Why a LibCon coalition might last beyond 2015

Vulture

Have you seen the latest poll figures, James?

The Liberals are down to 10%. Chris Huhne thinks that next year it will be 5%. They have been successfully branded as the 'party of cuts' and 'Tory traitors'.

After the next election, the LDs will once again be able to fit their Parliamentary party into a London taxi cab. Possibly even a phone kiosk.

Just how long do you think these MPs, staring extinction in the face, will back Dave's Coalition? That's right: they won't.

Clegg and Laws may be absorbed by the Tories. The rest will head for the Labour hills.

BtW: nice to hear you admit at last that Dave isn't a Conservative. Now, can those of us who are have our party back from Liberals like him please?

Bloody Bill Brock

Good article Mr F. I think you are right, Cameron is the 21st century Stanley Baldwin. In this case leading rather than pulling Ramsey McDonalds strings. He senses the need to present the Tories as a "peoples party" with fairness and concern for the bottom tier a major factor of government.

Red Rag

There is nothing like good timing....and this article is nothing like good timing. You have wrote this at the same time Simon Hughes declared war against most of the CSR....any chance of you bottling your political touch....it's so very rare.

William Campbell

I agree that Cameron would want to do that, but there are a number of problems with this scenario.

If the Tories win a clear majority, the Lib Dems wont have the excuse that "there was no alternative", to stay in a coalition. To support a Tory majority govt would be to admit that they were a mere adjunct to a Tory party.

Also, if the number of Lib Dem seats falls markedly, along with the share of the vote, Clegg will be a dead man and in no place to walk his party into government again. 40-45 feels like the limit. What does Clegg do then - split the party by taking Laws, Alexander and a few other right-wingers in?

You will know better than me whether the Tory Right would accept the Liberals when they were not actually needed, but I suspect that wouldn't be plain sailing either.

TGF UKIP

Highly amusing James, of course Dave loves this coalition, not only did it save his losing hide from the wrath of his own party but it gives him complete cover to carry on being what he's always been, a One Nation LibDem.

Both you and Dave, though, can dream on, for once rocketing unemployment coincides with cuts biting the LibDems will fracture and run for cover. Forget 2015 your dreams will be buried before 2012 is out.

Paddy

I hope so.

Anything to keep labour out!

Kris

Absolutely going to vote UKIP unless this is explicitly denied by the Tory leadership.

normanc

Of course Dave would carry on the coalition with a 10 to 30 seat majority. If he tried to govern alone the nasty right of the Party would be able to threaten and cajole over a lot of the nonsense we are currently getting.

Foreign aid, NHS, anything involving the word green, increasing EU budgets, progressiveness, etc.

For Dave it would be a disaster if he wasn't in coalition after the next election.

Woody

David Cameron is a conservative to his fingertips but a liberal one and he is exactly the right prime minister for the time.
This coalition is the best thing that has happened to this country for years. Yes, there will be problems ahead but everyone is tied into this now especially after the CSR and the silence from the Lib Dems is quite telling and the silence from the Labour benches means that they now know their Lib Dem bashing is totally useless and actually counterproductive.

victor jara 67

They will be lucky to last through the next year when the impact of what they are doing hits.
These cuts will result in social disintigration and the breaking down of parts of society particularly in the inner cities. There will be ghettos with virtual no go area's

paulg

We are constantly reading post where commentators are calling for a union of the two parties.

This is frightening the life out of their supporters.

People define themselves as conservatives/liberals because that is what they believe in.

No amount of slobbering over some one like a big dog,with a lolling toungue, is going to make them want to join your political party.

After six months lets leave it out.

Verityred

UKIP is the natural home for the neck vein bulging, brainless old right, who, like the Old left, will never see power again.

'Victor Jara' nice bit of Toynbee esque silly hysteria trolling, are you working off a party template?

John David Barnett

The growth of a progressive right of centre natural party of government would be a good thing.

Stepney

Unless the Lib Dems have a sudden rush of blood to the head this is a racing certainty.

If the Lib Dem share plummets to 10% ask yourself: who gains? Which party is 2nd to the Lib Dems across England?

With the promise of power for such small representation Clegg and the Orange bookers will cling to Cameron as a drowning man does to a straw.

And for those of you who think a Labour share of 40% is going to make a difference think on this - it's not Tory v Labour anymore it's the Coalition v Labour. 50% v 40%. Even in this mockery of a democracy this will see them home.

Labour will spend a long, long time in the wilderness...

Happy days.

TrevorsDen

what a numpty kris is. Does he really want a return to ;labour??

A pact which would help the LDs keep their seats and the tories gain labour ones makes excellent sense.
The cuts will not turn out to be anything like as savage as predicted and there is no chance of converting the natural core (benefit addicted) labour vote.

