Disgruntled Liberal Democrats, have a word with yourselves

Theresa May cites same-sex marriage & taking lowest-paid out of tax altogether as Cameron's legacy... pic.twitter.com/rJ46LvwRU5

— Rachel (@underthenettle) July 13, 2016

Plenty of this going around at the moment.  As David Cameron steps down as Prime Minister after six years at Number 10, his one-time coalition partners are clearly feeling a little left out.

In one sense, of course, this is entirely understandable; these things were Liberal Democrat manifesto promises, which were then delivered in government – they absolutely should take credit for making these policies happen.  But so should David Cameron.  After all, how far would these policies have got if the Lib Dems had tried to implement them on their own?

I have written before that I think the Lib Dems were very unfairly treated at last year's general election, and that history will generally be a lot kinder to Nick Clegg and his party's time in office than were the confused and angry public who seemingly couldn't get their heads around what 'coalition government' was actually all about.  But now, it is those same Lib Dems who seem to want to claim sole credit for government achievements between 2010-15; this is also not how coalition government works.

Ultimately, Cameron was the Prime Minister whose (coalition) government enacted policies like same-sex marriage.  It happened under his watch, and with his backing.  His actions as the leader of a coalition government will form a part of his legacy as Prime Minister; they will also form a part of Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats' legacy, too – after all, the same thing can appear in more than one legacy.  Trying to take credit away from Cameron for a policy like same-sex marriage is as churlish as to try and take credit away from Clegg – it would not, after all, have happened without either of them.

Another 'achievement' of the coalition administration was the Fixed Term Parliament Act of 2011.  Another Lib Dem policy enacted by Cameron.  Maybe Lib Dem activists and politicians who campaigned for this piece of legislation would like to stop agitating for new Prime Minister Theresa May to call an immediate election to seek her own mandate for a second, and consider that it is their actions (or, at least, their Act) which have made this a whole lot less likely?

The myth of the 'Progressive Alliance'

The BBC's Challengers' Debate which aired last Thursday was interesting for several reasons.  It was particularly strange to see Ed Miliband – remember him? 'Hopeless' or 'useless' Ed Miliband – come off surprisingly well, seeming the sanest, most serious option with the most credibility compared with the leaders of four minor, rather parochial parties.

One of the most frustrating things, however, was the evidence that the concept of a 'Progressive Alliance' – of all the parties who are even vaguely on 'the left' of British politics teaming up to work together 'for the common good' – still hasn't died the death it richly deserves.

In the UK, we live in a multi-party democratic system; something which most 'progressives' consider a good thing, and would want to increase.  "Multi-party politics is here to stay!" claims the Electoral Reform Society, who say they campaign for 'a better democracy'.  Why, then, do the leaders and representatives of self-professed 'progressive' parties forsake this view when push comes to shove, and instead attempt to reduce politics to a simple, binary choice between 'the Tories' and 'not the Tories'?

On the BBC debate last week, Scottish National Party leader Nicola Sturgeon made an offer to Ed Miliband, claiming she could help the Labour leader 'lock out the Tories' (a stance which is rather at odds with the SNP's earlier claims that Labour and the Conservatives are 'all the same' – if this were really the case, why would Sturgeon be happy to work with one but not with the other?).  The implication of this exchange between Sturgeon and Miliband, however, is that it is actually Labour and the SNP (and the Green Party, Plaid Cymru, and anyone else who comes under the broad 'progressive' banner) who are 'the same' – simply by dint of not being the Tories.

There may be some common ground between these parties (both the SNP and Labour are advocating a 'Mansion Tax', for example), but there are fundamental differences, too.  Even aside from the most obvious split between the parties – that the Labour Party is innately unionist, whilst the SNP have long campaigned for Scotland's independence – there are other issues on which the parties are divided (for example, on the renewal of the Trident Nuclear Deterrent, which Ed Miliband explicitly said he supported during last week's debate on the BBC).  Add into this mix the Green Party – which might agree with the SNP on Trident, but has starkly different plans from Labour in areas such as immigration, education, and a referendum on Britain's membership of the European Union – and Plaid Cymru – who oppose welfare caps and are looking for billions more funding to devolved Wales – and we can see that the concept of the 'progressive alliance' airbrushes the heterogeneity of these different parties and their diverse aims and policies, instead assuming that anybody who doesn't vote for the Conservatives automatically dream the same dream and want the same thing.

This doesn't mean that these parties could not work together in a coalition government, or in a 'supply and confidence' voting arrangement – we have been governed for the last five years by a coalition of two parties who disagree in many areas, after all.  But this is different from the suggestion that these parties are all the same because they all disagree with the Conservatives.

