Coalition

Tuesday

David Blackburn

Game on for a Lib-Con Coalition

Gary Gibbon reports: ‘Last night’s two-hour meeting of the Lib Dem MPs (with a sprinkling of peers) seems to have swung the party decisively behind a Lib-Con coalition deal. An announcement is widely expected now today.’ It’s preferable to the alternative and as George Osborne made clear this morning the Tories can do nothing without Lib Dem support. There’s a suggestion that Clegg may have forced Cameron’s hand into further concessions with his sudden wooing of Labour, in which case he’s a very clever and brave shyster. I’ll believe it when it happens though. PS: A note of caution, as if one were needed. Clegg can’t put a time on

Alex Massie Alex Massie

The Blundering Parties

The biggest blunderer today was, I think, Nick Clegg but one can make a case arguing that each of the parties played their hand badly on Monday. Oh, sure, in one sense Labour must be enjoying this: Tories in a fury, Liberals suddenly interested again and, who knows, perhaps there’s a faint glimmer of hope that something may yet arrive to rescue the party and keep it in office. But Labour’s good mood reflects a short-term tactical stroke, not a strategic victory. Gordon might have wrong-footed the Tories today and damaged prospects for a Tory-Liberal arrangement but that’s it. Labour’s overall position had not, I suspect, improved greatly not least

Monday

Alex Massie

A Liberal Red Herring

James reports – and since it’s James doing the reporting there’s no reason to doubt him – that some of the strongest opposition to doing a deal with the Tories came from Scottish Lib Dem MPs. Apparently the poor lambs think they could be wiped out if they were tarred with the Tory brush. I assume that they are fretting about the Holyrood elections next year, not the next Westminster election (though of course, all the jockeying and manoevering must be judged in the light of its potential impact on that contest). Because let’s have a look at their Scottish seats: Gordon: LD 36, SNP 22, Labour 20 Aberdeenshire West:

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The best possible news for the Tories

Gordon Brown’s announcement that the Liberal Democrats have requested formal coalition talks is the best news that the Conservative party has had since the polls closed on Thursday. David Cameron can now say that his party has negotiated in good faith and that his broad, comprehensive, and open offer to the Lib Dems is on table and they can take it or leave it. If the Lib Dems do end up going into coalition with Labour they would completely discredit themselves and be slaughtered at any subsequent election, remember getting PR through the Lords would take at least a year. The markets would also not be impressed by a coalition

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Clegg Decapitates Brown And a Nightmare Looms

So Gordon will go and the Labour party will elect a new leader in time, he hopes, for the Labour party conference this autumn. The problem with a Lib-Lab coalition of course is that it won’t have a majority. One can see how it could limp along but one cannot but think that while a single-party could soldier on as a majority matters would be much more problematic for a coalition minority. Nor does including the tiny parties strengthen matters much. And so, playing Salome, Clegg has got Gordon’s head on a platter and we now have the extraordinary sight of the Lib Dems negotiating with both parties at the

Peter Hoskin

Suspended animation | 10 May 2010

Weirdness reigns in Westminster at the moment, as the entire political establishment sits drooling and waiting for insights into the Lib-Con talks. The latest negotiator to break cover was the Lib Dem’s David Laws who managed, very artfully, to give very little away.  And so we were told that the Lib Dems are speaking with Labour, and that they are seeking “clarification” from the Tories over every issue from eduction to tax and electoral reform.  In other words: all the parties concerned are still negotiating. There is a growing sense – fuelled by reports that Nick Clegg is meeting his MPs later this evening – that we may not get

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The return of David Davis

The shadow Cabinet were gathering before their meeting at 2pm. One member told me ‘it is looking less like formal coalition now.’ But coalition remains the leadership’s preferred option. Talking to Tory MPs—old and new—this morning, there’s a sense that they would slightly prefer minority government. Though, no-one is planning to blow themselves up if the country does end up with a Tory-Lib Dem coalition. One other interesting development today is that there is a growing expectation that David Davis will be recalled to the colours. Certainly, his return would make Cameron’s top team more accurately reflect the ideological balance of the party.  

