Is it a merger?
Fraser Nelson 8:34pm
When a Conservative leader wishes the LibDems well in a three-way marginal by-election, then what is going on? Andrew Gilligan’s piece today shows that the Conservative campaign there is muted, and my colleague Melissa Kite reported earlier that Cameron personally called off the hunt supporters, Vote OK, who were planning to boost the Tory campaign. Little wonder that Conservative MPs are beginning to smell a rat. They are being told this is the cohabitation of rival parties; in the Daily Telegraph tomorrow, I ask if this is actually a merger.
From the start of this coalition, I’ve been struck by the differences between the coalition in Westminster, and that I witnessed during my tour of duty in the Scottish Parliament. The Holyrood scenario was an alliance of two structurally separate parties, with their own spin teams and distinct identities. When they had to fight the Glasgow Anniesland by-election, after Dewar’s death, it did not cause an identity crisis within the coalition. They just did it. There was the odd sign saying “Lib Dem supporter, voting Labour” which seemed about as sane as “cat, barking.” The LibDems forced the Tories into 4th place in the 2003 Holyrood election: coalition augmented their stature and identity. Coalition with the Tories has knocked LibDem support into single digits.
Why? I suspect it is because the parties have become too close: they have behaved as merged parties, not coalition partners. The word ‘coalition’ has become synonymous with government now, becoming a proper noun. The phrase ‘ConDems’ is used by the Mirror to attack the government. They are seen as a joint entity. And rightly so: Cameron has not built an alliance of two parties with differing traditions. He has moved the two parties into a blender and flicked the ‘on’ switch. Everything is merged: the spin team, the departments, even the ‘political’ Cabinet has LibDems there. Where Blair and Brown used No10 to advertise the Labour Party, Cameron seldom mentions his party. 'Conservative', the C-word, is dropping out of the national vocabulary: it wasn’t even used at the Conservatives' annual conference.
Why so close? Part of the reason must be the Westminster adversarial system. The Scottish Parliament is one of these dull, lifeless semi-circe parliaments where the various blocs sit next to each other, press buttons and pass chocolate to each other. Westminster is a bear-pit, with two sides placed precisely two swords' length apart. And this is deliberate: after it took a direct hit in the war, Churchill was asked if he wanted to rebuild in a consensus semi-circle, to reflect what was then coalition politics. No, he said, let it be two sides fighting. That’s how we like it.
Cameron’s strategy has been to stress complete unity. There were no LibDem policies, no Tory policies: everything was a coalition policy, and defended as such. Even tuition fees. And tensions did not erupt: from welfare reform to school reform. There have been battles, but they are blue-on-blue. Critics of Clegg, myself included, have been impressed at his reforming credentials and the way he has taken the intellectual fight to Labour - on its poisonous definition of ‘fairness’ and on the progressive case for cuts. Unity may have been foisted on the two parties in government, but they have acted as one.
By-elections expose the problem with this ‘blender’ strategy. If you support David Cameron’s government, why vote LibDem? If you don’t support it, why vote LibDem? So we’re now seeing a bit of back-pedalling, with both Cameron and Clegg trying to pencil in divinding lines these were so keen to elide after the coalition. Clegg’s New Year Message was a rather panicked plea directed to his activists, listing LibDem achievements.
Cameron now seems to be giving the LibDems as much help as he decently can, allowing the abolition of control orders to be spun as a Clegg victory and he’ll doubtless present Lords reform as a great concession extracted from a defeated Conservative Party by the rat-like cunning of Clegg. This does not wash with the voters, because they see a united party. On Question Time, you used to have Conservative and LibDems on the panel. Now, just one. After a while, the message gets through: these guys are the same.
So why not keep it that way? Sir John Major wants the coalition to last ten years, as do one in five grassroot members. But the 1922 Committee of Conservative backbenchers are getting increasingly anxious. Yes, the LibDems may be screwed - just look at the projected share of seats. But does that mean the Conservatives have to incorporate them? A vote pact would have at its heart the assumption that the Tories could not win on their own. Is Ed Miliband really so scary?
Clegg has seen his poll rating drop to 9 percent, but comforts himself in that a third of LibDem voters are converts, who came to the party since the election. This, he hopes, will allow him to rebuild - and he has five years to do it. Perhaps he is right, but I know plenty of Conservatives who think he hasn't a chance. And even if new voters emerge, it won't save the various LibDem MPs in student-rich seats. Or those, like Chris Huhne, who stood explicitly on a anti-Tory platform. For these MPs, some kind of non-aggression pact is their only hope. I can understand Cameron feeling sympathetic, feeling an instinct to declare a truce with his partners. But to offer any kind of electoral pact is the point where a coalition becomes a merger. The LibDems and the Tories would be moving towards the kind of relationship that the Christian Democrats in Germany have with the Christian Social Union of Bavaria: two allies, who have effectively merged, but keep different identities for electoral reasons.
