Harold,
Scroll down and read the details on the LibLabCon negotiations.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx j
Subject: The Big LibCon - The coalition is doomed....
....Ress-Hogg says it is a good thing. For those who do not know him,
Rees-Mogg is best described as an anti-clairvoyant for whenever he
predicts something, the reverse is guaranteed to happen.
This is a very distressing example of an old man trying to "get down
with the kids".
160 billion reasons for a coalition
By William Rees-Mogg
Last updated at 7:34 PM on 15th May 2010
It is their birthdays that reveal the truth. The new coalition
Conservative-Liberal Democrat Government has been created by two young
men: David Cameron, born on October 9, 1966, and Nicholas Clegg, born
on
January 7, 1967.
The new Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, is even younger;
he
was born on May 23, 1971.
Two of the leading candidates for the role of Leader of the Opposition
are David Miliband, born on July 15, 1965, and his brother, Edward, who
was born on December 24, 1969.
Britain needs a stable Government, which the Tories and Lib Dems can
provide
These young men constitute the golden generation of British politics.
Between them, they can change Britain.
They are all in their early 40s, with the exception of Osborne, who is
still in his late 30s. They are much the same age as Tony Blair was
when
he reached high office; Blair was born on May 6, 1953, and was in his
mid-40s when he became Prime Minister.
Like Blair, the new men of 2010 understand the opportunities of modern
politics and are not afraid of technology. Nor are they afraid of their
contemporaries and rivals.
Nobody, however, planned to create a coalition Government until they
saw
the Election results. The arithmetical fluke that forced the
Conservatives and the Lib Dems to form their coalition came as a
colossal and largely unwelcome surprise to almost everybody.
The Lib Dems, who were the apparent beneficiaries, had hoped to win
more
seats and had expected to remain independent. There is still a Lib Dem
reluctance to associate with the Tories. The Conservatives, who may
prove an even greater long-term beneficiary, expected to win an
outright
majority.
No party managed to achieve its own objectives. They were forced into a
national coalition they did not want. Why, then, should one talk of the
exciting new generation?
The answer is that these young men, while they stumbled into a
coalition, were not frightened out of the advantage that the Election
result had created.
The previous history of British coalition governments shows how
advantageous they can be, particularly for the parties leading them.
There were three historic coalitions in the electoral history of the
20th Century. The first was the 1916 coalition that resulted in Liberal
David Lloyd George becoming Prime Minister.
That coalition can be credited with having won the First World War. In
electoral terms the Lloyd George coalition also won the postwar
Election
in 1918 and lasted for seven years.
In 1931, the Labour Prime Minister, Ramsay MacDonald, formed a
peacetime
coalition with the Tories under Stanley Baldwin. That coalition held
the
nation together throughout the Great Depression and produced majorities
for the Tories in the Elections of 1931 and 1935.
The third major coalition was formed by Winston Churchill in 1940. That
coalition won the Second World War. In a fit of apparent ingratitude,
the coalition was turned out in the 1945 Election.
In the 2010 Election, the Tories failed to get a majority, partly
because the electoral system was biased in Labour's favour. It seems
probable that the coalition will achieve one of the Lib Dems' main
objectives, which is to reform the electoral system. The coalition will
be more popular than the Tories or Lib Dems on their own.
Both the Tories and the Lib Dems suffered from the disproportional bias
in the electoral system. If they can agree on the most suitable type of
reform, they can provide a fairer balance.
The most important issue, however, will be the financial crisis.
Britain's deficit of more than £160billion is the worst financial
crisis in peacetime since the Great Depression. In 1931, a coalition
was
formed to restore stability to the British economy.
In some ways, it was a success. Chamberlain has not been forgiven for
the failure of his policy of appeasement with Adolf Hitler, but he was
a
successful Chancellor.
There is a risk that Clegg will prove unable to hold his party
together.
Yet the new coalition exists to meet a real threat. People do not
usually break up coalitions in the middle of a war or a slump.
Britain needs a stable Government, which the Tories and Lib Dems can
provide. There is no reason why this coalition should not last for the
normal length of a Parliament: it is a governing coalition and its
programme has been carefully negotiated. On top of that, the current
debt crisis will force the new Government to hold together until the
deficit has been reduced.
Britain is a vulnerable country in an unstable world. The problem of
maintaining confidence in the euro looks even more serious than that of
Britain's debt. Germany has been forced to support a bailout of Greece
against the will of the German people, which has already cost
Chancellor
Angela Merkel defeat in a key regional election.
What we have now is essentially a Conservative Government; it is
supported by five times as many Tory MPs as Lib Dems.
The coalition should be able to overcome the British debt crisis; it
has
a better chance than a Conservative or Labour Government would have had
on its own.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media
2010http://www.u.tv/News/QA-How-the-coalition-government-will-work/9c0703
c3-1963-44f0-acf0-c6dfcfda0e75?
Q&A: How the coalition government will work
The key questions answered, from when is the next election to where
Nick
Clegg will set up office
Wednesday, 12 May 2010
Tags:
National News
When will the next general election be held?
On the first Thursday of May 2015 according to the text of the
coalition
agreement under which both parties agree to establish five-year
fixed-term parliaments. A binding motion specifying the date of the
next
election will be introduced into the Commons "in the first days" of the
new government followed by the necessary legislation. It means that the
prime minister will lose the power to call an earlier election.
Does that mean that the Con-Lib coalition will now be in power for the
next five years come what may?
No. The legislation will provide for a general election to be called if
55% or more of the Commons votes in favour. The convention since 1782
has been that a significant defeat on a major issue can lead to a vote
of no confidence in the government. If they lose that vote then they
are
obliged to resign or call a general election. This happened twice in
the
last century – in 1923 and 1979.
The fixed-term parliament legislation will take away the power of a
prime minister to call an election in these circumstances. But it will
also mean that if the government falls the sitting prime minister can
try to form a new coalition government from among the opposition
parties. If that fails in other fixed-term parliaments, such as in
Germany, the head of state can call an election, but in Britain there
is
no wish to involve the Queen in such decisions.
