Meetings galore

strapworld

Mr Hoskin, Was there any need for the 'flowers and chocolates' remark?

Just what does the Spectator stand for these days. I wrote on an earlier piece that this site looks like the New Statesman site! I do believe this sarcastic and nit picking piece is yet another Nelson inspired kick at the coalition.

You in the Westminster bubble should get out into the country and talk to people not involved in your greenhouse and become aware that people are enjoying this coalition. They are quite astounded that two parties can come together and start to deliver the right prescription to get this country out of the gutter the late unlamented communistic/facist government put us.

When so much could be written about the run down state of our schools/hospitals/public services under Labour. The broken society where killers have facebook pages praising them! where the minorities are wagging the dog- see the Daily Mail story of special toilets for muslims in Rochdale!!-where schools are not educating our children. But NO this blog has continued to give publicity to failed socialist politicians and kicked and kicked the coalition.

It is time you people woke up to the reality of the real world.

Frankly this sarcastic and silly piece should be binned.

RKing

Stop being so cynical Peter!

I bet you were one of the complainers when Blair and Brown totally ignored their backbenchers!

ajs

Strapworld: thoroughly agree. Shoulders to the wheel and less stupid carping about trifles or, indeed, nothing. Jouranalists who have nothing relevant or esueful to say should shut up, and/ or be put on no-pay leave. Or sacked.

david

What sort of world are you living in? There isn't a Tory MP this morning who isn't thinking, 'Why are we shackled to a corpse'

TrevorsDen

I agree Mr Strap that the people are enjoying this coalition - but I am not sure this post is 'sarcastic'.

Respective backbenchers should realise that we are currently effectively in a 2 party system, which is why labours vote is a bit higher than might be expected - the thick lefty LD tendency has drifted to labour. But between them the coalition have 60% of the electorate. Bad news for labour, particularly if they elect Ed balls as leader.

Disorganised1

Surely Peter is saying that consulting the backbenchers is a good thing ?

davidk

"history shows that small parties that walk out of a coalition are destroyed at the polls."

They have 57 seats for goodness sake! They're hardly a meaningful force as it is!!

These meetings are taking place to head off rebellion now...before the storm has even arrived. Imagine what this lot are going to do when the shit hits the fan, unemployment rises and the complaints about cutbacks start piling up?

This is the begining of the end for the marriage of convenience, and I, for one, am glad.

A_L

@RKing - I think the point trying to made here, is that Cameron in particular was not exactly known for his close relationship with Tory backbenchers when in opposition. Had he a majority that Blair enjoyed, one doubts he'd given them anything other than the occasional nod now; but he doesn't, and by that very fact he will have to consult more with them, listen to their views and attempt to keep them sweet. This will be no easy task. The fact that he has to do so will clearly lead a more collegiate form of Government. As for Clegg, well who cares?

Simon Stephenson

Tell me, strapworld (9.29am), when this honeymoon period is over, when the realities and actual outcomes of coalition policies have started to kick in, when it becomes clear that we have major problems to which no political party has yet provided a solution, when the reason-light mainstream has started to blame the incumbents for all the contemporary woes, when all these things have happened, are you clear in your own mind that at this stage it will not be reasonable for you to assert "I was right at the time, but they've changed". To be reasonable, what you will have to do is to accept that at the time (i.e. now) you got it wrong.

Are you prepared for this?

Peter Hoskin

Hang on a minute, strapworld: as I've said to you before in comments (and emails), I am impressed by this coalition. And I remain impressed by this coalition.

The 'flowers and chocolates' line was simply a jokey aside, meant to capture that these are, to some extent, "patch-up" meetings between the government and their backbenchers. Not that that's a bad thing. As I suggest in the final para, this is more than Blair and Brown ever managed. I've added the word "welcome" before "upshot" in the final sentence to better capture my meaning.