Indeed, on some issues, a 'progressive' party may agree more with a party on 'the right' than with their fellow left-wingers.  For example, the Green Party propose to hold a referendum on Britain's rôle in the EU (although they would campaign for Britain to stay in); the Conservatives have also promised an EU referendum, but Labour (much more a natural ally of the Greens, you would think) have ruled it out.  The Green Party also support scrapping the costly HS2 high-speed rail infrastructure project – another area where they align with UKIP policy instead of with their 'progressive' counterparts in the SNP, Plaid Cymru or Labour.  To lump all these 'progressive' parties in together as being in agreement with each other, and as opposing the Tories, consistently and across the board, is simplistic and wrong.

It is worth remembering that, in the UK, you can only vote for a party or candidate – you cannot specifically vote against a party or candidate.  It is fallacious to claim that a vote for any one party is automatically a vote against another party, and a de facto rejection of that party's stance on all issues. Any attempt to turn the UK's interesting and diverse plurality of left-wing political parties and movements into one homogeneous bloc with the same views and the same aims, therefore, is extremely facile.  The 'progressive alliance' remains, I am afraid, a delusion which exists only in the minds of nerdy politics wonks obsessed with strategies and polls, and naïve left-wing student 'activists'.

Demo-crass-y

'Democracy', we are told, is a good thing.  Unfortunately, it turns out most people no longer know what 'democracy' means.

According to Graeme Archer (writing today for the Daily Telegraph), a minority Labour government supported by the Scottish Nationalists would 'have no democratic legitimacy'.  As Twitter user 'Primly Sable' points out, this must mean the last coalition government also 'lacked legitimacy'.

@TeleComment @graemearcher So the current government also lacks legitimacy?
— Primly Stable (@PrimlyStable) April 21, 2015

And it's true that I did see plenty of people complaining about the coalition in 2010, claiming that the government had no mandate.  Phrases like "nobody voted for this government!" were very much in evidence (despite being demonstrably false).  The truth is, however, not that those people genuinely believed the coalition government 'lacked legitimacy', but more that they simply didn't like the coalition government.  All too often, questioning a government's mandate is simply a tactic to damage the credibility of a government you don't support.

I do not like the SNP.  Not one bit.  But it is ludicrous to think that, if they win a significant number of Westminster seats on 7th May (as well they might!), any influence they end up having in a UK government is somehow 'illegitimate' – as if they took part in some sort of heist.  Like MPs from any other party, SNP MPs are democratically elected to parliament, because that is who the voters in that constituency want to represent them.  And although the SNP, or their supporters, have occasionally been guilty of this themselves (think 'postal votes' in the Scottish Independence Referendum last September!), being an advocate of democracy also means not crying 'foul!' and branding the whole system bankrupt just because you end up with a result you don't like.

It's fine not to like the government – in fact, it should be encouraged!  But if that's the case, just say so, instead of hiding behind high-minded obfuscation about 'democratic legitimacy'.

Premature wrangling

If I were the leader of a political party ("ohh, if only!" I hear you say), the only thing I would 'rule out' at this stage of my campaign is ruling anything out.

I can't, for the life of me, understand our premature obsession with 'deals' and 'red lines' in the run-up to this year's General Election.  It's like we all got bitten by the coalition government bug five years ago, and now we want to skip the actual business of campaigning and voting altogether so we can get straight down to the good stuff – the coalition negotiations.

The trouble is, it's very difficult to negotiate 'blind' like this.  Which is why I think it so incredibly foolish for party leaders to be ruling out dealing with certain other parties already – and so irresponsible of journalists and others to try and hustle them into doing so.

You (as the leader of a political party) might well say you would never deal with party x in the event of a hung parliament – and you might very well mean it, too – but it's all a little meaningless when you don't know how many seats they're going to have after the vote, or even how many seats you're going to have!  If a deal with party x then becomes your best (or only!) option, you're going to regret that you backed yourself into a corner during the campaign in order to win a cheap round of applause during a television appearance.

In 'A Scandal in Bohemia', the inimitable Sherlock Holmes famously says:

It is a capital mistake to theorise before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.

Increasingly, it seems that this is exactly what our political leaders are doing – laying the groundwork for coalition talks before they have any facts to deal with.  And that, to me, seems rather daft.

Admit it: you don't want principled politicians either

During Michael Gove's tenure as Secretary Of State for Education, he was reported to be the least popular politician in Britain.  His reforms to the education system were met with opposition by teaching unions, and his policies led to strikes, protests, and eventually to Prime Minister David Cameron moving him sideways to the post of Chief Whip during a recent government reshuffle.