So they have settled on a threshold of 55% of MPs to force a general
election. The 55% figure is significant because the Conservatives have
47% of MPs and it ensures that the Lib Dems cannot simply walk out of
the coalition and vote with the opposition to call a general election
as
they can only muster 53% of the vote.
Now Nick Clegg is deputy prime minister will he also have an office in
Downing Street? No, but he will be very close by in the Cabinet Office
building round the corner in Whitehall. There is a connecting corridor
with 10 Downing Street. Clegg joked that Cameron promised the door
would
be left unlocked. Cameron said they would work so closely together they
would not have to schedule meetings or telephone calls. Where will the
Lib Dems sit in the Commons chamber, on the government or opposition
benches? On the government benches, although whether they will sit as a
block or intermingled with Conservative MPs is not yet clear. Labour
will now move to the opposition side of the chamber with minor parties.
What will happen at prime minister's question time? Cameron will face
Harriet Harman across the dispatch box every Wednesday but Clegg will
stand in for him when he is away: "I am going to try to be away a lot,"
joked Cameron. The Lib Dems will, however, retain their separate party
organisation in the Commons and Lords with their own whips and internal
party committees. What about rebellions within the coalition? Won't
discipline have to be rigorously enforced? Not necessarily as the
Con-Lib coalition has a healthy majority of 80-plus in the Commons and,
unlike the last Labour government, an overwhelming majority in the
House
of Lords. In fact it is possible the government will suffer far fewer
parliamentary defeats than any government since the late 1980s. What
about byelections? Will coalition Conservative candidates stand against
coalition Lib Dems in the Thirsk and Malton byelection due on 27 May?
Yes, outside parliament both will continue to operate exactly as now,
although it can be expected that the language of their attacks may be
toned down a little at least in the early days. Both party leaders
indicated they would continue to contest all byelections separately.
Clegg said they could both travel to the pending North Yorkshire
byelection in the same car but get out of different doors. Michael
Heseltine was among the last candidates to fight an election under the
label National Liberal in the Gower in 1959 – a successor to a Liberal
party group which had gone into the national coalition with the
Conservatives in 1931. Will they have separate party conferences? Yes,
and they could become important vehicles for dissent for the parties'
grassroots and their anxieties over the coalition deal. How will
reshuffles work? Cameron made clear he has the final say over
government
appointments but Clegg will be consulted. What about select committees
and other ways parliament holds ministers to account? The Wright
committee proposals to reform the way the House of Commons works are to
be implemented in full. This could be one of the most radical changes
to
parliament's scrutiny of the government. They provide for the chairs
and
members of select committees to be directly elected by a secret ballot
of MPs, taking the process out of the hands of the party whips which
led
to allegations of committees being nobbled by the government. The
reforms also provide for parliament to take back control of its
business
from the government. A backbench business committee is to be set up to
organise the timetabling of legislation and debates. At first this will
only cover private members' bills but the coalition agreement says that
within three years this will include government bills as well. It could
ensure that some major issues no longer reach the statute book without
proper debate. What about the public; do they get a look-in on this
"new
politics"? Yes, the changes will mean that e-petitions to parliament
will be accepted and a new mechanism set up to allow the public to
ensure that a given issue is debated in the Commons. Can the Lib Dems
rebel against government policy? Yes but only by special arrangement.
This already exists to allow them to oppose any expansion of nuclear
power. Lib Dem spokesmen can speak against but must abstain on any
Commons vote. If it leads to a government defeat it will not be
regarded
as an issue of confidence.
?London Evening Standard
Attack: Mark Hoban, financial secretary to the Treasury, hit out at
Gordon Brown
New Government’s ‘hypocrisy’ over Goldman Sachs role 14.05.10
The Conservatives and Liberal Democrats stood accused of hypocrisy
today, after awarding Goldman Sachs a lucrative mandate to handle a
multi-billion pound sale of gilts, despite saying only three weeks ago
that the bank should be barred from government work.
Last month, Vince Cable and Mark Hoban, then the Lib-Dem Treasury
spokesman and Tory shadow financial secretary to the Treasury, demanded
the bank be suspended from government work after it was accused of
fraud
in its mortgage securitisation arm.
However, just days after coming into government, their administration's
Debt Management Office has appointed Goldman, with HSBC, JPMorgan and
UBS, as bookrunners for a syndicated sale of gilts worth several
billions of pounds which is due to take place this month. It is part of
a programme to raise £29.2 billion in 2010-11. Last October, Goldman
was paid £3.5 million in commission for its role as a lead manager in a
£7 billion gilt deal. Cable is now Business Secretary in the new
coalition Government while Hoban is financial secretary to the
Treasury.
Last month, Cable said: “The Government should not be paying for the
services of a bank that is being investigated on both sides of the
Atlantic. The allegations made against Goldman Sachs are very serious.
“Not a penny of taxpayers' money should be paid while these
allegations hang over the bank.” And after the former Prime Minister
criticised Goldman, Hoban said: “If Gordon Brown believes Goldman
Sachs are morally bankrupt, why is he still using them as advisers?”
The DMO, which is a semi-autonomous part of the Treasury, informed
ministers of their decision in the last two days. Goldman will be
relieved to have been offered the mandate, amid rising speculation that
it would lose government clients as a result of the fraud probe. There
were also widespread predictions of a client exodus after the US bank
was criticised for the way it helped Greece improve the look of its
finances by using complex derivatives. Gavin Hayes, general secretary
of
the Compass left-of-centre thinktank said: “This is totally
hypocritical. The public do not just demand rhetoric from our
policiticians, but action. “The Government must take the moral lead
?
From The Sunday Times
May 16, 2010
Against the wall
As the election result became clear, the secret meetings began. Our
correspondents reveal the frantic deal-making that brought in our new
political era
Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron and Deputy Prime Minister Nick
Clegg enter 10 Downing Street in London
All day, Tory high command had been cock-a-hoop. They were certain they
were in line for a majority of 20-30. Lord Ashcroft's private polling
had consistently shown the party would perform far better in key
marginals than public opinion polls suggested.
