Is the Coalition Drifting to the Left?

Good to see that Tim Montgomerie is keeping his peepers peeled on this, producing his latest edition of Sell-Out Watch* today. He concludes:

The Coalition is still doing plenty of very important things that Conservatives can be very proud of. The budget eradication plan. Lower corporation tax. Welfare reform. A massive increase in the number of academies and the introduction of the English Baccalaureate. Over 100,000 extra apprenticeships. At the moment, however, with the Prime Minister focused on international affairs there are signs that in the weekly tug-o-war the Coalition is sadly fulfilling my law and drifting leftwards, inch-by-inch.

The evidence for this is mixed to say the least. Tim cites the Green Investment Bank, a bucket of change (well, £70m) to replace the Educational Maintenance Allowance, the liberal members of the panel examining the human rights act, concerns about nuclear power and the pace of NHS reforms (shared, as Tim says, by many Tories) and the Office of Fair Access and the fact Chris Huhne was justifiably rude about Baroness Warsi’s ill-informed comments about AV.

Is that it? Granted, reforming the human rights act is going to be difficult. Granted too there’s an argument about nuclear power and, yes, the Office of Fair Access is a ridiculous patch designed to cover-up a political difficulty. But the rest of these complaints are trivial (EMA) or the kind of thing the Cameronians are keen on anyway (Green Investment Bank).

Weigh these dreadful signs that the coalition is moving to the left against the list of things Tim says Conservatives “can be very proud of”: deficit eradication, lower corporation tax, welfare and education reform and so on. He could have added, but did not, the government’s approach to immigration. (Not that I think there’s much to be “proud” of there.)  But which list of policies do you think is more important? If this is a tug of war it’s one dominated by the team in blue jerseys who have, of course, many more players than the skinny fellows wearing yellow.

I assure Tim – and many Liberal Demcrat voters will agree with this – that the notion Nick Clegg is dragging the government to the left is not one that’s widely held across the country. On the contrary in fact.

Of course it’s not as right-wing a government as some Tories would like. But that would have been true if Cameron had won an effective majority too. His single party government would not have satisfied the entire right either.

In any case, it’s probably a mistake to judge the government on tiny issue after tiny issue. Better, surely, to see it in the round for what it is: a liberal Conservative ministry that is attempting many big and difficult things but that is not always, actually, quite as liberal (or conservative) as one would want. Nevertheless it seems odd to score these things in such a way that trivial distractions such as the EMA can count as much as a cut in corporation tax or a hugely ambitious welfare reform package.

Then again, this thirst for betrayal is found in most political movements. It cheers people up no end.

So, here we are: there’s the occasional leftish tree but the wood is pretty solidly on the right. Which, as Pete has just cracked, is why it was sensible to privatise the forests.

*Not what Tim would call it, of course.