One of the most common criticisms of Gove was that he was an ideologue; that his reforms were rooted in an immutable belief system - an ideology - without taking into account the evidence of research studies or the opinions of either experts or the public.  (Interestingly, if your main opposition to a policy if that it is 'ideological', then it follows that your opposition to it is also rooted in ideology - but that is probably a topic best explored another time.)

Strangely, however, Deputy Prime Minister and leader of the Liberal Democrat party Nick Clegg has also received a lot of criticism during this parliamentary term - but for exactly the opposite reasons.  Clegg has been branded a 'sell-out', and cruelly mocked online and in the popular press for appearing to ditch his principles and beliefs for a slice of power in a coalition government with David Cameron's Conservatives.

Often, it is in fact the same people who attack Gove's dogmatic idealism on the one hand, and Clegg's political expediency on the other.  These inconsistents need to make up their mind about what they actually want; do they really want politicians who act out of principle and conviction, and stick doggedly to what they know in their hearts to be right, even in the face of fierce opposition - or do they want politicians who listen to the public, and to activists and focus groups, and supplely bend with each shift in prevailing opinion, adapting their world view to suit what the voters want?

The answer, I'm afraid, is neither of these options.  People do not want either type of politician in office - they simply want politicians who agree with them on all issues.  They want politicians who stick to their guns as a matter of principle when the stance is one they agree with, but who modify their approach in the face of public opinion when they have a different view.

Unfortunately, in politics people will disagree with you sometimes - often, in fact.  Now, you can prefer the idea of politicians who are principled and do what they believe is right, or politicians who are pragmatic and listen to people, but wanting the best of both worlds all the time is not very realistic - and, frankly, a little immature.

Damned if you do, and damned if you don't - the myth of the political "U-turn"

So, with Twitter foaming at the mouth about the Leveson Inquiry, and its revelations about Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt's involvement in News Corporation's takeover bid of BSkyB, I am once again dipping my toe into the turbulent weir of political blogging.  Albeit on a totally different subject...

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The U-turn.  What is it?

I have long struggled with the concept of the U-turn (known, apparently, as the Flip-Flop, in America) in politics.  Describing sudden or drastic changes to policy, it is used almost exclusively as a term of derision, or accusation.  The idea supposedly being that one accuses a U-turning politician of not standing up for his convictions, and staying strong in the face of criticism.

Now, when a Government minister announces new policy details, he can expect criticism.  Criticism from the Opposition is almost guaranteed, and as such can largely be ignored, as it will often be Opposition politicians being contrary simply for the sake of it.  (These days, Opposition politicians seem to view their job as being to criticise the Government position on everything - even if that is exactly what their position would also be, if they were in office.  This, to my mind, is a sad state of affairs in itself, but is a topic for another post.)  It is criticism from independent and non-political sources, and from the public as a whole, on which I am going to focus here.

Let's look at the recent furore surrounding proposed reforms to the NHS (National Health Service).  The Coalition Government, and particularly Health Minister Andrew Lansley, has come in for a lot of criticism over these plans, with NHS workers, Trade Unions, and the general public campaigning and protesting over the issue.  Lansley has been urged to "Drop The Bill", and abandon the proposed reforms, by protestors at every stage of this legislation.

(Whether this criticism is deserved or not is another issue; this is not a post about the Health Bill - I am merely using it to illustrate my point - and I do not wish to debate the Bill itself here.)

So, what would happen if Lansley bowed to pressure, and did drop the Health Bill?  In all probability, he would be further pilloried for having done so - his detractors would sneer, and ridicule him for performing the infamous U-turn, and not sticking to his guns over the issue of the Health Bill.

So, Lansley cannot win.  Whether he pushes the Health Bill through or not, the public will hate him.  This is the problem I have with the concept of the U-turn.

I can quite understand that some people may not agree with certain Government policies, and that they may campaign to change these policies.  I do not understand why they would be such sore winners.  After all, if you have been urging a politician to change something, and then he does change it, surely you ought to be pleased?  You got exactly what you wanted - so why then lambaste him for doing what you asked?

By these standards, a U-turn is essentially a politician taking notice of public opinion, and acting on it.  Isn't that what politicians are meant to do?

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Rest assured, as with all my forays into political blogging before, I will soon take fright and run for cover.  Normal service (advice on chopping carrots and eating sandwiches, and moaning about people on the telly) will resume shortly.  Thank you for your patience.