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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Let’s kill this myth once again. Cameron never had the chance of a minority government in May 2010
I’ve made this point before but Gord had all the cards in his hand on May 7th 2010. The Tories had failed to win a majority and there was no obligation on him to go to the palace and recommend to the Queen that Cameron should be invited to form a government.
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It would be interesting to see how the markets would have reacted to the political chaos that a minority government would have caused.
This gives me another opportunity to say that the coalition has performed much better and been more cohesive than I ever expected. The Conservatives and the Lib Dems have both, on the whole, behaved maturely and in the national interest. There has been little of the friction and resignations (i.e. toys thrown out of prams) that I expected.
David Cameron reached a coalition deal with the Lib Dems because it suited him well. As it happens, I think he made a very sensible decision. But he could equally sensibly have played much more hard ball if he'd wanted to.
I have said before that modern studies and then history students will be studying the Coalition agreement and how it came about for a long time. Once again the tories did brilliantly and were clearly very well prepared for the eventuality. The Lib Dems could probably have driven a harder bargain but they too worked in the national interest.
Next time around, as Cameron is already PM, a minority government is much more feasible but it would still be unwise. There are many, many cuts and difficult decisions to come as we try to eliminate the largest structural deficit in the developed world. Only a government with a broad base and a clear majority is going to be able to achieve this.
At the moment the only such government that seems at all likely would be a Labour majority. I genuinely believe that that would be a disaster. Labour seemed to have learned nothing from their past mistakes and are simply not willing to engage in the work that needs to be done. They have opposed all of the modest cuts that the economy could stand in this Parliament. I really cannot see them making the necessary cuts in the next.
The elephant in the room which is not even mentioned in the article is that the Parliamentary Labour Party was not in the mood to stay in government, and was not in the mood to do a confidence-and-whatever-else deal with the Lib Dems, either with Gordon Brown or David Miliharman or whoever else. The idea that the Labour PLP would have put up with a few months of unstable ad-hoc governing in the midst of a simultaneous leadership election is doubleplusdribblefrantic.
The Lib Dems would have known that it would be suicidal to prop up a rotten minority Labour government, because they would have known that it would lead to both Labour and the Lib Dems being massacred in a second general election - i.e. a majority Conservative government with no Lib Dem influence whatever.
Labour would have gone into opposition regardless of whether there was any deal or coalition between the Conservative Party and the Lib Dems; without the Coalition there *would* indeed have been a minority Conservative government and Gordon Brown would have advised the Queen accordingly.
1. As mentioned by antifrank, the Lib Dems could have supported the Conservatives in a Supply and Confidence agreement - something that was explicitly on the table, as documented by various actors during the days of negotiations.
2. The Lib Dems could have not supported a Labour Queen's speech (abstaining would have given the Tories a majority), which would have led directly to a Vote of No Confidence in the Labour government, even if it wasn't treated as such (which frankly, given the importance of a Queen's Speech, it should be). Assuming the Lib Dems didn't then back Labour, they'd have been out and Cameron, as Leader of the Opposition, would have been invited to try to form a government.
3. Labour could have been brought down by dissenting voices from inside.
I simply don't see how the Lib Dems could have given Labour the blank cheque necessary for the scenario to work. Who do you negotiate with to form any agreement if Brown is beyond consideration and there's no replacement? For that very reason, I don't just think that the Tories were the most likely option but in reality, the only option.
If, however, I'm wrong in that above assumption, I do agree with Mike that it would have been a very unstable government, one which would have continued to lose support as it was attacked by the financial markets both for the uncertainty over its leadership, policies and future, and for the policies it would have had to follow in the interim (certainly next to no cuts, whoever was Chancellor - there'd be too much backbench opposition for a government a long way from a majority to start with, and the prospective leaders would have had to court the unions for support), which would have looked navel-gazing in its leadership election at a time when the economy was still in crisis, and which would have suffered far more - as the government - from the drip, drip of resignations over expenses and election scandals.
