No compromise

Next week’s election may well bring Conservatism to a crossroads.

Next week’s election may well bring Conservatism to a crossroads. If David Cameron fails to secure a majority, he will have a choice: should he seek to enter a deal with the Liberal Democrats as the flailing Ted Heath tried (and failed) to do in February 1974? If so, would he agree to voting reform which could change the nature of our politics forever? Or would he carry on in a minority government until it is necessary to call the inevitable second election? The latter is the riskier path. It is also the only acceptable one.

Much rot has been spoken about hung parliaments — or, as the BBC has started to call them, ‘balanced’ parliaments. History shows they do not work in Westminster. Of the four hung parliaments in the last century, only one (1929-31) lasted more than a year. The rest collapsed fairly quickly because Westminster’s confrontational politics does not lend itself to cross-party stitch-ups. The present voting system allows for strong, decisive and radical governments (such as that which transformed Britain in the 1980s). To lose it is to lose Britain’s capacity to renew itself.

Mr Cameron does not need the Lib Dems. If they threaten to join with Gordon Brown and let Labour cheat political death, then so be it. But the marriage would not last, and the public would pass judgment in the election that would follow when their axis collapses. By spurning Mr Clegg’s advances, Mr Cameron can still govern — he only needs a parliamentary majority to pass laws, and there is reassuringly little in his manifesto that requires new primary legislation.

The Lib Dems could, of course, join Labour in a vote of confidence to bring down the government.