No problem! The only trouble with my masterly analysis is that it assumes the parties are rational:D Both the Tories and the Lib Dems have backwoods men activists that swear anathema on the other lot and aren’t interested in their own self-interest!
Missed the edit window!
Further to the idea that that the activists could be the problem. The BBC political editor Nick Robinson has just pointed out that the current crop of Conservative activists grew up under Margaret Thatcher and desperately want the glory days back while the Lib Dem activists are the same age and grew up cursing her name and all her brand of Conservatism stood for.
Interesting summary of the politics of it, MarcusF - thanks! It helps to illustrate that the parliaemntary system is a very fluid one - there are some customs and conventions, but in a situation like this, it’s essential to understand the politics of the day. The choice of a minority government in a Parliament creates one of the most intensely political, yet fluid processes in the parliamentary system. It forces political opponents to work together, for the good of the country, to ensure that there will be a government.
This is one of the points that has emerged in Canada when there have been minority governments - normally after a minority government, the third party that has been supporting the government tends to lose seats at the next election. One of the reasons a third party may be in the position of power in the minority situation is that it’s received a lot of protest votes - people who didn’t want the current government returned to office, but couldn’t bring themselves to vote for the main opposition party. After a period of minority government, those swing voters may find that (a), they’re ready to move back to the party that ran the previous government, or (b), the new lot isn’t as bad as they feared and they’re willing to vote for them. The third party loses the protest votes that put them into the balance of power in the Commons.
I would expect that that pattern of voting is what’s at play here - discontent with Brown, but not enough trust for Cameron, so protest votes going to the Lib-Dems.
The last time the Liberals (as they then were) held the balance of power in a minority Commons was 1974, which was another case where the voters no longer liked the current government (Heath’s Conservatives) but couldn’t bring themselves to vote for Wilson & Labour. After a period of minority Labour governments, the Conservatives managed to win a majority under Thatcher, restoring the pattern of majority governments, and the Liberals sank in the polls, to the point that they had to merge with the Social Democrats to remain viable.
I imagine that Clegg and the Liberal-Democrats are well aware that this is a once in a generation opportunity for their party - unless there is a change in the voting system.
I was going to make a point similar to MarcusF’s, that a coalition deal between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats is not actually that unlikely. It sounds a bit ridiculous at first, because the Conservatives under Thatcher were very right-wing on taxes and spending, deregulation and free markets, and more recent Conservative leaders have been seen as right-wing on immigration and crime. And by contrast, the Lib Dems in more recent years have been seen as very liberal on things like the environment and human rights. But the current Tory leader David Cameron has moderated the Tories (and come under heavy criticism from the right-wing of his party for it) and while the Lib Dems have some left-wing views, they’re also a party that tries to represent the Middle Class, so there’s more cross-over than you’d think.
Both parties lean towards decentralisation of government power and ‘localism’. Their policies on education are very similar, both advocating a ‘pupil premium’ which gives schools more money if they take on poorer students. They have both committed themselves to protecting our universal health-care system, the NHS. Both parties have focused on protecting the environment. One of the Lib Dems’ main proposals is raising the minimum tax threshold from just over £7,000 to £10,000, which is effectively a large tax cut for the working and middle classes, something the Tories are more than comfortable with ideologically.
And as MarcusF points out, as lot of the traditional areas of disagreement have dissolved a bit recently. On Europe, the Lib Dems have always favored a closer union while the Tories are very Euro-sceptical. But since the recession, and with the recent turmoil in the Eurozone and Greece, the Lib Dems have walked back their support for joining the Euro. On immigration they are rhetorically quite far apart: the Lib Dems support an amnesty for illegal immigrants who have been here for 10 years, while the Conservatives want an annual cap even on skilled migrants. But both parties got hammered for those policies in the election and I don’t think it would take much for them to come to an agreement somewhere in the middle. The leaders clashed on replacing Trident, our nuclear deterrent, which David Cameron says is non-negotiable. But Nick Clegg never actually advocated scrapping it, just ‘reviewing’ the alternatives, and I don’t think it would be hard for him to acquiesce on that. The Lib Dems advocate much tougher banking reforms but I haven’t heard about that posing much of an obstacle, I’m not sure why: my guess is that it was more election populism than a die-hard party belief.
In fact the only critical policy obstacle is electoral reform. Essentially under the current system, which is “first-past-the-post” the Lib Dems can’t win: it’s a system that creates two-party races, with one party usually winning strongly. The Lib Dems want to reform the system to something where they can get a look in. But of course, that threatens the two current major parties, particularly the Conservatives. I’m not sure how they’re going to compromise on it to be honest.
This is pretty much the current situation in Canada. On the budget and any other confidence issue, the PM gives enough weight to the concerns of one of the two minor parties to get their votes or else the Liberals decide that the time is not ripe for an election and stay away for the vote so the government survives. In late 2008, the Liberal leader decided to bring down the government and got the two minor parties onside (or so it was claimed). Before the vote occured, the PM “prorogued” (adjourned sine die) parliament. The Governor General (the formal representative of the Queen) had to agree to this and there was some thought that she might refuse. I don’t know what would have happened had she refused. By the time parliament was called back in session a couple months later, the Liberals had a new leader and the other parties had lost their taste for bringing down the goverenment. The formal rules in the UK are similar and a minority party (unless there were a formal coalition) could govern in the same way. It would be a balancing act. But you can be sure that nothing like Margaret Thatcher’s poll tax would ever be tried. (I think you could be sure of that even with a majority government.)
Whoever is Prime Minister must ‘command the confidence of the House’ i.e. be reasonably sure that he will survive a confidence vote and/or that the House will grant supply. If his expectations are confounded then his government resigns.
Brown being already in possession of the door-key to No.10 places him, in theory, in a position of some strength. He remains PM and could just try to carry on, with or without the Liberals, until one of the above happens.
I’ve mentioned Jeffrey Archer’s excellent political novel First Among Equals in other Britpolitics threads. Written in 1984, it features a what-if 1991 general election campaign that results in a hung parliament. The parties can’t reach agreement and the advice the British sovereign gets is split right down the middle. The monarch (not who you might expect, given the timeframe) really does have to make the decision as to who becomes the next Prime Minister. A bit far-fetched but a good page-turner.
Maybe it’s different in later editions, but in my first edition copy, this is not correct. The Monarch does seek the advice of the protagonists, but on an entirely different matter. The choice of PM is in the hands of one of the protagonists as leader of his party and in Chapter 35 we are not told at the time of his decision, but we are told that a decision has been made and the Palace advised; in the final sentence of the book, the twist, the Monarch does do the courtesy of advising the leader of the losing party of the decision.
I know there are at least two different editions of the book - a different candidate wins in the original British edition than in the later American edition (Archer said he found his American friends were rooting for a different politico than the Brits did). The last chapter of my American edition begins with a clear statement that the monarch actually makes the decision, although after being extensively advised by lots o’ people.
A nitpick – prorogation is not “sine die” (indefinitely). The House can’t be prorogued indefinitely because, under the Charter, it must sit at least once every year. At any rate, a date is specified, as here.
If Harper could have Parliament adjourned sine die, he’d be even scarier than he is.