The most senior figures in the party were privately telling friends the
election was "going to be like 1992 — we're going to do far better
than people expect". How wrong could they be?
It was day one of Britain's May revolution when political tradition was
turned on its head, constitutional convention was tossed aside, enemies
became allies, a new generation seized power — and a widely reviled
prime minister became human in the pathos of defeat.
The full story of the hung parliament of 2010 has yet to be told, but
this is the first chapter: the inside account of what happened after
the
voters went to the polls on May 6 and plunged Britain's political elite
into crisis.
Strange secrets emerge. Who would have thought that the man who
publicly
ridiculed Gordon Brown as a cross between Stalin and Mr Bean was
actually a backstairs confidant who had friendly fireside chats with
him?
FRIDAY, MAY 7
The awful truth dawned on David Cameron, the Conservative leader, at
about 3am. Over chilli con carne at his Oxfordshire home, he and his
inner circle had remained bullish when the exit polls suggested the
party would not get a majority in the House of Commons. They simply did
not believe the figures.
But as he was driven back to London down the M40, crucial marginals on
the Tory target list failed to fall. By the time Cameron reached his
Millbank HQ, he realised the polls were right. He had not won a clear
mandate to govern. Those close to him say he appeared dazed.
"He was barely functioning. His mind was whirring. All he could think
was how, after five years of his change agenda, he could have failed?"
said one.
Brilliantly adaptable, however, the Tory leader rapidly adjusted to the
new landscape. He had a pressing problem: saving his own skin. He knew
that his party disposed ruthlessly of those who led it to defeat —
which meant himself and his closest ally, George Osborne, who had
co-ordinated the campaign.
"Dave is the leader of Europe's leading regicide specialists. He knew
right away his bollocks were on the line. He had to think very quickly
how he and George were going to get out of this alive," an intimate
said.
Instantly, insiders say, Cameron concluded that a coalition with the
Liberal Democrats was the only way to safeguard his own position.
One said: "He thought a minority government would mean another
election,
probably within months. He knew he had misjudged this election campaign
— and that was after five years of preparation. Everyone was saying
that another election in the autumn would probably give us a decent
majority, but he couldn't see any reason why they'd necessarily do any
better.
"A full coalition would protect him not only from the electorate, but
from his own mutinous backbenchers, a lot of whom are furious about the
way the campaign was handled."
Cameron stayed at Millbank until dawn before crossing the river to the
Park Plaza Westminster Bridge hotel, where he and Sam, his wife, had
booked a suite. Sam stayed with him till 8am, when she returned to
their
North Kensington home, unable to sleep.
Gordon Brown, too, was calculating the odds on survival. He had
summoned
his team to his house near Edinburgh before going to his count at
Kirkcaldy.
"He had seen the exit polls," said one of those present, "but it was
too
soon to know if this would be a hung parliament or defeat for Labour."
He joined local Labour activists holding a party at a Kirkcaldy hotel.
When news came through that Labour had retaken nearby Dunfermline and
West Fife from the Liberal Democrats, Brown punched the air and cried:
"Yes!" He and his team boarded a charter jet at Edinburgh airport at
about 3am, feeling nervous because many of the key results would come
through in the next hour while they were in the air and unable to
receive information. As they landed at Northolt, west London, they
heard
that Labour had retaken Rochdale — the home of Gillian Duffy, the
"bigoted woman" of Brown's biggest election gaffe — from the Lib Dems.
There were cheers.
Brown went straight to Labour's Victoria Street HQ in central London.
After thanking the troops, he was briefed by the party's two chief
strategists, David Muir and Greg Cook (known as "Mystic Greg" because
of
his ability to predict election results accurately). It was clear that
the Tories would get more than 300 seats. Labour would be the smaller
party, but an alliance with the Lib Dems and other minor parties might
be arithmetically feasible. Brown returned to No 10, defeated but not
quite out of office, and went to sleep.
Nick Clegg was in a deep gloom as he boarded the first train from his
Sheffield constituency to London shortly after dawn.The Lib Dem leader
was in a state of shock at how his extraordinary popularity during the
campaign had translated itself into a loss of parliamentary seats on
election day. Final opinion polls had suggested that the Lib Dems were
on the verge of an historic breakthrough, winning at least 75 seats,
possibly as many as 90. He now faced humiliation with only 57.
Settling down next to his press secretary, Lena Pietsch, he rang his
old
mentor, Lord Ashdown. There was no time for dwelling on what might have
been, the former special forces soldier told him briskly, he had to
focus on the job in hand. Though the numbers were agonising, the Lib
Dems still held the balance of power between the Tories and Labour.
Clegg should begin drafting a statement honouring his public commitment
to talk first to the party with the largest number of seats and biggest
share of the vote — the Tories.
By the time the train pulled into St Pancras, Clegg had the outline
ready. He was feeling better. At party HQ in Cowley Street,
Westminster,
he and Pietsch shut themselves in a room with John Sharkey, chairman of
the campaign team, and Jonny Oates, a communications adviser, to work
on
the statement. Occasionally, they called Ashdown for advice.
The Lib Dems had three options: a coalition with the Tories or Labour,
or a "confidence and supply" deal with the Tories — meaning that, in
return for concessions on policy, they would sustain them in office
without being coalition partners.
"Initially, everyone agreed that the one thing we did not want to do
was
have a Tory coalition," said an insider who played a pivotal role in
the
negotiations. On the face of it, however, entering a coalition with
Labour looked impossible. The numbers simply didn't stack up. And so
the
party's spin for the next battle was hammered out: the Lib Dems were
"talking to the Tories and listening to Labour".