I'm sure that if the Lib Dems had been daft enough to put Labour back in - and to keep on voting for them in key divisions - both parties would have suffered and there'd only be one outcome to that in the next election, whenever that might have been.
Would a Conservative minority have fared worse? I suspect it would have been in a holding pattern for a few months before winning a second election based upon a honeymoon "give us the tools to complete the job" election.
I think it unwise to rule out any coalition in advance, the electorate may deliver a parliament where only one coalition is possible once again.
Overall I too think the coalition has worked well. Still much to do, but the country is a better place than 2010 on so many parameters.
The alternative scenario - of an unstable (still in a minority, even in combination) agreement between Labour and the Lib Dems - could, constitutionally, have happened - but in order for it to do so it would require the collaboration of the leading members of both parties to allow it to happen in the full knowledge that there would inevitably be a Conservative landslide before the end of 2010. In other words, it would have been necessary for Brown, Harman, Miliband, Clegg, Cable and others all to be secret undercover Conservative agents, secretly and cunningly plotting to destroy their own parties' electoral chances for 10 years ahead.
With the slightly unexpected win of Ed Miliband they did not get as fresh a start as they might of done but David deserved no better given his cowardice in challenging Brown when invited to do so by Darling.
Labour have done extraordinarly well in coming together as a unified party under Ed and the old Blair/Brown splits have largely been swept away, at least in public. They do look hungry for power again, less than 4 years after they lost it. Ed deserves a lot of credit for that. The tories took much, much longer to recover. Arguably they still haven't which is one of the things that makes Cameron's life so difficult.
On topic, I think David Herdson's analysis, particularly point 2 is correct: because Gordon was already PM he didn't need to be invited to form a government by HMQ (I think that's right though not quite certain of the detail - at the very least convention demands she invite him to do so even if he couldn't command a majority). Assuming he accepted the challenge, he could form whatever government he felt like. However, if the LDs had declined to back the Queen's Speech, or for that matter abstained on a Conservative no confidence motion, he would have had to tender his resignation, leading to Cameron as the leader of the largest party being invited to attempt to form a government. AFAIK all of these steps would be good old British convention (e.g. HMQ could invite Clegg not Cameron to have a crack if she really wanted to) rather than "compulsory" - which means that there would have been no realistic possibility of any person involved failing to follow the conventions.
An experimental question put by ICM for The Scotsman poll asked people to predict what the result would be. Pollsters said this “Wisdom” question taps into the “hive mind” of voters.
The poll of 1,004 Scots showed that, on average, voters expected the result of the vote on 18 September to be 53 per cent against independence and 47 per cent in favour.
However, asking those who have decided how they will vote a more traditional polling question, 57 per cent backed the No camp, while 43 per cent favoured independence.
Of all those polled, 49 per cent are against independence and 37 per cent in favour, marking an increase of five points in the No vote’s lead since Chancellor George Osborne, Labour shadow chancellor Ed Balls and Lib Dem Chief Secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander ruled out allowing an independent Scotland to join a sterling currency union.
The result of the so-called “Wisdom” question on how people think the result will end up has been taken as a warning by both sides that the contest is still close.
http://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/top-stories/scottish-independence-poll-points-to-close-result-1-3317310
Cllr Stuart Currie @cllrStu 18 mins
Willie Walsh, CEO Brit Airways asked if making plans in case of #indy - "No we think (indy) could be positive for us if it happens"
Mrs F @AyrDelighted 21 mins
BBC to BA chief exec "do u have contingencies planned if Scots vote yes?" BA reply "no, scot gov plan to abolish APD so it'll be a benefit"
That's amazing.
Can you get a quote from the CEO of Hersheys?
Back on topic there’s a set of C-i-F readers who seem to to think that either a minority Lab or a Lab/LD government was possible, and in spite of both reasoned argument and vulgar abuse stick to that view.
It’s rather touching, actually. I sometimes think they believe in Father Christmas, too!
Fewer than one in five Welsh voters say they would like to see an independent Scotland, a BBC Cymru Wales poll reveals.
