I’d like to offer my own solution to the coalition problem that James referred to earlier. First, my theory of what went wrong. At first, the coalition worked well and was radical. Nick Clegg felt that he’d build up his party’s support over time, by proving it could work well in government. This didn’t work, and the (avoidable) tuition fee u-turn sunk Clegg’s credibility. His party started to kick off, especially after AV. So they position themselves not as do-ers, but as restrainers. Their pitch is: ‘we’re the good guys in the coalition, priding ourselves on what we stop these wicked Tories doing’. The coalition then moved from a constructive partnership to a destructive one, where the LibDems will try to kill off any idea that has a blue rosette attached to it.
The solution? Rework the government. Rather than today’s formula – a LibDem no1 in a department and a Tory no2 or vice versa – you simply cede entire departments to the LibDems. So they are judged on what they make a success of, not what they thwart. It means a reshuffle that would give them (say) Justice, Environment and DFID. And they’d be judged by how well they spend foreign aid money, or how credible their justice and energy policy is. The current formula needs to change because it has led to acrimony and sclerosis at a time where the need for change has never been greater.
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