Other calculating political minds were also at work. Immediately after
Thursday night's exit poll, Lord Mandelson and Alan Johnson, key Labour
ministers, had hit the television studios to talk up the idea of a
"progressive alliance" with the Lib Dems. They asked like-minded
members
of the cabinet — including Ben Bradshaw, the culture secretary, and
Lord Adonis, the transport secretary — to call left-of-centre Lib
Dems, including Simon Hughes, the former party president, and the
former
leaders Charles Kennedy and Sir Menzies Campbell. Shaun Woodward, the
Northern Ireland secretary, was asked to square the various factions
from the province to support a potential rainbow coalition.
After barely two hours' sleep, Brown woke for a council of war with
Mandelson, Adonis and other advisers. Sources who were with him in No
10
insist that at no point did he think he could continue in office
indefinitely. However, that morning he believed he could remain as
prime
minister in a Lib-Lab coalition for about 18 months, to secure
Britain's
recovery from recession. "Gordon genuinely believed and probably still
believes that he was the right man to ensure Britain recovered from
recession," an aide said.
Adonis, a one-time Oxford politics lecturer, told Brown that a Lib-Lab
coalition was not only viable but could offer stable government.
Deliberations at No 10 were interrupted at 10.40am, however, by
television pictures of Clegg on the steps of his headquarters,
announcing that his party would open talks with the Tories.
Across the Thames, a cheer went up in Cameron's hotel room where senior
Tories were meeting. He had decided a plan of action. "We are going to
have to make a full, open offer to the Liberal Democrats," Cameron
said.
"We can't go into this with a knife hidden behind our backs. A
coalition
is going to be the best option."
In Downing Street, Mandelson and Brown decided to issue a statement at
4pm acknowledging the right of the Lib Dems and Conservatives to
negotiate but pointing out that Labour was ready to talk if they
failed.
Not everyone was in favour. Ed Balls, Brown's closest ally, arrived in
No 10 to urge him not to hang around. It might be better to "go with
dignity".
When the Tories gave notice that Cameron would respond to Clegg at
2.30pm, "we brought forward our own statement to just after 1.30pm",
said a Brown aide. "It allowed us to pre-empt any claims that Gordon
was
`squatting' in No 10 and get our offer out there to the Lib Dems ahead
of Cameron." The Tory leader's statement had the bigger impact,
however.
The Lib Dems were taken aback by his "big, open and comprehensive"
offer, which included many of the demands on the Lib Dem menu.
From Osborne's second-floor corner office at Conservative
headquarters,
Cameron called Clegg to talk about it. An aide said: "We were all
thinking about putting the family pictures back on the desk, thinking
we
were going to be in opposition for some time to come. But when Dave
came
out of George's office, he was very positive. Already he and Nick were
talking like old friends. They are both young men, with similar
backgrounds. But what really drew them together is that they were both
men in highly stressful situations."
While Clegg and his team were delighted with the Tory offer, the Lib
Dems' old warhorses were sickened at the prospect of sleeping with the
enemy. Emails whizzed back and forth between party grandees. Might a
deal with Labour be possible instead? Several senior figures, among
them
Ashdown, Cable, Chris Huhne and Lord Rennard, a former chief executive
of the party, thought it might.
They did some number-crunching and concluded that a Lib-Lab minority
administration would be viable. They calculated that the smaller
parties
would be unlikely to join forces to topple it. This was a powerful
bargaining tool for their talks with the Tories. There was mounting
excitement at Lib Dem HQ. "We suddenly realised we could do a deal both
ways."
Cameron's offer to the Lib Dems also provoked an immediate and furious
response from his old guard. Rightwingers were repulsed at the thought
of their leader courting Clegg and his "pinkos". Alarmed, Cameron rang
David Davis, his old rival for the Tory leadership, and a likely magnet
for backbench discontent. He wanted to gauge from Davis just how big a
problem he might have on his hands. An aide said: "He made noises about
offering Davis a job. He wasn't at all specific. Davis didn't take it
seriously."
Davis was right not to. Privately, Cameron had told friends he would
never trust the former shadow home secretary again, following his
decision two years ago to quit his seat dramatically and trigger a
by-election over civil liberties. But the Cameroons needed potentially
dangerous figures in the party to feel loved. They made sure rumours
began circulating in the media that Davis was being lined up for a job —
possibly even the Home Office brief.
Direct talks with the Lib Dems began straightaway. The Lib Dem
negotiators had been picked months earlier in expectation of a hung
parliament. Among them was one of the Tories' favourite Lib Dems, David
Laws, a former banker and key contributor to the "Orange Book" that
turned the party towards free-market economic policies. In the early
years of the Cameron project, the Tories had hoped Laws might even
defect. Osborne had made tentative approaches, but had been sent away
with a flea in his ear.
Another negotiator, Danny Alexander, Clegg's Scots chief of staff, is
regarded by colleagues as smart, savvy and trusted by the leader. Huhne
and Andrew Stunell, the other two figures on the team, are both seen by
colleagues as canny operators. On the Tory side, when the two teams met
for the first time that evening, were Osborne, William Hague, the
former
party leader, Oliver Letwin, the policy guru, and Ed Llewellyn,
Cameron's chief of staff.
Although this was an unprecedented meeting of political rivals who had
lacerated each other during the election, they represented an elite
with
similar values and backgrounds. The Lib Dem negotiators were pleasantly
surprised by how amenable Cameron's group seemed. The Tories were
careful not to patronise Clegg's men.
The negotiators also soon found that they had an unexpected problem.
They met in a room in the Cabinet Office with faulty central heating.
It
was so hot, everyone soon stripped down to shirtsleeves and took their
ties off. The talks continued throughout in a subtropical atmosphere.
While the official Lib Dem team sweated, other senior members of the
party were being contacted by Downing Street, where there had been
consternation at the generosity of Cameron's offer to the Lib Dems.