A stepping stone from coalition to merger came in Cabinet before Christmas when Andrew Mitchell said they should do everything possible to help the LibDems in Oldham East. No one disagreed. Events are putting the two parties down that road: Cameron is perhaps the first Tory leader in history to worry about how he can bolster the LibDem rating. Helping each other in government is one thing - helping each other in elections is quite another. And this is why backbench Tories are worried. For all the protests to the contrary, Cameron looks very much like a man who is playing for keeps.
Previous
Fergus Pickering
January 2nd, 2011 8:50pm Report this commentMerger means the LibDems of the Orange Book persuasion becoming Conservatives, does it not? And the sandal-wearing twats will join Labour, giving them a dreadful headache. All this will be excellent news for the Greens, who will become the third party. Don't you think, Fraser?
Peter From Maidstone
January 2nd, 2011 9:08pm Report this commentIf it is a merger then why are all the policies LibDem ones? It seems rather that Cameron is using the reality of coalition as a means of ditching all the Conservative policies he does not believe in - unfortunately this is most of them.
TomTom
January 2nd, 2011 9:29pm Report this commentHas Steve Hilton told Cameron what the programme is yet ?
Fraser Nelson
January 2nd, 2011 9:37pm Report this commentPeter from Maidstone, IDS welfare reform and Gove school reform are both sound Tory policies. Personally, I'd rather see a coalition enact this agenda then a Tory-only government fail to enact it - which is what I fear the alternative was with Theresa May in welfare.
TrevorsDen
January 2nd, 2011 9:47pm Report this commentIts fair enough to 'prop up' the lib dems. Their support has ebbed away and the reality of seats in the next election will not approach the current level - without conservative support.
So LD influence will not be as great after the next election. But a tory LD ticket would still sink labour.
And will tories be upset if LDs do not campaign at the next by-election if it is a tory seat?
I do not think you can compare a coalition in a jumped up local authority with no power to raise its own money with that in a proper parliament.
How can two parties pursuing the same policies fight each other - on what grounds? The main policy is economics. I do not see great differences in education and health is ringfenced. Defence is in a mess thanks to labour and no right wing magic wand will wish that away.
There is no clamour to joining the Euro and without that the EU is meaningless.
Differences are at the periphery and the LD periphery is likely to get smaller. Any chance of it getting bigger lies in seducing right wing labour votes away. In the long term its in conservative interests to help LDs -- and in the country's as well.
Dennis Churchill
January 2nd, 2011 9:48pm Report this comment“...as do one in five grassroot members.”
So four in five don’t.
It is just confirmation, in the eyes of the electorate, that we have a political class with no real differences in their beliefs.
TrevorsDen
January 2nd, 2011 10:02pm Report this commentP from M
Which policies are LD ones?
Tuition fees perhaps?
Defence
Education
Finance
Social security
Transport
Health
David Lindsay
January 2nd, 2011 10:04pm Report this commentWhat does Mark Pritchard imagine that the Conservative Party, as an organisation, is or has ever been? It is a device for ensuring that Tories in the country must vote, or at least feel that they must vote, for candidates who are really Liberal Unionists, Liberal Imperialists, National Liberals, Alfred Roberts's daughter and her devotees, those around the Institute of Economic Affairs, the followers of David Owen (one of whom was still sitting as a Conservative MP until his retirement in 2010), and now Lib Dems. It is, frankly, inconceivable that Conservative candidates will be stood against sitting MPs seeking re-election after five years as Ministers in a peacetime Government led by the Leader of the Conservative Party.
Hatred of the State is an extreme Liberal, and not in any sense a Tory, position. It has issued in the antipolitics of the parliamentary expenses "scandal": not a penny was ever paid out either for the moat or for the duck house, none of this had anything to do with policy, and so on. And it has more lately issued in flagrant contempt of Parliament, technically so called. Yet the newspaper in question in both of those cases would regard itself as the voice of Toryism. It no longer is. Any more than the Conservative Party, as such, ever has been.
yank
January 2nd, 2011 10:18pm Report this comment"'Conservative', the C-word, is dropping out of the national vocabulary: it wasn’t even used at the Conservatives' annual conference."
.
You might just as well have typed only these few lines, as the rest of your post is extraneous. That is what you Spectator types have led cheers for, and clearly, your wish has been answered.
A marketeer's dream. A collection of buzzwords. A McGovernment.
