Politics: Westminster just isn’t built for coalitions

15 January 2011

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

The Liberal Democrats’ current problems can be traced back to 28 October 1943. On that day, the House of Commons decided that the bombed Commons chamber should be rebuilt and its oblong structure preserved. This ensured that the British tradition of confrontational politics — and with it the pull towards a two-party system — would continue into the post-war era.

Winston Churchill understood what was at stake in the debate. He knew that ‘we shape our buildings, and our buildings shape us’. As he told the House, the chamber’s shape ‘is a very potent factor in our political life’. It is what ensures that we have a party system, with a government on one side and an opposition on the other.

There were those who disagreed with Churchill. Viscountess Astor appealed for a circular chamber on the grounds that she hoped the country was about to enter into a ‘more reasonable age’. Viscount Hinchingbrooke thought that one should be considered because coalitions might become the norm after the war. But Churchill carried the day and that is why the Liberal Democrats’have so many problems today.

The layout of the Commons’ chamber — with MPs facing each other, separated by the distance of two swords — creates an expectation that there should be two sides in politics, a government party and an opposition party. It makes no provision for coalition. It is no coincidence that it was in the chamber itself that Benjamin Disraeli declared, thumping his fist on the despatch box, that ‘England does not love coalitions.’ Or that the creation of the Liberal party in 1859 out of the Whigs, the Peelites and the Radicals was prompted by the fact that they believed they had to be one party if they were to sit together on the government benches.

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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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