Peter Hoskin

Do the Lib-Lab talks alter the landscape?

Isn’t it all very cosy?  Turns out the Lib Dem negotiating team secretly met with a Labour delegation over the weekend: Ed Balls, Peter Mandelson, Ed Miliband and Andrew Adonis.  And it’s thought that Nick Clegg has had more conversations with Gordon Brown, both on the phone and in person.  So the Tories aren’t the only ones enjoying some quality LibTime. It doesn’t really alter the cut of the situation, though.  Most folk around Westminster seem to expect a Lib-Con deal, of sorts, at some point today.  But Clegg and his team would weaken their hand if they didn’t at least explore every option.  The Tory leadership will appreciate this

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Who’s using whom?

Another day of live political theatre, staged live at College Green. Given that Cameron last night negotiated a confidence-and-supply deal – ie, enough to keep him in a minority government like Alex Salmond has in Scotland – why is he negotiating further? What’s more to discuss? This is what we find out today. David Steel told Radio Four this morning that Nick Clegg had told him, before the election, that he would put a time cap on any Con-Lib Pact – ie, a shelf life of one or two years. This suggests that the Lib Dems would not fall for the obvious Tory ruse: the offer of a referendum on

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The coalition nears

‘A government by this evening’ is what several Tory MPs have told me they expect. Those who have spoken to David Cameron say that he has no appetite for a second election within 12 months and that he wants the stability of a coalition. David Cameron is in the House of Commons. When I passed him earlier, he was without the entourage that so often accompanies him and was saying hello to those he passed. This might not sound like much but it does suggest that Cameron is adjusting to the new circumstances, that he is taking greater care to be nice to his parliamentary party than he has previously.

Daniel Korski

Who should get what?

In February I pontificated about the composition of Cameron-Clegg government – to general ridicule. The blogpost looks increasingly prescient now that David Cameron seems to be favouring a formal deal with the Lib Dems. Assuming that Lib Dem MPs will sit around the Cabinet table, what ministries should they get? The assumption is that the Lib Dems want six Cabinet post and will probably end with no more than four. The Conservatives cannot give up the Chancellorship, Education or the FCO – departments that are important for the leadership, its worldview and its reform agenda . Nor is it easy to see a Lib Dem in Defence or someone like

Alex Massie Alex Massie

What A Carve-Up: The Glittering Prizes Awaiting Cameron and Clegg

These are interesting times, aren’t they? Interesting but scarcely simple. Nick Clegg may have suggested that a deal must be done by close of play, Monday if it is to be done at all and all the signs may still point to David Cameron coming to an arrangement with the Liberal Democrats but, clearly, difficulties remain. How could it be otherwise given the complexity of the situation and the stakes? Policy is the least of the problem. If one accepts that the old left-right labels are increasingly outmoded and that the defining divide today is between the centralisers and the localists, between the liberal and the statist then, theoretically at

Sunday

Fraser Nelson

A rolling Westminster drama

Another extraordinary day in Westminster. A deal looks likely to be agreed by Clegg and Cameron tomorrow morning, put to backbench MPs in the afternoon and then Brown will advise the Queen to send for Cameron on Tuesday. (Brown may choke on those words, but if he says ‘send for Ed Balls’ I don’t think she will fall for it.) This evening at 6pm, the handful of Tories MPs who are in London met Cameron at the Commons to discuss the coalition talks. Rumours still fly but as I understand it a deal has been reached where the LibDems will vote for Tory cuts – thereby fulfilling Vince Cable’s pledge to