John Richardson
January 2nd, 2011 10:30pm Report this commentRun a 'muted' campaign?
Wish the opposition luck?
Why not just go the whole hog and refuse to stand candidates in an agreed number of seats?
This would be the logical conclusion to this Party Political Parasite hijack of the democratic process.
An easy problem for The People to solve if only we can find enough rope.
Will Cooling
January 2nd, 2011 10:31pm Report this commentWhy do people learn nothing from history?
1886 - Whig and Radical Unionists form alliance of convinence with the Tories. Liberal Unionists split over Fair Trade in the early 1900s, with free trade liberal unionists often ending up endorsing the Liberal Party. Liberal Unionist Party eventually merges with the Tory Party in 1912.
1916 - Lloyd George breaks with Asquith leads unofficial band of Liberals into a new, more equal coalition with the Tories. They stand on a joint platform in 1918 and came exceptionally close to merging before the Government fell apart in 1922. Several leading Liberals including Winston Churchill still found their way into the Tory Party.
1931 - Formation of the National Government, with John Simon and Herbert Samuel leading liberal factions into Government with the Tories and Ramsay MacDonald. Samuel leaves the Government but John Simon and his followers stay long after any pretence it was anything other than a pure Tory Government had been dropped. National Liberals would eventually become a puppet party of the Tories, merging fully in the late 60s.
The history of Tory/Liberal partnership is of the Liberals splitting and a faction going into a deeper alliance with the Tories. This deeper alliance usually ends in fusion, usually to the benefit of the Tories. I see no reason why the present day would be any different.
Tiberius
January 2nd, 2011 10:46pm Report this commentFergus is right about the Orange Bookers.
During those long 13 years of New Labour misrule (and particularly during the eight before Cameron became leader), I despaired at the lack of any openings to oust the junta. With our electorate, public opinion formers, and electoral system, New Labour seemed immovable. The Orange Bookers crossing the House seemed a fantasy then, but it has come close to reality now.
The calculation required to keep Labour out (yes even with MiliEd as leader) remains critical. It has been reported on here many times that those 259 Labour seats would normally be expected to translate into a majority at the next election.
Well, British politics is not normal at the moment, and Cameron must make sure it doesn't revert to being so. His backbenchers (and other reckless commentators) should realize it too.
Charles Martel
January 2nd, 2011 10:47pm Report this commentThe Tory party is foolish if it allows Cameron to do this, and it will deserve to die as a party in the process.
The only reason the Trustafarian's want a merger is because it is his only chance at remaining in power - he couldn't even win an election against Brown... I think even Michael Howard would have done better.
This idea is all the more stupid if he loses the next election... it will leave a disastrous entanglement of two disparate parties...
Conservative MP's need to wise up and start speaking up for the remaining party members (down by 33% under Cameron).
Tiberius
January 2nd, 2011 11:01pm Report this commentFraser: Why do you think a Tory majority would have meant TM ahead of IDS in welfare? Surely you haven't swallowed the myth that IDS is only there to keep the howling mob quiet?
Fernando
January 3rd, 2011 12:06am Report this commentCameron and Clegg have more in common with each other than either has with many of their activists. There may be a merger at a parliamentary level but this will not be the case at a constituency level, where the two parties are still very much distinct, often contesting the same wards. The coalition does not exist in local government.
In the thirties when the Tories absorbed the National Liberals this did not cause problems at a local level because much of local government in rural areas was done by independents. Then, the Tories could stand aside in certain constituencies and not worry about local councils. Now, even if Cameron and Clegg wanted a merger this would soon come unstuck because the goodwill does not exist in individual constituencies as councils almost everywhere are party contests.
Pot Head
January 3rd, 2011 12:34am Report this comment"it won't save the various LibDem MPs in student-rich seats"
Sheffield Hallam, is just about as student- rich as you can get, and also the home of the public sector middle class, including lectures, teachers and doctors etc
I spent Christmas in Sheffield, and the buyers remorse was HUGE, with pictures of Clegg signing the no tuition fees pledge everywhere. Clegg's 15K majority, in what is a very Labour city could easily just slip away.
Mrs.Josephine Hyde-Hartley
January 3rd, 2011 1:08am Report this commentStrictly speaking I should have thought it more of a resounding clanger than a stepping stone from coalition to merger if it's true that somebody in H.M Cabinet said they should do everything possible to help the LibDems in Oldham East.
Perhaps what we the public need in cabinet is the technology to create a big honking sound when one of our elected reps says something particularly stupid. Surely, members of the cabinet aren't employed to get embroiled in the burdens associated with party political relationships. Perhaps the electoral commission should be able to help clarify who is supposed to be doing what here - or what about the standards in public life people? This might be a good project for the committee.
