaced, and most of all, the removal of a Prime Minister and installation of a new Labour Leader in his place. After the unnecessary fuss caused by the Lib Dems and the Conservatives about Brown taking over from Blair, to have a Prime Minister resign after less than a year in the post after leading the party through the election would have been a farce.
So, all that remained was for the Lib Dems to make a deal with Cameron. What came out of the cabinet office negotiating room, however, was a remarkable fix which stunned everyone. The Tories I know were overwhelmed with how much of their own policy they had maintained in the coalition agreement. They were smug, but maintained a dignified defence of the parity of the agreement simply because they knew it flabbergasted me. My Lib Dem friends did the same, but were, in reality, more than disappointed with the lack of their own policies in the agreement. My Labour friends, like me, had never had their flabber so gasted at the final coalition document. The Tories had gotten their way on almost everything, apart from the Constitutional and Poltical reform. This was slapped on the table by the Conservatives when they found out Gordon was willing to resign to prevent Cameron getting in to Downing Street. Even that has now become a bastard of the intention of the Lib Dems to over haul the system, and the Tories desires to prevent such action.
The Tories had gotten their way on Education. The pupil premium which the Lib Dems rave about was an intention of the Conservatives anyway. But the “free schools” plan, nothing more than the beginning of the disassembly of state education as we know it, would provide the main plank of policy in Michael Gove’s new department. The mistakes he made with the BSF announcements were later shown up by the skill and force of Ed Balls, and the Lib Dems were required to sit quietly on the Government benches, all feeling the way Vince Cable looked. Disgusted and ashamed of what they were supporting. Vince Cable was later forced to announce the first private university for thirty years and of course, an ultimately doomed, and ill planned form of graduate tax.
Lansley in the Health Department also got his way to implement new Tory policy on the NHS. I have blogged about this so will not go into it in detail here. Again, the Lib Dems had been pushed out of another main policy, and now have to watch as the Conservatives slowly dismantle state health provision in the form of the NHS, and replace it with private companies and a massive cut back on government funding.
Similar ground was given in the Home office with the reform of the Police Force. On the nuclear power issue. (Lets not mention Trident, it’s a touchy subject). On Europe. On immigration. On communities and housing. On benefits and work provision. On a whole host, in fact, a large majority of issues, the Lib Dems gave up and let Tory policy be brought forward. The argument is that they agreed on a lot in the first place, and so this isn’t ceding ground, more agreement on common ground. This is a lie.
On no issue was this betrayal more obvious of course, than on the economy. Nick Clegg fought the election on the basis that he wanted a similar approach as the one offered by Labour in dealing with the recession, and shoring up the recovery. He warned that the Tory approach to slash and cut the economy would put the recovery at risk, and endanger the country with the threat of a double dip recession. He launched a campaign in Liverpool against a “Secret Tory Plot” to put VAT up to 20%. It was later discovered that Alistair Darling had suggested such a move to Gordon Brown in Cabinet and was quickly slapped down. Gordon knew that putting up VAT would hurt the less well off and go against the grain of Labour ideals. After complaining to the electorate of secret Tory plots and the terrible plans the Conservatives would enact if they got into power, he then made sure that they did get into power, and could enact their policies with the help of his own Party. He later made excuses. The Greek Crisis could apparently happen in the UK. That is a fantasy. Mervyn King had persuaded Clegg that the situation was worse than he thought. This is a statement which has been uncovered for what it is, a lie. There is no getting away from it. He lied to the public about his intentions for the economy if he got into government, and then lied again about why he had lied in the first place.
Voters up and down the country had switched to Lib Dem and Labour tactically in order to keep the Tories out. They were betrayed. People voted for the Lib Dems on the back of their anti Tory campaign. They were Betrayed. The people of Sheffield and the workers of Sheffield Forge masters whom Clegg had pledged to protect. They were betrayed. University Students who had voted Lib Dem because of their pledge of support and an end to tuition fees. They were betrayed. They elderly, the vulnerable, the young, the less well off, all who will now suffer because of this Tory government, propped up and protected by none other than the Liberal Democrats. They. Were. Betrayed.
Now the Lib Dems are attempting to fight back. The plummeting polls have woken them. They now see what their party has done, and what their leaders have done to their party. But instead of lobbying their party to fight back. Instead of asking the MP’s to stand up for themselves, to properly assert the Liberal Democrat voice in government, to stand up and be counted, they have turned viscously on their critics. This party which purports so much to back compromise and coalition is ignoring all comers while Tories whisper in their ear. They cannot see that to say “I support the coalition” and “I will not change my mind” together in the same sentence is contradictory. I have been told by Liberal Democrats of the benefits of bipartisan-ism. The brilliance of not stubbornly sticking to one issue, never allowing yourself to be persuaded, to see the other side. Yet now, in the same breath as preaching compromise, is bitter opposition to another opinion, a different idea, an alternative suggestion.
I have seen the faults of a Labour Government. I have, in the past, been persuaded by friends from other parties of new ideas. I am a progressive. But a large proportion of Liberal Democrat supporters seem to have abandoned that premise. The premise of progression, listening, of looking to the future by which they were marked before the election. Instead, their first foray into government ever has turned them into defensive, party political animals, plainly refusing another view whilst pointing to the past in order to negate the present. This is what I expect from hardened Tories. Maybe I should give up hope that the Lib Dems will ever regain their sense of self, and resign myself to the present truth. The coalition and its supporters are one, and the Liberal Democrats are slowly but surely melting away.
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