In 4 years the whole picture will be different from now. The govt will have been busy making room for tax cuts. The super dopey lefty labour iraq war deserters will go back to labour and the LDs will reach their natural level and be a better party for losing the loonies. 5 years in govt will attune themselves to reality.

strapworld

I find it quite suprising that no mention has been made on the articles in thTwo items in the Irish Independent this morning.

It is an article indicate a suggestion to leave the EU is no longer taboo in Dublin.
Indeed the article suggests the Irish dumps the EU and approach the USA!

It has been a wonder just why the Irish are prepared to continue to stomach the quite disgraceful demands of the tyrannical and non-democratic EU, given their strong historical links just across the North Atlantic Ocean.

The complex nonsense that is the Lisbon Treaty provides all 27 former nations the right to withdraw from the EU; generally speaking the powers conferred on the non-withdrawing parties are so extreme that such a right could rarely be envisioned as sensible, but the growing disaster that the Euro currency has wrought upon Ireland's finances makes the economic consequences less than daunting given the indebtedness of Ireland's taxpayers to the evil EU empire.

Default and a new arrangement with Ireland's powerful neighbour to the West would seem an attractive alternative for Ireland, especially given the new Merkel/Sarkozy nightmare of yet another new EU Treaty transferring economic governance and carrying penalties such as lost voting rights now looming in the wings.

If Ireland goes, can then we the UK surely not follow quite quickly behind?

The talk of continuing the coalition in five years is total nonsense. So much can happen in five weeks never mind five years.

The question is, having now said he is going to oppose the EU increased budget. WHAT will Cameron do if they say, in effect, sod off?

Fox in a box

Victor Jara,

unlike with Labour's policies when social disintegration,the break down of society, ghettos and no go areas ceased to exist!

Move along now, nothing to see here.

Boudicca

I doubt if there will be that many LibDem MPs after the next election, unless Cameron instructs Conservative PPCs not to stand against them in a LibDem stronghold. But any pre-election deal like that would have a significant impact on the Conservative vote. I deserted the party last time because of Cameron's back-tracking on the EU and I am now a UKIP member. I would expect many other right-wing Conservatives to balk at voting for a Coalition which is only a fraction to the right of Blair and pro-EU.

Fergus Pickering

Red Rag.. you have wrote? Oh dearie me. And Vulture, can you have your party back? What makes it YOUR party, pray? I like it the way it is. Head for the hills, matey. That's the only place for you. YOUR party is the party of duck houses and moats and old fools who think their house is like Balmoral. And people who think the middle classes start at £100,000 a year and travel first class to keep away from the hoi effing polloi - that is people like me. I like something different. I like it the way it is now. IN POWER old sport. Doing stuff. Your party indeed. How dare you!

Dimoto

Hughes is a straw in the wind. My guess would be that a dozen or so social democrats will eventually cross the floor and (re)join Labour, after they get feedback from their constituencies on the dreaded "cuts" and start to panic.

This need not be bad for the LibDems.
Now that they are a party of government, their MPs need to choose between serious politics and gesture politics.
Clegg would finally have a party without the jokers and with much more focus.
It would make his options clearer and negotiations easier.

From Labour's POV, they would never turn down such a short-term opportunist coup, but it would lengthen the odds on a future LibLab pact, and be a very quickly depreciating asset.
The defectors would almost certainly lose their seats at the next GE.

As for the Irish; now that the Euro gravy train is dispensing gravy elsewhere, they want out ?
By the time Obama has finished, the US economy could be looking very sick indeed.
Isn't a prime US foeign policy aim, a united and cooperative Europe (i.e. with the US friends INSIDE the EU) ?

The UK and Ireland forming a block to hard bargain for some common objectives might work.

lescam

A possible majority in 2015 of 10 to 30 seats doesn't mean a lot - John Major had a majority of 21 in 1992, and by 1997 had almost no majority left, due to deaths and desertions. If Cameron only manages a small majority he would be well advised to try for another Coalition. It would also be in the Libs best interest if they want to have any political influence at all. They have achieved more in the last 5 months in the Coalition than they have in the last 90 years.

Red Rag; "There is nothing like good timing....and this article is nothing like good timing. You have wrote this"

And this is nothing like good grammar! "Wrote"?

TrevorsDen

poor Boudicca - another poor soul left looking for a brain.
UKIP! Yes there is a party that will save Britain - safe for labour rule.

Why should LDs lose any MPs? Labour completely rogered Britain and the likes of Darling survived. Why should saving Britain destroy the LDs? They are better off without Labour's Iraq war deserters.

Steve Tierney

Im often amused by the assured way some commentators assure us that this group or that group will "never see power again." Politics is a giant treadmill and ideas don't disappear - they morph a little and represent themselves.

In my most humble opinion - the country is quietly moving to the right. David Cameron is a good prime minister, but come next election he'll need to change to be re-elected.

Those who think the "right" is dead might want remember that Obama's supporters thought the same thing.

David Lindsay

Thank you, Francis Maude. By saying what we all knew, that the Coalition wants the Coalition to continue even if the Conservative Party manages an overall majority in 2010 (fat chance after this week, but that is not the present point), you have made the case for electoral reform.