TomTom
January 3rd, 2011 5:58am Report this comment"Clegg's 15K majority, in what is a very Labour city could easily just slip away."
Lord Clegg of Hallam,OM, EU Commissioner would not be too bothered and The City would reward him for hos contribution
charles hercock
January 3rd, 2011 7:18am Report this commentRe Your Telegraph
Nick Clegg will be having a "sod off day", if ,as is likely that the tories hammer the Lib Dems into 3rd place. Sadly however if he does, the Lib Dems will be forced to support a radical right wing Tory Administration from outside or face Jo Grimond style MP numbers after a general election rout
dg
January 3rd, 2011 7:56am Report this comment"Surely you haven't swallowed the myth that IDS is only there to keep the howling mob quiet?"
He's there to keep Conservative Home quiet and docile.
dg
January 3rd, 2011 8:14am Report this commentMerger? Reunion!
***Former SDP members representing the Conservative Party in government:***
The Rt Hon. Dr. Greg Clark MP
Minister of State for Decentralisation
The Rt Hon. Chris Grayling MP
Minister of State for Employment
The Rt Hon. Andrew Lansley CBE MP
Secretary of State for Health
The Rt Hon. David Mundell MP
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland
The Rt Hon. Stephen O'Brien MP
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State in the Department for International Development.
The Rt Hon. Rob Wilson MP
PPS to Jeremy Hunt MP (meaning he is on the government pay roll)
***Former SDP members representing the Liberal Democrat party:***
The Rt Hon. Dr Vince Cable MP
Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills
The Rt Hon. Chris Huhne MP
Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change
The Rt Hon. The Lord McNally PC
Minister of State for Justice (also Deputy Leader of the Lords)
Paul Burstow MP
Minister of State for Care Services
normanc
January 3rd, 2011 8:54am Report this commentA dangerous game.
We Conservatives are used to being told that we need a strong, independent, Lib Dem Party to split the socialist vote. It would be a massive gamble to think that by making the Lib Dems the equivalent of a regional office of the nasty Party that it not only hold it's voters but that by moving even further to the left (as such a pact implies) we also will increase our share of the vote.
I fear we won't so much get a perpetual ConDem government as a Labour one.
stephen bennetts
January 3rd, 2011 9:01am Report this commentWhat are the chances of a new party ' the real Conservatives 'emerging and the majority of conservative voters who appear to be unhappy with the 'coalition'joining it ? just a thought !
Fex Urbis
January 3rd, 2011 9:25am Report this commentPerhaps then we should get behind proper voting reform, we'd see a plethora of new parties and a number of splits, perhaps then one could vote for a candidate that really represented ones views instead of all these dreary plastic clones currently on offer.
Vulture
January 3rd, 2011 9:38am Report this commentDave is well advanced in his strategy of delivering what once seemed impossible: a Labour Government in 2011 or 2012.
The LDs are a party of the Left: so are the Camerloons who, as dg ably points out above, are as rife with former SDP-ers as a mangy dog is with fleas.
There is no room for three ( or four with the Greens) left-wing parties in British politics. Therefore,as Will Cooling rightly shows, if history is any guide the Lib Dems will split and the Cleggites
will be quietly absorbed by the Camerloon Tories and the beardie weirdies by Labour and/or the Greens.
The only problem with this scenario is the great mass of right- wing voters left disenfranchised. This includes 80% of the current Tory membership who are beginning to realise that Dave and his cohorts are a Liberal Trojan Horse.
Dave is a disaster for Britain as well as for the Tories. He is Edward Heath with knobs on. If it takes another ruinous spell of Labour Government to drive this lesson home & bring us another Thatcher then so be it.
Neil Turner
January 3rd, 2011 9:41am Report this commentWhen you consider what NewLabour policy has been repealed, you see the scale of the problem.
The Coalition is (de facto) everything New Labour was - EU / tax / prisons / defence / political correctness / immigration.....
I see no tangible difference between Cameron's Tories and New Labour
Anybody care to correct me ?
John David Barnett
January 3rd, 2011 10:21am Report this comment"Back peddling" or should that be back pedalling?
Publius
January 3rd, 2011 11:13am Report this commentTrevorsDen writes: "There is no clamour to joining the Euro and without that the EU is meaningless."
-- Nonsense! You know, TrevorsDen, you are not stupid. So when I see you write this kind of thing it is particularly nauseating. Because the only conclusion is that you are choosing to lie in order to deceive.