"We were genuinely surprised how much the Tories were prepared to
compromise," a Labour insider said. Brown had friends in high places
among the Lib Dems. It now emerges that he had been secretly seeking
Cable's counsel since the credit crunch began. This is the same Cable
who in November 2007, as Brown's reputation as prime minister was
plummeting, made the Commons howl with laughter at the jibe: "The house
has noticed the prime minister's remarkable transformation in the past
few weeks from Stalin to Mr Bean."
Yet he had been invited to No 10 several times. According to Labour
sources, these fireside chats were form of therapy for Brown, who
trusted Cable implicitly. Cable, to his credit, has never spoken of
them.
A source said: "Gordon would moan to Vince about how unfair everything
was. It started quite soon after he became prime minister. He would
call
Vince in, ostensibly to discuss economics, but he wasn't really looking
for advice. I don't think he wanted solutions, just someone to listen."
During these conversations, the prime minister occasionally hinted that
there was a job for Cable if he wanted it. "He did it in a slightly
jokey, elliptical way, so there was no embarrassment on either side."
In the run-up to the election, Brown had also been talking to Menzies
Campbell, a friend for decades. Other highly discreet conversations had
taken place between senior Lib Dems and Labour cabinet ministers.
According to the Lib Dem camp, by the time the election was called,
Labour appeared to be well "on side" to do a deal in the event of a
hung
parliament. Mandelson, at the heart of the contacts, had indicated he
understood that Brown would have to resign for a deal to be done.
Midway through the election campaign, Clegg had publicly declared, in
an
interview with The Sunday Times, that he would not tolerate Brown
"squatting" in No 10 if Labour lost the election. The animosity between
the two men was ill-concealed, and now, on the afternoon after the
election, Brown appeared reluctant to contact Clegg directly. But both
Cable and Campbell encouraged him to do so, and that night he rang the
Lib Dem leader.
It was not a comfortable conversation — though it was not exactly the
angry exchange "laced with threats" that was later reported. According
to one of Clegg's close aides, "Nick did say that Gordon had just
ranted
down the phone, but it was not so much that Gordon was aggressive —
more that he just wasn't really listening. Gordon was talking at Nick,
not to him. It was not really a two-way thing."
SATURDAY MAY 8
As the country came to terms with the fact that there was no result to
the election — no removal vans in Downing Street, no abrupt
replacement of the prime minister and his government — the politicians
grappled with the outcome, negotiating, manipulating, seeking advantage.
Mandelson sent a series of messages to Clegg, indicating that Brown was
ready to resign. The business secretary seemed happy, apparently
believing his vision of a Lib-Lab deal was very much on the cards.
Stung by accusations that he was squatting in No 10, Brown flew up to
Scotland to get away from the oppressive atmosphere.
At the Lib-Con talks, the amiable Letwin was doing his best to find
compromises — "Oliver, you're turning into an honorary Lib Dem," one
of the Tory negotiators joked — but while the Tories surprised the Lib
Dems with their open-mindedness, there was a potentially insurmountable
problem: electoral reform. The Lib Dems were not going to be fooled by
what they saw as a derisory promise of a "committee of inquiry" into
voting change. The Tories indicated that was as far as they were
prepared to go. Privately, however, Cameron prepared to improve his
offer, driven by rumours of rival negotiations with Labour.
Late in the morning, Clegg addressed a morale-raising meeting of his
MPs
at Transport House, Smith Square, before joining Brown and Cameron at a
Whitehall ceremony marking VE Day's 65th anniversary. The body language
of the three leaders was scrutinised but revealed nothing of what was
going on behind the scenes.
Back at Transport House, Clegg's 56 MPs were trapped inside by a noisy
pro-PR demonstration. At one point Mike Hancock, the leftish MP for
Portsmouth South, was thought to have flounced out in protest at a
possible Tory deal. "He left the meeting because he needed a pee,"
explained another MP. "We talked about whether we should have a sign
that said `I'm leaving because I need a pee' and hold it up at the
window."
The MPs endorsed Clegg's strategy of focusing on the "national
interest". However, the clamour in the party for a proper deal on
voting
reform was becoming deafening. With the Tories apparently refusing to
budge, it was clear that Clegg would have to step up communications
with
Labour.
That evening, after the party's federal executive also endorsed Clegg's
strategy, Ashdown held an impromptu dinner party with other Lib Dem
grandees. They met in the Prince of Wales pub in Kennington — just
across the river from Westminster — before trooping back to his house.
Over ready meals from Tesco, the mood was upbeat.
About the same time, Clegg and Cameron had a "constructive and
amicable"
70-minute meeting in Admiralty House in Whitehall; but Clegg and the
prime minister also spoke by phone during the evening at Brown's
request. They agreed that secret Lib-Lab talks should begin the
following day. Wooed by both the Tories and Labour, the Lib Dems felt
there was all to play for.
SUNDAY MAY 9
Brown discovered that the Lib Dem mood had hardened when he called
Cable
from Scotland at breakfast time, confirming he was willing to step
down.
To Brown's surprise, Cable — not one for confrontation — made it
clear that a vague promise of his departure would not be enough for
formal talks to get under way. He would have to be specific. Brown was
noncommittal. Later in the morning, a "preliminary" private meeting
took
place between the Lib Dem and Labour representatives.
Arriving back in London, Brown asked to see Clegg. They met for 75
minutes alone in the oak-panelled office of Sir Peter Ricketts, the
permanent undersecretary of the Foreign Office. Ricketts paced up and
down in the corridor outside, saying: "Don't mind me, I am just renting
out my room. I am of no importance." (A few days later, Cameron made
him
Britain's first national security adviser.) Brown and Clegg had a
follow-up telephone conversation in which the prime minister,
unprompted, offered to step down. "I don't want to get in the way of
things," he said.
"That's very good of you," replied Clegg.
For the first time, Brown put a date on his departure, volunteering to
stand down in October. "I'll stay as interim prime minister until then,
but you can be the public face of the coalition," he told Clegg, adding
that he would focus on the economy. Hugely encouraged, Clegg arranged
to
speak to him again privately later that night.