The survey found only 5% of people want to see an independent Wales, but that figure rose to 7% in the event of an independent Scotland.
The number of voters who want to see the Welsh assembly abolished has risen 10% in the past four years.
But more than a third said they would like to see it gain more powers.
BBC Cymru Wales' annual St David's Day poll, carried out by pollsters ICM, found the most popular constitutional preference was for more powers for the Welsh assembly, with 37% support.
But 23% said they wanted to see it abolished, a figure 10% higher than that recorded in 2010.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-26378274
No ideas how long it will take.
I thought it may have objected to my last post ...
F1: engine homologation is today. Renault want an extension. Because of the entirely fair and reasonable way the voting works (6 for Ecclestone, 6 for Todt, 1 each for six teams) if Ecclestone and Todt agree, it'll go through.
It shouldn't. But I imagine an extension will be granted.
Glad pb.com's back, and cheers for the explanation, Mr. Smithson.
King Cole, thankfully I've not suffered that, though occasionally I got logged out and in again for no apparent reason.
"One of the best rumours of the winter is about Sebastian Vettel. At the first test in Jerez, it is said anecdotally, midway through the second day, after a fractured and massively truncated programme of kangaroo-hopping around laps as a result of the chronic problems of the Renault engine, the world champion got out of his car and said something along the lines of: 'This is pointless; I'm not driving that again until it's sorted out.' And left."
It may be developing into a real scandal there.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/10652645/Surgeons-fear-over-heart-surgery-patients-in-Wales.html
My point is that Cameron would never have got the minority government opportunity because Brown would have sat tight as he had every right to do.
In more senses than one!
If only the bullshit really was dead. It will be soon.
http://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2014/feb/27/abcs-local-newspapers
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-scotland-business-26366464
Now Salmond is trying to rewrite the future
In the Land of Eck, nothing is what it seems. In this other world, what Alex Salmond pronounces is what will be – no matter what everyone else, no matter how prestigious or expert, says.
And so it was again yesterday. The boss of one of Scotland's oldest and most highly regarded institutions said independence threatened its continued existence in its present form in Edinburgh.
He did so in words that everyone on every last corner of this country, if not the planet, understood; indeed the bills for the Edinburgh Evening News, a newspaper that has studiously refrained from taking sides in the referendum debate, shrieked the message on every street corner: "Standard Life Warns It May Leave Capital."
But down in the Nat bunker, things were different.......
.......But when it comes to rewriting history there's nothing to beat politicians. However, where Alex Salmond differs from the common herd is that he's trying to rewrite the future.
But they're all bluffing, says Mr Salmond. He'll stare them down, he says. It is the most bizarre, the emptiest approach to a major plank of government policy that anyone has ever heard.
And from the blank looks on the faces of many of his cabinet colleagues, that's what they think too.
This emperor really does have no clothes.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/scotland/10666579/Now-Salmond-is-trying-to-rewrite-the-future.html
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Personally I dislike third-party cookies hugely (I don't want Google following me all over the web, thanks) so I use Firefox, with third-party cookies enabled, purely for posting on PB; and return to my usual browser for other sites.
That said, Salmond's approach does appear rather odd.
Since there isn't 'news' in the Massie piece I quoted it because it was entertainingly written.....
http://alturl.com/yv4o2
What's really scaring them, of course, is the thought of a second successive hung Parliament, this time with Labour as the largest Party. Ed Miliband offers the Tories a Grand co-alition "because the nature of what must be done must command widespread confidence". This puts the Tories in a nice cleft stick: say "yes" and the base p*sses off to UKIP; say "no" and Ed calls a swift second election and secures a handsome majority on the back of accusing the Tories of putting Party before Country.
And if I were a Tory, I'd be scared, too. Indeed, whichever of the major Parties comes second next time may well have run out of road, so fast is our political landscape changing.