Ken Bishop
January 3rd, 2011 11:32am Report this commentJohn David:
In addition to the embarrassing error you spotted, there's also "two swords length" instead of "two swords' lengths". Also "plenty Conservatives". I would not dream of suggesting Mr Nelson was illiterate, so let's say he wrote this piece in haste.
PayDirt
January 3rd, 2011 12:16pm Report this commentVulture, you are living up to your name, waiting to pick at the pieces from dead carcasses (EH with knobs). Except would another ruinous spell of Labour leave us any meat on at all? I admit little knowledge of inside politics, however it strikes me as wishful thinking that Conservatives would win an election any time soon. My own wishful thinking is to hope that Cameron will lead to somewhat better outcomes than Blair/Brown did. However from what I see so far it is all very depressing: more of the nanny state, more lies, more pie in the sky, more wandering down the path to perdition, all the more violent will be the reckoning.
yank
January 3rd, 2011 12:47pm Report this comment"The Coalition is (de facto) everything New Labour was - EU / tax / prisons / defence / political correctness / immigration.....
I see no tangible difference between Cameron's Tories and New Labour
Anybody care to correct me ?"
.
They might care to, but they can't, because you've nailed it colder than a grave digger's ass.
And you can throw global warmingism and nation building onto your match list.
davidk
January 3rd, 2011 1:21pm Report this commentThe Tories wont merge with the LDs. Why should they? The LDs are useful as an independent party taking all the flak off people who feel betrayed by the lack of a clear cut outcome at the last election and who resent being told their jobs and services are being cut.
JohnPage
January 3rd, 2011 1:38pm Report this commentHow can two parties pursuing the same policies fight each other - on what grounds?
Trevor, as has been pointed out, there are precedents in the UK. And Scotland. In mainland Europe coalition partners oppose each other at elections.
Fraser: my main beef with your piece is that it treats politics as value free, like a game of chess.
Care to consider the consequences for those of us who, for instance, dislike the EU and don't believe CO2 is causing warming?
Under this dispensation, we would be closer to a one party state, except that Labour would probably move left.
So you're picking around in the shallows of process and ignoring the bigger issues.
Tiberius
January 3rd, 2011 1:58pm Report this commentNeil Turner/Yank: yes we can correct, but are sometimes too unwilling to sound too clever for our own good.
Fraser lays out two policy areas where the Coalition and Labour differ. TrevorsDen lays out a few more.
In some detail: Welfare - Labour promoted welfare dependency. The Coalition is trying to do the opposite. Schools - just read Ed Balls to gain an insight into the differences on Education policy. Defence - Labour committed to unfunded spending commitments, often on unsuitable procurement. The Coalition has had an immense job in bringing the budget under control. The Treasury - MiliEd is still saying the cuts are too deep too fast, when the markets and others (eg Mervyn King)are agreeing with the Coalition policy, which has taken the angst from our sovereign credit rating. Health - Lansley is moving choice on spending closer to the GPs, one of many policies designed to take decision-making away from the centre; local government reforms being another.
Of course it may well be that all these were also Labour policies, but no one I've heard has tried to argue the case.
Richard Clarkson
January 3rd, 2011 2:52pm Report this commentPersonally I think it is a great idea to see a merger of the two parties. Ordinary people don't care about the finer points of differentiation - what they see is a stable coalition going about a difficult task with relative success and providing a real alternative to Labour. I think it is distasteful that Labour have assumed the mantle of moral arbiters in modern British politics so anything that can confront this fallacy head on is to be welcomed. A party that is not only sensible and stable but chimes with the predominant moral sentiment of the country will be embraced, and will pole-axe the political landscape for those of us who don't give a fig for the strongly held and very particular convictions of the few who occupy the political village, regardless of where they are on the left/right spectrum.
yank
January 3rd, 2011 7:57pm Report this commentTiberius,
The modern Left, including here and your New Labor there, is all about the welfare/education "reform" business. It's been 20 years or so here, and I know Blair jabbered about it there. It's standard fare.
Hard to see what's been done there that's affected sovereign credit much, and I can't imagine Labor's program would have been much different than the Cameroons. Forget Labor's yammering, because that's all talk. They'd be doing similar taxing and spending overall as the Cameroons. More taxing and the same spending, basically.
You shouldn't spend too much time listening to politicians' jabbering, especially about "cuts". Those rarely or never occur. But the tax and fee rate jackings will be happening, most assuredly. Dave and his Labor soulmates are all about those.
We'll have to wait and see, but I suspect that shortly, amidst sluggish economic growth and tax and fee increases, the Cameroons are about to get a rude surprise, and they'll have no conservative base to support them, because they haven't merited it, nor separated themselves from the Left in any significant way. That's the point here... they are the Left's de facto equal.
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