Sunday’s papers are replete with the detritus of hung parliament scenarios and the positioning of the hopeful threesome. Overall, the themes are that Clegg says he will not work with Brown whilst Cameron considers the possibilities of electoral reform and Labour gets hot and cold flushes over who is running their campaign.
According to the polls (and the BBC poll of polls is as good as any under the circumstances) it is going to take an event of seismic proportions to give any of the three parties an overall majority let alone a workable one. And so with 10 days to go, the phoney coalition period begins where inter and intra-party dealing gets mixed up in coded demands expressed as policy statements.
This is virgin territory for all concerned and the likely winners are those who show themselves most adept at traversing such a tricky landscape whilst under partisan press scrutiny. Having been required to exercise strong leadership over wayward candidates and wilful constituencies in the past months, Brown and Cameron now need to rediscover their consensual sides (or invent one in Gordon’s case). They also have to quieten the combined voices of dissent among party ranks and financial backers with promises of largesse or suitable remedies for those would only countenance a coalition with the Lib Dems over their own dead bodies. And then, of course, there is always Europe.
Where does this leave Clegg? Well for one he has put himself on dicey ground in telling Labour that they have to change their leader. Personalising politics can be a dangerous activity in a world where what goes around comes around with predictable regularity. For instance, how would he react to either of the two parties suggesting that the erratic Vince Cable is not up to the job of fronting a coalition’s economic policy?
The accepted reality is that no-one can afford to talk openly about coalitions and thereby risk losing out at the ballot box as tactical voting takes its toll at the last minute. The growth in Lib Dem polling figures has largely been at the expense of the tories and Labour needs to keep up its core vote which includes a greater proportion of the same leafy suburbanites than they care to admit.
But everyone from Adam Boulton to the Bank of England will expect a deal to have been struck within days of the final recounts.
Memories might have faded slightly, but the post-election bickering that passed for negotiation did little to bolster the decisive image of the Welsh Assembly or the One Wales Government that eventually emerged. At times, the process more closely resembled a panic attack than discussions between potential partners. It is doubtful that the UK economy or the electorate could stomach the same kind of sustained hiatus whilst politicians put their upper and lower houses in order.
The first test of the new government, and its regenerated if not actually reformed parliament, will be how soon they can get a political package agreed – without something cataclysmic happening to jumpy financial markets. Which of the current leaders would be best equipped or likely to deliver that kind of crucial outcome is anyone’s guess; and therein is the dilemma and a potential turn-off for many voters.
For all the enthusiasm among press and pundits about the effects on polls of a new ‘third force’, there is little evidence to date that this phenomenon will actually boost turnout. Soundbites and smart tailoring aside, does anyone really believe that the political parties would be any more competent - or accountable - in running the country either alone or in coalition. It might a new arrangement but they would remain the same old deckchairs on the same doomed ship steered by the likes of Goldman Sachs.
1 Comments:
As if things arent depressing enough during the week.
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