During the day, the Tory and Lib Dem negotiating teams had appeared to
make little progress in the heat of the Cabinet Office. The discussions
lasted 6Å hours, but the Lib Dems demanded more Tory concessions on
voting reform. It was a low point for Cameron who not only suspected
the
Lib Dems of two-timing but faced a party rebellion against the talks
with them. He spent the evening at Westminster holding an open-door
surgery for disgruntled MPs.
A Lib-Lab deal seemed a real prospect. Within hours, however, the
picture was radically different. At midnight, Clegg spoke to Brown
again. To his dismay, the prime minister had changed his tune. "I don't
want to go quickly. I will go at some point during the parliament,"he
growled.
There were echoes of Tony Blair's prevarication under pressure from
Brown to resign. It was an extraordinary setback.
MONDAY MAY 10
In the early hours, there were increasingly frantic calls between
senior
Lib Dem figures and their Labour friends. Brown's allies were becoming
exasperated by his vacillation. "You don't understand what it's like
dealing with these bastards," one Labour figure, who was acting as a
go-between, told a Lib Dem frontbencher despairingly. "Gordon is just
impossible."
About 1.30am, Laws rang Ashdown. Brown had reneged on his earlier
promise, he said. The prime minister seemed determined to cling on.
Laws's view was that there was now little hope of getting formal
negotiations with Labour off the ground. Seeing his 30-year dream of a
progressive alliance slipping away, Ashdown volunteered to ring his old
friend Tony Blair, to see if he could resuscitate things.
He got hold of the former prime minister at 3am in the Middle East.
According to well-placed sources, Ashdown told Blair that Brown was
"poisoning" any prospect of a Lib-Lab deal. Ashdown was realistic,
acknowledging that it was going to be extremely difficult to reach any
agreement with Labour. There was no hope at all if Brown continued to
dig in his heels.
Blair was frank. It is understood that he indicated to Ashdown that he
was not sure it was in Labour's interests to enter a fragile Lib-Lab
coalition. Perhaps it was better to have a period in opposition, he
said, and to let the Tories suffer the backlash over public service
cuts. However, he agreed it was worth a try. He would ring Brown and
would encourage him to say he would stand down by the autumn.
Cable had gone to bed late on Sunday and was startled to be awoken from
a deep sleep at 6am. It was the prime minister on the line, in
strangely
jocular mood. He wanted to know what their parties were going to do.
Cable was blunt, telling Brown he had to go, and go soon, if there was
to be any chance of a Lab-Lib Dem deal. The prime minister grunted and
hung up.
Acutely aware that Clegg's patience was running out, Mandelson swung
into action, telling Brown he must announce his resignation that
afternoon. This unleashed a fast-moving chain of events.
At 1.30pm, Lib Dem MPs met. The majority wanted a deal with Labour.
Clegg called Cameron, warning he might favour Labour unless the Tories
improved their voting reform offer. Cameron tld the shadow cabinet he
planned to offer a referendum on the alternative vote (AV) system.
"Labour are offering AV without legislation," he said. "If we don't do
this, the Liberals will go to Labour and it will happen anyway."
At 5pm, Lib Dem peers met in a pro-Labour mood. Ashdown arrived
brandishing a copy of a statement from Downing Street. It was the prime
minister's announcement — about to be broadcast live — that he would
stand down by the time of the Labour party conference in November and
that he was opening formal negotiations with the Lib Dems. The peers
were euphoric, although Brown's vacillation had cost valuable hours and
goodwill, allowing the Lib-Con talks to gather momentum.
Conservative Central Office went into panic mode. Furious, Cameron rang
Clegg to berate him. Why, when things seemed to have been going so well
between their two teams, was he now officially starting to talk to
Labour? Cameron played his final card, offering Clegg a referendum on
AV. It was a huge risk on the Tory leader's part, threatening uproar in
his own party.
Brown called his cabinet together to explain that a negotiating team
had
been formed to talk to the Lib Dems. There was little dissent,
according
to one observer of the meeting. That night, however, the first formal
talks between the Lib Dem and Labour negotiators did not go well.
According to Lib Dem sources, while Mandelson did his best to be
constructive — he reportedly even put the Trident nuclear deterrent
into play — Harriet Harman, the deputy leader, appeared indifferent.
Balls and Ed Miliband, the environment secretary, were hostile. "They
just didn't seem prepared to move on anything. They wouldn't talk about
the Heathrow third runway," said a Lib Dem. "They weren't interested in
what we wanted on schools... Ed Balls's attitude was derisive."
A Labour source retorted: "Chris Huhne could not bear to be in the same
room as Ed Balls. There was no rapport."
Unaware of how badly things were going for Labour, Cameron set out to
sell his electoral reform concession to his shadow cabinet and Tory
MPs.
He won broad approval from shadow ministers — though there was dissent
from Chris Grayling, the shadow home secretary, and Theresa May, the
shadow work and pensions secretary. (Cameron's subsequent revenge was
far from even-handed: he demoted Grayling to junior pensions minister
while making May home secretary.) At a heavily stage-managed meeting of
the parliamentary party, a few rightwingers also objected but most MPs
accepted Cameron's warnings that, without the concession on AV, the Lib
Dems would do a deal with Labour.
Afterwards Cameron and his team returned to his office in Norman Shaw
South, the former New Scotland Yard, where an aide ordered pizza from
Domino's. The team sat eating margaritas and drinking Diet Coke while
waiting to hear from the Lib Dems. They were dismayed when Ashdown
appeared on television suggesting that his party's deal with Labour
might still be on. However, Ashdown was laying a false trail. In
reality, reporting back to the parliamentary party at 10.30pm, Clegg
was
gloomy.
"I'm afraid the meeting with Labour was terrible," he told them. "They
had bad body language, bad attitudes. They seemed to be sneering...
They
don't seem to be serious about dealing with us."
The MPs were dismayed, pressing Clegg for more detail about the
sticking
point. Some with trade union backgrounds clung to the hope that this
was
simply the way in which the Labour party negotiated — hard and slow.