The Conservative Party has been hoovering up Liberals for a very long time: Liberal Unionists, Liberal Imperialists, National Liberals, Alfred Roberts’s daughter, those around the Institute of Economic Affairs (although its founders and its founding backer, like Roberts, never actually joined), and now the Liberal Democrats. The followers of David Owen, another who has never formally signed up, were in a very similar position; the last of those did not retire from the House of Commons until 2010, having sat as Conservative MP since 1987.

The Conservative Party is itself therefore two parties in one, which would be entirely separate in many other countries, competing hardly at all for the same votes and co-operating hardly at all on any issue of policy. The metropolitan, urban, capitalist, secular, libertarian, make-the-world-anew party has finally defeated and banished the provincial, rural, protectionist, church-based, conservative, mind-our-own-business party. The Whigs have finally defeated and banished the Tories. But in a context of electoral reform, which can only suit the Tories down to the ground.

They are not the only ones.

maddy1

Very prophetic, but I do not think the space time continuium, as we know it, is going to last much beyond 2013.

normanc

David Cameron isn't the first centrist leader of the Conservative Party, nor will he be the last. Similarly, Margaret Thatcher will not be the last right of centre leader of our Party, nor was she the first. Leaders come and go.

This is what frustrates me when members leave and join UKIP. This is a blip, those of us on the right have to hold in there and keep patient. We need a strong right of centre membership to attend selection meetings (where they are still held) and vote in leadership elections. Our time will come again, there's no doubt of that. And after a while the centre's time will come again.

History does tend to repeat itself, even for those who do know it.

laverda

If Mr Cameron is really smart, he will not only let the key LibDem MP's join a new small majority government in 2015, but over the next 4 years sharpen up his attitude to the EU, culminating with a 100% commitment to a referendum on both EU membership and Scottish Independence in the run up to the election.
This approach would bring in many conservatives who drifted off to UKIP and get massive support from the English constituents who want Scotland to get independence.
I like millions of others think the coalition have made a reasonable start.

David Parker

Almost all of these commentators assume that Britain's financial situation will be on the road to recovery by 2015. But this is to ignore the elephant in the room, and, for once, I do not refer exclusively to the EU, but to Cameron's so called green energy policy.

Whilst the EU has formulated an unnecessary and unachievable emissions reduction target, Britain, as is so often the case, has not only accepted this but then proceeded to gold plate it by setting its own emissions target at a level substantially higher than any other nation.

Leaving aside, for the moment, the AGW argument, unless Cameron rapidly reverses his insane green energy policy, he will not only have made British industry totally uncompetitive internationally but also killed off the bulk of his Conservative OAP voters.

David Bouvier

Well Mr Lindsay, I have lived in the metropolis and the country,and secularism, liberalism, libertarianism, etc etc has its expression in both, as do reactionary, religious, illiberal and narrow minded conservatism.

These changes are more about the passing of generations and conventions than some mythical rural-urban divide, and also about the trickle down of cultural ideas to the middle and lower classes. Older people in cultural backwaters will usually feel left behind. Thats just the way it is.

Farmers involved in long international supply chains are not protectionist. The census taker complains in his notes about the minimal church attendance in our little rural village in 1890. And you can probably find more alpha-course nutters and people who think homosexuality is caused by demonic possession in IDS's Centre for Social Justice than in your rural idyll.

Your contrast is utterly fake.

Danko

Despite being on the right of the party, the Tory party that is, I am not unimpressed by how the coalition is working. The day after poll I was livid, in fits of anger and spitting the name of DC and his crew, but six months on.... it has turned out not too badly. I am of course not happy about the Health and DFiD budgets, or the notion of Chris Huhne being in Government, however nothing has happened that has sent me barking mad again. Long may it continue.

AngloWelshDragon

@ Fergus Pickering

You rock! I laughed out loud - and agreed!

Pedantic Virgo

"Cameron is a natural at being a coalition Prime Minister. He is better at it than he would be at being a purely Tory one." The word 'purely' is redundant in the second sentence.

GDT

@ Fergus Pickering...
well said that man. Some people are never happy. Whilst I may not totally agree with the coalition, it is infinitely better than the last shower.

Charlotte

The Lib Dems have proved themselves to be an unprincipled bunch of people, contaminated by their collaboration with the Tories. They have betrayed their 'principles' and even their manifesto commitments. Even if the Liberals stay with the Tories, they won't necessarily get many seats. It's may be the coalition v Labour, but that doesn't mean that the rest of the country- outside parliament- feels the same. Many Lib Dem voters feel completely betrayed. It's more like the Left (normal people) v the coalition.

colin

Cameron has got the lib dems right were he wants them he can do whatever he wants policy wise, because the libdems have only self preservation at heart because they all fear looseing there jobs if they bring down the goverment. libdems have not got the backbone they will never get back into power again for another hundred years