James Forsyth reviews the week in politics
In the last parliament, it was Tory MPs who were the odd ones out at Westminster. While they socialised among themselves, Labour and Liberal Democrat members could regularly be seen in each other’s company. As the prospect of a hung parliament loomed, this fraternising stepped up. By contrast, the few Liberal Democrats who had Tory friends tended to cut off contact as the campaign progressed. One Lib Dem spokesman took his Tory opposite number out to dinner a few days before it began and told him regretfully that he couldn’t see him anymore and that he’d no longer be able to admit how much he agreed with him.
But then came those five days in May. Now, Labour MPs delight in shunning the Liberal Democrats. When some new Labour members went to dinner in the Commons recently they saw Ming Campbell, who is visibly uncomfortable about the coalition, dining alone. They briefly considered asking him to join them. But they soon decided that it would be much more fun to talk particularly loudly about how the Liberal Democrats had betrayed their principles by going into government with the Tories. Campbell finished his supper in a hurry.
Labour and its supporters are enjoying venting their frustration at being out of power on the Liberal Democrats. Labour MPs pour into the chamber for deputy prime minister’s questions to take advantage of the chance to shout abuse at Nick Clegg, and the new MPs join in as enthusiastically as the old ones. The quickest way to raise a round of applause at a Labour leadership hustings is to denounce the Liberal Democrats.
But the new Labour leader will have to decide whether this is a game the party can afford to play. If we are entering an era of hung parliaments, as Peter Mandelson believes, then alienating the party that is likely to hold the balance of power is just plain dumb.
There is an argument that the cuts that the coalition has to make are so large that they’ll polarise politics, squeezing out the Liberal Democrats. You’ll either be for the government, in which case you’ll support the Prime Minister’s party, or against it and voting Labour. But set against that is the extent to which the Labour and Tory share of the votes has fallen since the war. It has gone from 96.8 percent in 1951 to 67.1 percent at the last election; this drop makes hung parliaments far more likely. Indeed, the people who have been most delighted with the Labour leadership contenders’ attacks on Clegg have been the Tories. As one said to me, ‘If they make it impossible for them to do a deal with Clegg all the better for us.’
Some Labour MPs are unconcerned about burning bridges with the Liberal Democrats. They believe that the coalition has provided them with a chance to destroy the Lib Dems once and for all, so that Labour is once more the only left-of-centre party in Britain.
One Labour MP told me before parliament went into recess that he hoped that the coalition would last for at least a few years. This wasn’t out of any generosity of spirit but because he wanted Liberal Democrat voters in traditionally Labour seats like Redcar and Burnley to see what their party was prepared to do to them. After that, he said, they would never vote Lib Dem again.
This thirst for revenge on the Liberal Democrats is strong at the moment. In its election manifesto, Labour proposed a referendum on changing the electoral system to the alternative vote. But now that the Liberal Democrats are in government and Nick Clegg is trying to guide this legislation through the Commons, Labour is opposed to it. The reasoning is clear: nothing should be done to make the Liberal Democrats’ life easier.
The antipathy is such that even those who have traditionally favoured an alliance with the Lib Dems are now making it clear that a display of repentance would be needed before any deal could be made. John Denham, a member of the shadow Cabinet and long-time supporter of electoral reform, has declared that Nick Clegg’s departure would be a precondition of any coalition between the two parties.
The new Labour leader must adopt a subtler approach. He’ll need to throttle the Liberal Democrats while embracing them. Making them believe that they would be better off doing a deal with Labour after the next election would be an extremely effective way of destabilising the coalition. The Tories really don’t like it when the Liberal Democrats speculate about who they might work with after the next election. To them it is like your spouse reserving the right to leave you if a better offer should come along.
David Miliband is the candidate who has shown himself most adept at playing this double-game. Miliband, an instinctive pluralist who was involved in the efforts by Tony Blair and Paddy Ashdown to forge a pact before the 1997 election, has worked out how to woo the Liberal Democrats while attacking them at the same time. He has laid into the coalition’s plan to cut housing benefit but proposed that the shortfall be made up by a mansion tax on homes over £2 million, a Lib Dem policy that was abandoned in the coalition negotiations. It is what one Liberal Democrat calls a ‘progressive dog whistle’.
The new Labour leader will be announced on the eve of the party’s conference. Three days later he’ll have to deliver a leader’s speech — quite a challenge considering that they are normally laboured over for months (Cameron’s aides are already at work). The easiest way to whip the hall into a frenzy would be to pepper the speech with splenetic attacks on the Liberal Democrats. But if the new leader does that, we’ll know he’s more interested in indulging the faithful than in taking power.
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