In my book, "more collegiate" = better. And long may it continue. As TrevorsDen says, I'm not being sarcastic on this point. So I'm unsure why you find it so disagreeable. And, ajs, I certainly don't know why you think it's a sacking offence...

strapworld

Simon Stephenson 10.33am I can only deal with the here and now. I am not Nostradamus, as you obviously profess to be.
Perhaps the wheel may come off the coalition, perhaps attitudes will change. Then I may have a different view. That is my right! Goodness me you appear to believe that people cannot change their opinions. Utter tripe!

Ahmed Khan

It Appears that the ‘penny has finally dropped’ with Nick Clegg. He is absolutely right to take his back-benchers to an ‘away-day’. Some of the many things he would be telling them (which the rest of the world already know and eagerly await the execution off) is the real possibility of getting stabbed in the back by the Conservative party and a possible General Election in the Spring. This would be preceded by a Conservative dirty tricks campaign which will discredit the Liberals in the eyes of the electorate.

As for Cameron he also needs to keep in touch with his backbenchers and make them aware of the above and prepare them for a Snap General Election which will return a clear Tory majority and a mandate for the next 5 years without any electoral reform.

Mycroft

@ Ahmed Khan, do you really think the Conservatives would have any chance of winning an election if they stabbed the LDs in the back? People rather like the styyle of politics that has been introduced by the coalition, and would be utterly shocked if they found that the Tories had embarked on the enterprise in such a cynical spirit. And there is in fact no indication whatever that they have.

davidk

@ Mycroft - I think Ahmed Khan's projections are a possibility. Some pretext for a falling out between Tories and LDs could be spun to the media that places the Tory coalition partners in the position of renegers to the deal struck and an election called on that basis. The low ratings the LDs currently have, plus the Labour Party being still in disarray and practically penniless, makes it likely the Tories will be easily the largest party. It would be far better to engineer a new election to gain a commanding majority than muddle along in this coalition and walking on eggshells for almost another five years.

Ahmed Khan

@Mycroft The plan is or has been since the election, is that a ‘Civil War’ will break out within the Labour party soon after they elect an Leader and thus make them unelectable in the eyes of the public. At the same time the idea is for the Conservatives to discredit the Liberal by blaming them for obstructing progress to reforms and make them unelectable in the eyes of the electorate. It is dirty but that’s the nature of politics. Simple but likely to be highly effective!

Mycroft

Thanks for the reply, but I'm sceptical of this; it seems to me that Cameron and his associates are all too happy to work with the LDs, and that the LDs who are directly involved in government are working too well with their Conservative colleagues for it to be practical for the Tories to pull of a trick like that, even if they wanted to. We'll see in time to come.

Ahmed Khan

@ Mycroft - Thanks for your very civil reply (unlike many of the bigots posting here). Yes you are absolutely right, time will tell. In the mean time we all have opinions we like to express.

yank

Folks, Cameron/Clegg is the only type of coalition that truly works over here, and I gotta assume might there as well.

Over here, the libertarians who want happily gay married couples to own closets full of assault weapons, for government to be halved and all wars to be stopped and the troops to come home immediately, join themselves with the high tory crowd (we have such an animal here, you know), who stand in the road yelling " STOP! ", and I agree with a lot of them and I still think they're kinda kooky at times.

Those 2 together, with their odd corners rubbed off, can get it done here, and have, believe it or not. They'll both get to a balanced budget. They'll both get to sensible judges nominated. They'll both restrain spending. If they focus on what they agree upon, it can be productive.

They'll have to mollify the backbenchers, no doubt, who will have to accept that the glass is half full. That may be what your coalition is doing, as Mr. Hoskin implies.

Ruby Duck

@Ahmed Khan, if my experience of local politics is anything to go by, the backstabbing is far more likely to come from the LibDems.

David Bouvier

Yank - the LibDems are not libertarians. If only we had some.

The libdems are generally soft left, pro social liberties but also prone to leftist envy, silly taxation dieas, state nannying and intervention, etc.

There is a softish conservative wing of which Nick Clegg is arguably one, and a middle-class leftish side who mostly seem to be prefer impotence to the reality of power.