But it seemed clear the game was now up. Two prominent MPs, Norman
Baker
and Don Foster, spoke out, saying the party had little choice now but
to
reach an agreement with the Tories. Then an emotional Cable stood up.
"I hate the Tories," he said. "I have spent my whole life fighting
them.
But I think we could be quite influential if we go with the Tories."
According to colleagues, Cable, who had been working hard behind the
scenes to keep the Lib-Lab deal alive for four days now, seemed
devastated.
"You could see from his face that he felt betrayed," one said. "He had
tried terribly hard to keep Labour in play, and now they didn't seem to
be serious. He had been at his whiteboard, trying to figure it all out,
numbers and so on, but he realised it was just not going to happen. I
think he was gutted."
Cable's speech had a decisive effect on the MPs, who knew he had been
pushing hard for the Lib-Lab deal. They agreed that there should be one
final attempt to talk to Labour the next morning, but the mood was that
there was no longer real chance of success. Soon word reached the Tory
pizza vigil: Cameron was back in the game.
TUESDAY MAY 11
If a Lib-Lab pact had any life left in it, two of Labour's former home
secretaries, John Reid and David Blunkett, killed it by going in front
of the cameras and declaring that the party would not accept it. One of
Clegg's aides rang Downing Street and asked: "Why are we only seeing
Labour voices attacking the deal? Can't you put up some people in
support of co-operation?"
Labour claimed the Lib Dems were not serious. At their negotiations
that
morning, according to a Labour source, the Lib Dems "heaped impossible
demands upon us. They wanted us to legislate for AV without a
referendum
and then also offer a referendum on full PR. They also demanded huge
tax
cuts. It was not a real negotiation. They had clearly made up their
minds".
The latest round of Lib-Con talks, by contrast, was going swimmingly.
Differences over income tax and National Insurance were settled, and
the
Lib Dems agreed to the Tories' plan for £6 billion in spending cuts
this year. It was almost over.
In Downing Street, loyalists gathered in the afternoon as Brown
prepared
to resign. Martin Argles, a photographer who was allowed to record his
last hours as prime minister, described the mood as "surprisingly
light-hearted, but very, very tense".
Gathered in the high-ceilinged "war room" at No 10 were Brown, his
aides, Balls — Diet Coke in hand — Mandelson, Alastair Campbell, who
had been helping to choreograph the fight for survival, and other core
Labour figures.
Argles said: "They were all making jokes, repeating anecdotes about
things that had happened, incidents on international visits such as
mistaking diplomats for other people. They were very light little
stories that they all knew and they all obviously enjoyed. So they were
having quite a good time laughing, which was really just to keep the
tension down, I think, while we were waiting for this phone call. Then
it came. And there was silence. The whole place fell completely silent."
Aides listening in on extension phones heard Clegg ask for more time
while he consulted his party about the talks with the Tories. "Even at
this stage, the Lib Dems were using us as leverage against the Tories,"
one said. "They wanted to keep Gordon in the game, in the hope of
extracting some last-minute concessions from Cameron, but Gordon had
made his mind up."
"Nick, Nick. I can't hold on any longer," Brown said. "Nick. I've got
to
go to the palace. The country expects me to do that. I have to go. The
Queen expects me to go. I can't hold on any longer."
Argles photographed the scene as Brown's young sons, John and James
Fraser — for so long hidden from the public — came bounding into the
room and left Downing Street hand-in-hand with him and their mother,
Sarah. For the first and only time in his premiership, Brown suddenly
revealed in public the relaxed and happy man he is said to be in
private.
Word of what was unfolding inside No 10 had reached Cameron's office,
and he had made a call to his wife, warning her: "You'd better get here
quickly — this could happen."
She got to Westminster almost straight away and, within an hour, the
two
of them were driving to Buckingham Palace where the Queen asked Cameron
to form a government. His first action as prime minister was to dismiss
the motorcycle outriders that normally accompany new prime ministers on
their journey from the palace to No 10.
"This was new politics and he was a coalition prime minister," an aide
said. "I do not think commuters would have appreciated him stopping the
traffic in the Mall."
In reality, he was a prime minister without a coalition. The Lib Dem
parliamentary party was still meeting to decide whether formally to
approve a deal with the Conservatives, and some of its key figures were
deeply unhappy.
Ashdown, who was devastated by the death of his dream of a Lib-Lab
pact,
gave an emotional speech at the meeting. He wished Clegg well but made
it clear he could not be part of the new project. This was an extremely
painful moment for the former party leader. He said the Lib Dems had
"abandoned the left" and risked ending up as a rump party. "I just
can't
do this," he told colleagues. "I'm off back to my garden and my
grandchildren."
But, after he sat down, copies of the proposed deal with the Tories
were
circulated at the meeting. Ashdown could not believe his eyes: there
was
concession after concession from the Conservatives.
He spoke again: "I'm not happy with where we've arrived. I'm not happy
at the death of the realignment of the left. But I can see the logic of
where we are. I've looked at his document. It's amazing. F*** it! How
can I stay out of this fight? You know I can't resist a battle,
especially in the company of my friends."
There were gasps as other Lib Dems digested the document's contents.
The
atmosphere was euphoric. "Will you be acting prime minister when
Cameron
goes on paternity leave?" one MP asked Clegg, to laughter.
Charles Kennedy and Menzies Campbell were still unconvinced. Kennedy
pointed out that elections for the Scottish parliament loomed in 18
months' time. He warned that the Lib Dems could pay a heavy price for
the party north of the border, because of Tory unpopularity there.
The vote, however, was in favour. Politics and government in Britain
might never be the same again.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article7127607.ece
Don't be fooled by the love-in between the Hugh Grant and Colin Firth
of
politics - this is a Left-wing coup
By Melanie Phillips
Last updated at 8:46 AM on 17th May 2010
The sense of disorientation following last week's tumultuous events and
the formation of a coalition government has far from abated.
People are still trying to work out the contours of this most
unfamiliar
political landscape.
