Foreign Perspectives

Although it might sound peculiar to outsiders that the Liberal Democrats could possibly think that they could do a deal with either the Conservatives or the Labour party, it makes quite a bit of sense. After all, they’ve spent the last 30 years or so trying to position themselves as the party of the centre so it stands to reason that they’d have something in common with both the other main parties.

At the moment the difference between the two potential contenders is that Gordon Brown (Labour) seems prepared to do anything and everything he can to stay in power regardless of any consequences that there might be later. On the other hand David Cameron seems to have come up with a considered response recognising the areas of common ground whilst not ignoring the areas where there are differences (notably on the timing of debt reduction, on immigration and on voting reform). I suspect in reality we can safely ignore Brown’s pleas from desperation and assume that a coalition will be with the Conservatives.

Of the difficult areas, differences about the timing of debt reduction probably aren’t as big an issue as they might appear. Yes, it’s probably the most important difference but it’s an area where there are so many shades of opinion (and nobody knows the “right” answer) that there’s quite a bit of leeway on the issue if need-be. Immigration was a clear faux-pas on the part of Nick Glegg so it seems likely that any issues on that score would be quietly dropped. Voting reform has for a very long time been the big issue with the Liberals though there’s no really easy answer with it. Their issue is that despite them picking up about 20% of the votes, they generally get about 50 seats and not the 120 or so that 20% equates to. However, to get that 120 the country would need to move to an entirely part-based, national proportional representation system which would have an entirely uncertain outcome and potentially mean that elections counts could take several weeks to produce a result and totally remove the link between a particular MP and their constituency. Thus, a non-national system would be used and that’s unlikely to fully reflect that 20% of votes in terms of seats won. There are so many issues to consider in this that the commission on offer seems the best way to go although in reality it’s quite likely to stay “it’s working fairy well, let’s not try to fix it”.

What about cabinet seats? I could easily see a Liberal Minster for Education, a Liberal Minister for the Environment and perhaps even a Liberal Minister for Health (although that’s a big ministry so they’d likely need to work up to that).

Assuming that’s a runner in some form, it would even be easy to foresee the potential for a more long-term alliance between the two parties although that’s something for four or five years from now.