1. The likelihood of the LibDems propping up Gordon Brown as PM for months whilst Labour elected a new leader is close to zero. Further the numbers for Lab/LibDem were 11 short of a majority.
2. PM Brown was entitled to remain in office until defeated, most likely in the Queens Speech. However the pressure on him to resign as a substantially general election defeated PM in terms of seats and votes would have been enormous.
3. You also note that PM David Miliband would have asked for a dissolution for an early election. It's highly likely this would not have been granted as the Queen's advisors would likely have told her to send for Cameron in an attempt to form an administration. The Queen is not obliged to grant a dissolution if an viable alternative exists.
There is precedent in the Feb 74 election where neither party had a majority but Heath remained in office for a few days whilst a failed attempt to form a Con/Lib was tried. Heath resigned, having not tried for a dissolution, and Wilson became PM of a minority government.
Accordingly all other options having failed in your scenario it is almost certain Cameron would have formed a minority administration.
This is pretty astounding for what used to be the main paper of the Edinburgh (especially) and much of the Scottish middle and upper classes, and was a great middle of the road read till a certain A. Neil got his paws on it. One factor has to be the extraordinarily poor and biased coverage of politics - I am sure a lot of its current subscribers are elderly people who get it because it's their lifelong habit. I used to take it (despite having to hold my nose at some of the columnists) but stopped when the Sunday edition Photoshopped a swastika on a photo of some chaps with a Saltire flag. IT - or what it used to be - will be a huge loss to political and social life in Scotland.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7enLKrxLrI&
By comparison, in 2010 he felt it was okay to hang on despite falling 68 seats short.
Whoops-a-Daisy, it's a car crash. Who'd've thunk it?
'Celebrity hairstylist Nicky Clarke says Scots are not educated enough to make political decisions on their own'
- The English media personality claims Scots do not understand economics and need to wise up before voting in the independence referendum in September.
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/celebrity-hairstylist-nicky-clarke-scots-3188406#.Uw-fgaDZa6H.facebook
More please Mr Cameron! Much more.
"It's fair to say Renault's request for an extension to the engine homologation deadline has stirred up a bit of a hornet's nest. It's a very controversial thing to request, for two reasons - 1) these engine rules are effectively only in F1 because Renault wanted them and threatened to quit if they were not introduced; 2) the manufacturers have already had an extra year to develop the engines, after the initial date for the introduction of hybrid turbos was pushed back from 2013. Renault want an extra two months of development before specs are frozen, by the way. Contrary to what I wrote earlier, unanimity is needed for Renault's request to pass. Apologies for any confusion."
I imagine Mercedes will have a short, Anglo-Saxon response to Renault's suggestion.
Mr. Dickson, I'm not sure why the opinions of Clarke and Collymore are particularly relevant.
Had Brown not resigned the government then within three weeks there'd have been a vote on Labour's Queen's Speech. Apart from anything else, that Speech would have been an absurdity, coming in the middle of a Labour leadership campaign when it's entirely plausible that some candidates dissented from its contents. Queen's Speeches and Budgets are usually regarded as votes of confidence as if parliament will not support the government's programme or supply it the funds, then that's tantamount to losing the support of the Commons.
Unless the Lib Dems had backed Labour on the Queen's Speech, there would have been immense pressure for Labour - which had already been described as having lost and no mandate to carry on by people like John Reid and David Blunkett, IIRC - to resign. If Brown had ignored that pressure, the Conservatives would without doubt have tabled a formal Vote of No Confidence which again, unless the Lib Dems had backed Labour, would have gone against the government. At that point, Brown would have had no option but to resign, both personally and on behalf of the government. By convention, the Queen would then call on Cameron, as Leader of the Opposition, to try to form a government.
Brown could have tried to stay in Number 10 but without a Lab-LD deal - something which I just can't accept was a possibility when the Lib Dems had no-one to do a deal with once Brown resigned - he couldn't have lasted the month.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/liberaldemocrats/7709067/Liberal-Democrats-behaving-like-every-harlot-in-history-says-David-Blunkett.html
"Adding that the Conservatives were in a stronger position to form a stable Government, he [David Blunkett] urged his party's leadership to accept a period in opposition rather than an unworkable coalition.
