Fifty-five Percent and All That

There’s no precedent for it, it’s never happened before: it’s unconstitutional, it’s immoral, it’s unethical, it’s possibly illegal, the Daily Mail reckons it’s crashing your house prices and giving you cancer - and it’s coming to a commons vote near you. It’s - a 55% majority in order to force a disillusion of parliament. I know, I know - it’s hard to go and man the barricades over five measly percentage points, but we really ought to try as the newspapers are working very hard to turn this into a big deal for our lovely new coalition government - so let’s pay some attention and take it seriously, ok?

The 55% rule is in effect a very pragmatic trade off for both the Liberal Democrats and the Conservative parties to try and ‘lock in’ their brand spanking new coalition partnership. It is, to continue a rather strained analogy to the point of destruction, a pre-nuptial agreement that states that neither party can just give up and go home whenever they feel like it.

The Liberal Democrats want fixed term parliaments, ending the rather anachronistic tradition of having the sitting Prime Minister decide when the next general election is going to be held. This is not just a point of principle for the Lib Dems: it’s also a highly practical way of securing their place in the new coalition. Under the current system if things are going well for the Tories, David Cameron can just call a General Election on a whim - and go and ambush some nice juicy Lib Dem marginals to get a genuine overall majority in the commons. Removing this power from the PM helps lock the Liberals into the coalition government.

Which is all well and good for Cleggolas and Co, but what about the poor old Tories? Should a dissolution of parliament be decided by a simple majority of votes in the House of Commons - as everything else is - the Conservative Party could be abandoned by their Liberal allies during the hard times ahead, pulling a snap election with the votes of Labour and the other opposition parties in support. Why on earth would the Conservatives agree to such a one-sided arrangement?

The 55% rule makes it impossible for this to happen. This way, the Tories can’t dump the Lib Dems during the good times, and the Lib Dems can’t dump the Tories during the bad times. Like all good marriages, these are the vows: for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health...

And so to the constitutional brouhaha that this most sensible of arrangements has brought about. There has never been a time in the history of the Commons where any matter has been decided by anything other than a simple majority, and so this change, as the Spectator points out, pushes lots of good old fashioned Tory buttons - being an essentially progressive move that further ties up the LibCon alliance.

The Labour Party too are suddenly up in arms about the constitution and our democracy under threat. Jack Straw, never previously a great defender of Parliament’s rights, is uneasy about these ‘undemocratic’ changes (although his son doesn’t seem to mind it too much). This is natural partisanship - the best that Labour can hope for over the next few years is to drive a solid wedge between the happy couple, jumping on whichever side deepens the division the most.

The most disturbing aspect of all of this is the inability of most of our news media and politicians to understand the nature of our democracy. Many seem to have conflated the dissolution of Parliament with a vote of no confidence in the government. Two completely different things: the latter requires, both at present and in the future, a simple Commons majority. The former is based currently on the ‘one man, one vote’ system - the one man in question being the serving Prime Minister, who can pretty much ask the Queen to dissolve Parliament on a whim. Any change from this system has to be regarded as a good thing; it’s better for the country if the stability of a government couldn't depend on just one man throwing a massive wobbly.

The dissenters also seem to believe that the disconnect between the majority for a vote of no confidence and a super-majority for a dissolution will create a nightmare scenario. David Davis brings forth the spectre of some sort of ‘crippled government’; too weak to pass legislation, yet not weak enough for the parliament to be dissolved. Disaster, chaos, pale horsemen, all the usual malarkey will follow, surely?

Probably not: a Parliament that cannot constitute a government in any form will almost certainly dissolve itself out of sheer embarrassment. Can you really conceive of anyone wanting to hold on to ‘power’ (a rather loose term in this hypothetical) when this arises? The government would more likely vote along with the rest of the House for its own dissolution - or possibly attempt to resolve the differences that had caused the coalition’s collapse in the first place. In either situation, Parliament would hardly be left in limbo - our politicians would seek to form a brand new government, shore up the old one, or finally ask the country what they think by asking the Queen to dissolve Parliament and holding a general election.