David Blackburn

No Lib-Con deal for at least 24 hours

William Hague has just emerged from the Cabinet Office and spoken of the ‘positive, constructive and substantive talks’ between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats. Discussion has encompassed political reform, reducing the deficit, banking reform, regulation of small businesses, environmental issues and civil liberties. Hague says that a further meeting will take place at some stage in the next 24 hours. ‘That meeting,’ he added. ‘Will concentrate on deficit reduction and economic stability’. The language of the statement suggests that an informal pact is more likely than a formal coalition. It is surely indicative that the follow-up talks aim to secure economic stability in the interests of the country, rather

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

My understanding is that Cameron will not sacrifice schools reform

During coalition talks, wild rumours can fly – and some of them can be true. That’s why Michael Gove would have stopped many a Tory heart this morning by telling Andrew Marr that he was by no means wedded to a Cabinet job and then heaped praise on David Laws. The Gove schools policy is ranked by The Spectator as reason in itself to vote Tory and by The Economist as the best single policy of the election campaign. Might it be sacrificed? The 10am radio headlines were suggesting so.  I bumped into Gove just afterwards and asked him: panic over. He had simply sought to make clear that he

Daniel Korski

Don’t forget the Party, David

Days, perhaps only hours away from the expected announcement of a Con-Lib deal, the Tory party rank-and-file is getting increasingly restive. Many MPs and party activists do not feel that Team Cameron has been sufficiently attentive to them and their concerns. They look longingly at the Lib Dems, whose democratic set-up enables MPs and party members to make their views known to Nick Clegg and the leadership. In a Tory party that has always favoured single-minded leadership, the options for representing rank-and-file views are few, particularly as the chairmanship of the 1922 committee remains vacant. As a result, many senior MPs have been reduced to calling hacks to find out

David Blackburn

A long day’s journey into night

Sky News are reporting that Brown is to hold a meeting with Cabinet ministers tonight. Lord Ashdown made it pretty clear on Andrew Marr this morning that there would be no ‘progressive coalition’ with a Labour party that has been comprehensively rejected at the polls, and which would rely on backroom deals with celtic nationalist parties prepared to sell their support for a measure of protection from necessary spending cuts. You’d have thought that tonight’s meeting is the beginning of the end for the Labour government. 

David Blackburn

Swords around a throne

The Sunday Times reports that the Cabinet is suggesting to Gordon Brown that he resign as Prime Minister, and that Labour goes into opposition against a weak Conservative government facing an unenviable economic task. The ‘Caretaker Prime Minister’ did not fly to Scotland to consider a re-shuffle, though that would have provided some light entertainment. And his swift return to London this afternoon suggests that Brown’s premiership is gasping its dying breaths. With the exception of a brief lapse on the telephone, Brown’s conduct has been dignified in recent days. For once, he has led. Will he remain as Labour leader if he resigns as PM? He might; he’s stubborn

Saturday

Alex Massie

Let’s Talk About Tax

We know that europe and perhaps electoral reform will be difficult for the Tories and Lib Dems to agree upon. So let’s talk about something else: tax. Cameron’s email to Tory members today strikes just the right tone and says most of the right things. It makes it clear that he thinks there’s a deal to be done and, importantly, reminds the membership that the Tories will have to give some things up too if the partnership is to be stable enough to last at least two years. That’s important because it’s one way of building trust and convincing the other party that you’re serious. So, on tax, I’d suggest

David Blackburn

It’s obvious that Brown’s the impediment, why doesn’t Labour strike?

Well, Brown the Statesman was a short-lived incarnation. The BBC reports that Brown and Clegg exchanged ‘angry words’ yesterday evening and that Brown delivered a characteristic private political conversation: ‘a diatribe laced with threats’. Clegg and Brown simply cannot work together. This inability to put aside personal differences is far from magnanimous of both men, but it is plain that Brown no longer commands the authority to shape the nation’s future. If there’s no hope of a Lib-Lab coalition with Brown at the helm, then the knives will be sharpening – again. From Labour’s perspective, delaying the inevitable would be fatal as it gives Cameron more time to negotiate with