Politics

Sir Menzies Campbell will either be sacked or will end up in the Cabinet

15 September 2007

There is just one consolation for Sir Menzies Campbell as he prepares for his second and probably last conference as Liberal Democrat leader: they will not come after him in Brighton.

And yet there is a twist of electoral fate which could render all leadership manoeuvrings redundant. Should Sir Menzies fail to wrest back votes back from Mr Cameron, the Conservatives may well be strong enough to deny Labour an absolute majority. Mr Brown may then have to enter a coalition — and Sir Menzies may yet end up in government. He needs relatively few MPs. Sir David Steel had just 14 when he negotiated a pact with the Callaghan government.

This prospect greatly excites Lib Dem grass roots, who are already talking about negotiating positions. Such discussions would be conducted in just a few days, and without consulting the party. This may be the last time they meet before agreeing a Lib-Lab Pact, such as they have already seen in the Welsh assembly and Scottish parliament.

But analysis published last week by Centre Forum, a liberal think tank, says this would be impractical if Gordon Brown was perceived to have taken a beating at the election — regardless of the technicalities. It is possible, for example, for Labour to be the largest party even if the Conservatives win a million more votes. Should the Lib Dems be seen to help Mr Brown cheat political death by giving him a majority, it is likely that both parties would be hated for it and any coalition would be a suicide pact.

We must add to this the ‘England factor’. England voted Tory at the last election, and is only governed by Labour thanks to the Celtic fringe and Westminster’s notoriously unfair voting system. Should there be a clear majority of Tories in England, it would be difficult for two men from Fife to run Britain between them, as if exacting revenge for Edward I. The Prime Minister is aware of England’s likely reaction to a Campbell-Brown duumvirate (or rule by ‘Ming and Minger’, as one unkind shadow Cabinet member puts it). The gulf between the possible and plausible is a large one.

The coalition idea is one Sir Menzies dares not discuss in public. When he spoke of his ‘five tests’ for Mr Brown at his Harrogate spring conference last year, he was deluged with protest from Lib Dems who face a Tory threat and deeply fear the slogan ‘vote Liberal, get Labour’ (which Mr Cameron is likely to use anyway). So we can expect the coalition issue to be discussed at the conference, but in awkward code.

Sir Menzies will therefore head to Brighton with two very different fates hanging over him. If he does badly at the next election, he will either face summary execution or promotion to the Cabinet. But he will know by now, by the cheers on the Tory and Labour benches when he rises to speak in the Commons, that his prolonged survival as an opposition leader is not an option.