Is the Coalition Drifting to the Left?

Thursday, 31st March 2011

Good to see that Tim Montgomerie is keeping his peepers peeled on this, producing his latest edition of Sell-Out Watch* today. He concludes:

The Coalition is still doing plenty of very important things that Conservatives can be very proud of. The budget eradication plan. Lower corporation tax. Welfare reform. A massive increase in the number of academies and the introduction of the English Baccalaureate. Over 100,000 extra apprenticeships. At the moment, however, with the Prime Minister focused on international affairs there are signs that in the weekly tug-o-war the Coalition is sadly fulfilling my law and drifting leftwards, inch-by-inch.

The evidence for this is mixed to say the least. Tim cites the Green Investment Bank, a bucket of change (well, £70m) to replace the Educational Maintenance Allowance, the liberal members of the panel examining the human rights act, concerns about nuclear power and the pace of NHS reforms (shared, as Tim says, by many Tories) and the Office of Fair Access and the fact Chris Huhne was justifiably rude about Baroness Warsi's ill-informed comments about AV.

Is that it? Granted, reforming the human rights act is going to be difficult. Granted too there's an argument about nuclear power and, yes, the Office of Fair Access is a ridiculous patch designed to cover-up a political difficulty. But the rest of these complaints are trivial (EMA) or the kind of thing the Cameronians are keen on anyway (Green Investment Bank).

Weigh these dreadful signs that the coalition is moving to the left against the list of things Tim says Conservatives "can be very proud of": deficit eradication, lower corporation tax, welfare and education reform and so on. He could have added, but did not, the government's approach to immigration. (Not that I think there's much to be "proud" of there.) But which list of policies do you think is more important? If this is a tug of war it's one dominated by the team in blue jerseys who have, of course, many more players than the skinny fellows wearing yellow.

I assure Tim - and many Liberal Demcrat voters will agree with this - that the notion Nick Clegg is dragging the government to the left is not one that's widely held across the country. On the contrary in fact.

Of course it's not as right-wing a government as some Tories would like. But that would have been true if Cameron had won an effective majority too. His single party government would not have satisfied the entire right either.

In any case, it's probably a mistake to judge the government on tiny issue after tiny issue. Better, surely, to see it in the round for what it is: a liberal Conservative ministry that is attempting many big and difficult things but that is not always, actually, quite as liberal (or conservative) as one would want. Nevertheless it seems odd to score these things in such a way that trivial distractions such as the EMA can count as much as a cut in corporation tax or a hugely ambitious welfare reform package.

Then again, this thirst for betrayal is found in most political movements. It cheers people up no end.

So, here we are: there's the occasional leftish tree but the wood is pretty solidly on the right. Which, as Pete has just cracked, is why it was sensible to privatise the forests.

*Not what Tim would call it, of course.

Filed under: Britain (738 more articles) , Cameron (227 more articles) , ConLib (132 more articles) , Tories (273 more articles)

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Sir Graphus

March 31st, 2011 1:42pm Report this comment

If you look at Britain in 1979, it was probably about centre left, and the Tories had to be reasonably Heathish to get elected.

By 1997, 20-odd years of Tory rule, the electorate had become pretty convinced of free market economics and the like, so the Labour party had to travel a long way to the right in its wilderness years to pick up its voters.

Similarly, under New Labour, the voters moved a long way left again, further than people realise, in its expectations of what the state should do, and how much responsibility they should abdicate to the state.

The Tory party, therefore, are having to start a long way to the left, and it may take them more time than they'll be allowed to inch the public rightwards again.

Commentator

March 31st, 2011 2:43pm Report this comment

I think you have spent too much time in Scottish political circles. In Scotland and Labour heartlands, it is of course "very right-wing" to suggest that the Government do the bare minimum (which is all it is doing) to control runaway public debt.

Commentator

March 31st, 2011 2:46pm Report this comment

PS what "hugely ambitious" welfare reform plan?....The corporation tax "cut" is tricks with mirros: HMRC admit that it is being paid for with a mixtre of extra taxes on business (mainly, the bank levy, reduced capital allowances and now the deeply misguided tax on the oil companies which will reduce investment in marginal North Sea exploration and lead to job losses in the beleaguered Scottish private sector).

Ian Walker

March 31st, 2011 2:55pm Report this comment

Anyone with a teenage kid will tell you that the English Baccalaureate has been an unqualified disaster.

Changing the rules, fine.

Changing the rules retrospectively, so that schools that want to remain high in league tables are forcing kids to change course in the middle of their studies - massively unfair.

I'm a big fan of Gove and his other reforms, but the E.Bacc in it's current form is pathetic pandering to the blue-rinsers in the constituencies and the public schoolboys in the cabinet.

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