It is Friday, May 7, and (to adapt Tony Blair’s triumphant words in 1997) a new dawn has not broken for a weary David Cameron. Even campaign appearances by his charming wife, Samantha, have failed to reverse narrowing Tory poll leads, not least because Sarah Brown has succeeded, almost, in humanising her bearish husband. So after a fractious election it’s hung parliament time.
Conservative failure to capitalise on Brown’s economic Dunkirk means the claims of Nick Clegg, leader of the Liberal Democrats — and husband to Miriam, an attractive Spanish commercial lawyer — can no longer be laughed at. His party holds the balance in parliament. Clegg has long suspected this would be his moment. The tell-tale sign is that for months he has been in full confessional mode about his domestic child-caring duties, the trademark of all ambitious modern politicians. But is he fit to go into coalition or, more likely, prop up a minority administration?
One shouldn’t underestimate how far the Lib Dems have already travelled. “I can remember when half the parliamentary party was mad and our leader was on trial at the Old Bailey,” sighs one old Liberal hand recalling the 1970s when Jeremy Thorpe’s entanglement with a former male model led to the bizarre shooting of a dog on Exmoor. “In the opinion polls we were once zero, within the margins of statistical error,” he adds with a chuckle.
Today the Lib Dems have 63 seats, having won more than 22% of the vote in the 2005 election. For the first time in its history the party won more than two seats from Labour in a general election, 12 in all: usually its fortunes go down as those of the Conservatives improve. Many of its MPs today are sane; the sandal count is down, although beards still sprout here and there. Some of the Lib Dem top team look positively gnarled and weather-beaten alongside their counterparts in the cabinet and on the Conservative front benches.
Vince Cable condemns the wickedness of our debt-ridden economy with the authority of an Old Testament prophet. Chris Huhne, who shadows the home secretary, and David Laws, the party’s incisive education spokesman, have gravitas too.
Clegg has his best chance yet to make an impact on the national stage. In happier times, Cameron conceded a series of three-cornered television debates. The Lib Dem leader is the chief beneficiary, gaining equal billing with the big boys, the dream of all thirdparty leaders. This will be his big test. Aided by Joanna Lumley, the universally appealing actress, he has hitherto notched up one notable success alone: the campaign to give Gurkha soldiers a home in the United Kingdom. Now that the broadcasters have presented him with an open goal, he must prove he can shoot in the right direction.
Unusually for a Lib Dem leader, Clegg gives the appearance of being genuinely equidistant between Labour and Conservatives: his predecessors, Menzies Campbell, Charles Kennedy and Paddy Ashdown, all lent left out of conviction and ambition. As a young man Clegg once worked at the European commission for Leon Brittan, a Tory politician, and doesn’t show much liking for Brown — he took more umbrage than Cameron when they were patronised by the prime minister in face-to-face talks on the expenses scandal. As the representative of a younger generation that sees new Labour as authoritarians past their sell-by date, he may think it’s time Brown departed.
On May 7 Clegg will concede that the party with the “stronger mandate” has a “moral right to seek to govern”. He has a short pro forma list of demands for supporting a minority administration: reform of the tax system, more spending on education for poorer children, a switch to a greener economy and political reform in Westminster. Then the fun may begin down the road in the City of London.
Doomsayers fear that if the markets think the parties are likely to put off the unpopular repayment of government debt after a tied election result, the consequences could be a nose-diving pound, a downgrading of the country’s AAA credit rating and turmoil on the stock market. A Hansard Society report on hung parliaments published last week pompously warns that “any run on sterling or a collapse in the share market the day after the election would either be predatory and speculative or a product of wilful ignorance about the workings of British democracy”. Which invites a curt reply: since when were markets impressed by sermons?
The City will not be reassured, either, if the Lib Dems delay things to seek their members’ support for coalition building. The party leadership argues, however, that no such consultation is necessary after an election. They add that, out of the 10 largest fiscal consolidations in leading western countries, seven have taken place under coalition or minority governments, notably Sweden in the 1990s. Cable and Clegg are more serious about the deficit than Labour. And according to the doyen of classical liberal economists, Samuel Brittan, who argued last week that there was nothing to fear from a hung parliament, the markets may have priced one in already.
The trouble is that Britain is not consensual Sweden. All the political parties have been “deliberately opaque” about how they will cut the budget deficit after an election. But some are more opaque than others. Brown has been utterly evasive, while the chancellor has put off a comprehensive public spending review. In a pre-budget swoop, Liam Byrne, the chief secretary, last week ruled out any tax rises at all to deal with the deficit: rosy 3.5% growth and efficiency savings will spare us further pain, he says. The cheque is in the post and Labour promises to love us in the morning after the election, too.
The parties disagree about the timing of repayment too. Here the Lib Dems’ position is closer to Labour. They would not support a government that tried to make spending cuts in the next financial year. Slashing spending early in the recovery would be “economic masochism”, says Clegg. Would the Lib Dems vote down a minority Tory government’s emergency budget if it decided that cuts made by George Osborne, the chancellor, were premature? With their passion for higher taxes on the better off (and Europe), they make strange bedfellows for the Tories in any case.
It could all get very messy. Don’t forget that Brown, as the incumbent, even with fewer seats and votes than the Conservatives, could still try to hang on to present a Queen’s speech. Then again, Brown or Cameron could govern without a majority, daring the Lib Dems in a game of chicken to bring them down. A minority government could be formed on the basis of an informal agreement with the Lib Dems. In 1977-8 the Liberals, “in the pursuit of economic recovery” and in exchange for consultations on policy, agreed that the minority Labour government would not be defeated on a confidence motion.
If the Tories or Labour fall just short of a majority, it may take only the acquiescence of the nationalist parties of the Celtic fringe to prop up a government too. Of course another, unlikely, option would be a formal coalition. The Lib Dems would like a referendum on a change to a more proportional voting system, anathema to the Tories. Labour flirts with the alternative vote, which wouldn’t give the Lib Dems a permanent lock on government.
Perhaps it’s all a pipe dream. The Conservative lead in marginal seats could still give Cameron victory (although our poll today shows growing fear of Tory cuts and tax rises). But last summer the Lib Dems were resigned to losing seats to the Tories. Now the narrowing Tory lead gives them confidence that they can hold their own.
For Dave’s sake, Sam Cameron had better keep on smiling for the cameras. Or else we will be seeing a lot more of Nick, and even shy Miriam, in the turbulent politics to come.
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