Written by Peter Bingle,Chairman, Bell Pottinger Public Affairs
One year on how has the coalition fared?
Despite the petulance displayed by senior Lib Dems at the end of the AV campaign the coalition has done much better than many of us thought possible when it first created by two party leaders in deep trouble with their respective parties. Civility and process have been restored to governance. The blurring of roles which became so endemic under New Labour has been replaced with total clarity on the respective roles of ministers, advisers and officials. This is all for the good.
The hero of the last twelve months has been the Chancellor of the Exchequer. His decision to announce spending cuts of £83 billion in his first Budget was a political masterstroke. If George has called it right on the economy (and most MPs think he has) then the outcome of the next election is already decided. There will be a Tory government with a respectable overall majority. George’s belief that it was essential to have a Lib Dem as Chief Secretary to the Treasury has also proved to be very astute. Credit must be given to Danny Alexander who has not put a foot wrong since being appointed. One of the good things about the coalition is that it has provided politicians such as Danny to have the opportunity to serve as ministers.
The rest of the government is something of a curate’s egg. IDS has impressed with his welfare reforms. BIS is a disaster area. The health reforms are dead in the water. Ken Clarke is being totally mischievous at the Department of Justice. Teresa May is surprising everybody by just how good a Home Secretary she is …
The PM has impressed over the last year. Even his opponents concede privately that he has dazzled. The contrast between David Cameron and Gordon Brown is devastating. He has been helped of course by the Labour Party’s decision to embrace twenty of opposition by electing Ed Miliband as their leader. This is a party that knows that the game is up for the foreseeable future.
What about the Deputy PM? Government has not been easy for Nick Clegg. Personally abused and politically battered, he must sometimes wonder whether it is really worth it. He is leader of a party that shows him very little affection or even respect. He has made more than a few mistakes. He should have asked for a major department as well as the position of Deputy PM. He has allowed Ed Miliband to get under his skin. He also sometimes looks as if he is about to burst into tears. Yet I cannot help myself respecting a man who has sacrificed so much because he believed that it was in the national interest for the Lib Dems to join the coalition.
I suspect that Nick Clegg’s decision to join the coalition will in the end break the Lib Dems. The tension between the Liberals and Social Democrats gets more fractured by the day. At some stage it will snap. The question is then whether Nick Clegg will want to stay in British politics long enough to help a new Liberal Party grow and develop. I suspect not. I think by 2015 (if the coalition lasts that long) he will have had enough of Sheffield, Number 10, British politics and most of all Lib Dem MPs.
It is deeply sad and ironic that one year on the political career (end of?) of David Laws (briefly the epitome of the new politics) will dominate tomorrow’s news agenda. Politics is a tough business. There are more tears of sadness than joy in the body politic. Yet the coalition has done well and deserves praise. It looks at the moment that the coalition’s historic function will be to prepare the ground for an era of Tory rule and the demise of the Liberal Democrats as a party. Who would have thought that a year ago?
It might be worth popping along to your local bookies and having twenty pounds on George Osborne becoming PM in 2017. You heard it here first!
Has the coalition surprised you? What have been its greatest successes? How long will it last? Can the Lib Dems survive as a party?
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