Politics: Westminster just isn’t built for coalitions

15 January 2011

The Liberal Democrats’ current problems can be traced back to 28 October 1943.

It is easy to see how these modern-day Peelites will, in time, return from whence their forebears came. If they do, the coalition will have succeeded where Lord Derby and Disareli failed in 1858 when the Peelite William Gladstone turned down the chance to join a Conservative administration. The split in the party caused by the repeal of the Corn Laws will finally have been healed.

But, of course, most Liberal Democrat MPs are not Peelites. There are about a dozen of them, a dozen social democrats with the remaining 30-odd a pragmatic rump. The party’s social democrats will, again in time, head back to their traditional home in the Labour party with the rump going this way and that.

It might seem bizarre to suggest that the first coalition of the post-war era will be what restores the two-party system. But that is what the polls suggest is happening. It is proof of just how potent a factor in our political life the shape of the House of Commons chamber is.

‘I do feel for these quangos.’

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Remittance Man

January 20th, 2011 10:36am Report this comment

It may be true that the layout of the Commons Chamber affects British politics, but it is a fact of life that there will always be a governing side and an opposition side to any parliament whether it be oblong, circular or built in the shape of a dodecahedron.

What really ossifies British politics is the rigid party system where Leaders (who also form the executive) control the careers and renumeration of the publics's representatives and the Party Whips keep rebels in line.

You can rearrange the deckchairs on the Titanic as much as you like, but until you deal with the ice berg that is the hegemony of the party machines the ship is still doomed.

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