"I don’t think it will bring stability, I think it will lead to a lack of legitimacy and I think it will make people think that we haven’t listened to them," he told the BBC."
"John Reid warned that a Labour-Lib Dem coalition would result in “mutually assured destruction” for both parties."
There was direct and public opposition to the idea of a Lib-Lab pact at a very senior level in the Labour party. It would not have flown.
What Andrew Neil did to the Scotsman, and what Johnston Press continues to do, is straightforward vandalism of a national treasure and institution. It has gone way too far to ever recover its reputation.
I wouldn't want him as a poster boy for my campaign.
Oh, wait...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-26322255
Nice to know they have heard of the Enlightenment ... even if one of Mrs T's cabinet did, IIRC, edit an edition of Wealth of a Nation with the bits they didn't like excised back in the 1980s.
What's surprised me is the lack of clear purpose in the Government. Are they about reducing the deficit, or cutting welfare, or cutiting taxes, or what? As they don't appear to have anything in particular in mind - now a bit of this, then a bit of that - it makes for a diffuse debate. That might be a coalition effect, but Cameron in particular doesn't seem to me to have any real agenda. (I might not like it if he did, so that isn't necessarily a criticism.)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-26379503
If he says that independence is a good thing then the argument is over. Yes a nailed on certainty.
What's more, the government is doing quite exceptionally well in making progress on all these fronts simultaneously. It's a very tough job, with a starting point of the worst deficit in Europe apart from Greece, the most difficult world economic conditions since the 1930s at least, their hands tied by idiotic concessions made by the last government in Lisbon, and a largely broken governance model wrecked by Blair's sofa-government style and Gordon Brown's spectacular unsuitability for high office. Despite all those difficulties, they are making excellent progress. That's why it's the best government, apart from the very special case of Maggie, in half a century.
Of course, we can't expect all the multiple deep-rooted problems to be sorted out in one term; I said before the 2010 election that I thought it would need three terms. Let's hope the progress doesn't go sharply into reverse in 2015.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Ukraine#Vital_statistics_.5B8.5D.5B9.5D
And who do they have leading them at this decisive juncture in their history? A new Tom Johnston? A new Willie Ross? A new John Smith? A new Donald Dewar? A new Robin Cook? A new John Reid? Nope. Johann Lamont and Anas Sarwar. They're f****d.
Patricia Hewitt was forced to apologise after it was revealed that she had called for the age of sexual consent to be lowered to ten.
The document published in the former Labour cabinet minister’s name also called for incest to be legalised.
A National Council for Civil Liberties (NCCL) press release quoted in The Sun issued in Miss Hewitt’s sole name in Mach 1976 read: “NCCL proposes that the age of consent should be lowered to 14, with special provision for situations where the partners are close in age or where the consent of a child over ten can be proved.”
The document, which relates to an NCCL report on sexual law reformed continues: "The report argues that the crime of incest should be abolished.
“In our view, no benefit accrues to anyone by making incest a crime when committed between mutually consenting persons over the age of consent.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/labour/10666875/Patricia-Hewitt-called-for-age-of-consent-to-be-lowered-to-ten.html
The bit I haven't been able to get a clear answer on is: how long after a GE does the Queen dissolve Parliament rather than asking other leaders to attempt to form an administration? It seems clear that within a month or two of the GE, she will try all possibilities and there will only be a new GE if they all fail. Conversely, if a coalition government falls once it's started governing (I guess 3 months plus) the other party leaders are not given the opportunity to form a government, but rather a new GE is called - presumably because it would not be seen as reflecting the will of the country if a minority coalition party could flip from one large party to the other thereby changing the PM with no new elections. Does anyone know if there is a fixed convention on this element?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-26382589
I'm sure the Spanish will be outraged. Don't these people know you're meant to set up a bullshit customs inspection regime to create gridlock?