The current system does not give a coalition enough breathing space to flex in its formation, no possibility for negotiation between two poorly integrated parties. It also offers tremendous powers to the Prime Minister and heavily favours the party in government. Thee 55% super-majority is a step towards fixing some of the inequalities in our flawed system of democracy. If anything, 55% is too low - Will Straw reckons a two-thirds super-majority would be much more workable. Perhaps he should get on the phone to his dad...

I'm shocked, shocked...

Nick Clegg can't seem to catch an even break sometimes. With Sir Malcolm Rifkind somehow comparing the Lib-Lab talks as being related to Robert Mugabe's style of government (why yes, of course - he's in a coalition for the national interest too - it's just the same!) and David Blunkett comparing them to "every harlot in history" (and he should know), the revelation that Nick Clegg is exploring all the options rather than staying true to David Cameron is apparently a huge and shocking revelation.

One can't help but imagine Rifkind in the role of Captain Renault in Casablanca, shocked to see such behaviour. The lady doth protest too much: if Sir Malcolm really didn't think that the Liberal Democrats would be trying to explore every option, to shop around a little bit, then he really is in the wrong career (which would be a bit of a shame as he's been doing it for quite a long time). It's not a question of honour or of loyalty, or even of some sort of 'coalition of the losers' somehow usurping the 'winners' - I think perhaps it would be better to describe the Tories as those who lost less.

No, the only thing that Nick Clegg and the Lib Dems have to worry about is whether they are accurately and properly seeking to implement the manifesto commitments they made to the 23% of the public who voted for them. Some might say that Nick Clegg should talk to Satan if himself if Old Nick favoured proportional representation. I'd not go so far - but I'm glad for one that he's talking to everyone, that the best deal is being sought for those who voted for him and his party, and that our politicians are slowly, painfully in cases, turning to a genuinely different sort of politics. Ish.

If Rifkind and Blunkett object to the Liberal Democrats so much, perhaps they could try to form a coalition between themselves...

Didn't They Do Well

One of the endlessly repeated stories after the election has been the drop of the Lib Dem vote in the actual election as compared with the opinion polls. Call it a drop, or maybe get culinary and talk about the 'collapse of the souffle' or the plain old 'bursting of the bubble' as some have - whatever you like to call it, the general opinion has been that the Liberal Democrats have somehow failed to live up to expectations.

But what on earth were we expecting from them? I don't think anybody was looking out for Nick Clegg to be walking in to Number 10 on May 7th - I'd be surprised to hear a view that they should have increased their seats to over 100. What was realistically being expected was some increase of MPs to something in the mid-70s, making the third party a more robust 'kingmaker' block of votes in the event of a hung parliament.

Some have reflected that the drop in the number of Liberal MPs is a reflection of the public judgement on the party's policies - that there is little substance to the party as a whole beyond the charming face of Mr. Clegg and the wizened wisdom of Mr. Cable. The more right-leaning back bench Tories seem to use this as evidence of a public rejection of the Lib Dems, in a hope to persuade their leadership to get out of any sticky coalition with those nasty yellow devils.

But did the Lib Dems do so badly in the end? Most of their gains in the last 13 years could be best characterised as coming from the fortuitous combination of an unpopular government and an even more unpopular opposition - with the third party playing piggy in the middle and taking the ground from both equally. Indeed, after the last election the Lib Dems were roundly pilloried for not having made greater progress, given the prevailing winds of the Iraq war and Michael Howard.

The high turnout of the 2010 election, combined with the massive assault of the right wing press on Nick Clegg after the first debate, created a partisan environment the likes of which a British election hasn't been conducted in since the 80s. With Labour supporters being born again in response to the spectre of Thatcher, and almost everyone else being motivated by a desire to get rid of Gordon Brown by whatever means necessary, this election presented a very hostile background for the third party. In this light the drop in MPs isn't what's surprising; it's the relatively small nature of that drop.

With the other two parties drumming up their core support for the last big push by spouting messages of fear ('Fear Tories!' ' Fear Brown!'), the way that the Lib Dem vote wasn't entirely drowned out is great news for the party, and a perfect basis for building on. Whatever happens over the next weeks with regard to a coalition, and despite the headline drop in support, it will eventually have to be admitted that the 2010 election represents the Liberal Democrat's greatest victory this century.