We don't know if this is a temporary phenomenon or if a great political
realignment is under way.
Lib Dem grandees and others have come out against the coalition - on
the
grounds they couldn't stomach an alliance with 'unprogressive'
Conservatives
Lib Dem grandees and others have come out against the coalition - on
the
grounds they couldn't stomach an alliance with 'unprogressive'
Conservatives
Over the weekend, however, one feature of British life resurfaced that
is as predictable as the flowering buds of May - the deep aversion in
the Lib Dem psyche to reality.
True to form, assorted Lib Dem grandees and others came out against the
coalition - on the grounds they couldn't stomach an alliance with
'unprogressive' Conservatives.
So blinded are they by their tribal antipathy to the Tories, these Lib
Dems can't see just how advantageous this deal is for them.
Even though three-quarters of the country didn't vote for them, this
party of traditional losers has no fewer than five Cabinet seats.
True, posts such as Deputy Prime Minister lack substance. And
Chancellor
George Osborne is using Chief Secretary to the Treasury David Laws to
do
his dirty work in cutting public spending, thus helping neutralise the
Lib Dems as an opposition force.
But the fact is that the many Conservatives who are furious with this
deal have much more cause than the Lib Dems to think that their side
has
been betrayed.
For the Tories have made much greater concessions to the Lib Dems than
vice versa.
For example, not only has the Tories' popular commitment to raise the
inheritance tax threshold been scrapped, but Mr Cameron has agreed to
raise capital gains tax from 18 per cent to an astounding 40 or 50 per
cent - rightly described by City experts as 'legalised theft'.
On Europe, the Tories have abandoned their aim of taking back from
Brussels some of the power that Britain has surrendered.
Their new pledge not to give away any more powers without a referendum
is meaningless, since, under the new EU constitution, Britain's
sovereignty has been stripped away.
Or look at the farce about to play out in the energy ministry. To stave
off Britain's looming power crisis, the Tories are committed to
building
more nuclear power stations.
Yet the new Lib Dem Energy Secretary Chris Huhne is viscerally hostile
to nuclear energy. So to stop the lights from going out in Britain, Mr
Cameron has apparently given the Tory junior energy minister Charles
Hendry responsibility for civil nuclear power.
But with Mr Huhne so opposed, is it not all too likely that Mr Hendry's
boss will find ways of kicking the nuclear power station programme into
the long grass - thus provoking a possible nuclear explosion in the
energy department?
Worst of all are the coalition's proposals for constitutional change.
Mr
Cameron has agreed to a referendum on the Alternative Vote system (AV)
-
and to whip his MPs into voting that referendum through.
But AV would take seats away from the Tories and hand them to the
opposition. Even though the Tories would oppose AV in the referendum,
the chances are that, with the public so disillusioned with the old
politics, the proposal would be carried.
Worse even than that is the proposal for fixed-term parliaments, which
could be dissolved only if 55 per cent of MPs voted against the
government in a no-confidence motion.
This is nothing less than a coup against Parliamentary democracy. It
means that even if more than half of MPs voted against the coalition so
that it could not get its legislation through Parliament, the
Government
would remain in place.
The historic rights of Parliament would thus be over-ridden by an
executive that would stay in power without the consent of the people's
representatives.
It is not surprising that the Lib Dems, who are desperate not to lose
the power they have so narrowly obtained, would ride roughshod like
this
over constitutional checks and balances.
But it is deeply disappointing that Mr Cameron should promote and
defend
such a travesty of democracy, as he did on TV yesterday.
This coalition has divided Tory supporters. Many welcome it as
providing
stable government to deal with the economic crisis.
David Cameron and Nick Clegg are like the Hugh Grant and Colin Firth of
politics
David Cameron and Nick Clegg are like the Hugh Grant and Colin Firth of
politics
There is also a more general yearning for an end to adversarial yah-boo
politics, and a corresponding belief that in a coalition each party
will
temper the other's extremes.
Such thinking, I'm afraid, is naive. Coalitions are inherently
unstable;
and the fear of collapse can lead to paralysis over the most
contentious
and important decisions.
More profoundly, this one threatens to be a betrayal of authentic
conservatism.
For the suspicion is growing that Mr Cameron is seizing this
opportunity
to bury his 'Tory Right'. Since he describes himself as a 'liberal
Tory', we must conclude that
the policies he developed in order to neutralise attacks from the Left
-
socially libertarian, green, hearts bleeding for the poor of the world
-
did not represent a cynical strategy, but reflected what he really
believes.
Even if he has not set out to bury the 'Tory Right', he certainly wants
to use the Lib Dems to prove once and for all that the Tories are not
the 'nasty party' by repudiating traditional Conservative attitudes.
But this is the lazy prejudice of the Left, used to demonise people who
aren't necessarily Right-wing at all.
They merely want to defend their country's identity and culture, and
uphold freedom, justice and common sense against illiberalism,
injustice
and upside-down thinking.
Conservatism is supposed to defend what a society most values. So the
Tories should be upholding real human rights against the fanatical
illiberalism of political correctness, defending national culture and
identity against mass immigration, and protecting democracy itself
against the destruction of self-government by the EU.
Instead, Mr Cameron has abandoned his aim of tackling the abuses under
the Human Rights Act, turned Left-wing guns against the middle class
and
put a deep green zealot fox in charge of the energy hen-house.
In this way, he thinks he will position the Tories on the centre ground
as part of a 'progressive' alliance. But the centre ground has long
been
hijacked by the Left, who have turned words such as 'centre',
'progressive' and 'liberal' into their precise opposite.
By yoking themselves to the Lib Dems, who are neither liberal nor
democratic, the Tories have formed a government that in many respects
is
to the left of Labour.
As a result, authentic Conservatives find themselves abandoned - and
implicitly demonised as neanderthals by a Conservative Prime Minister.
In the light of all this, the fear must be that Mr Cameron's boldest
and
most promising move in appointing Iain Duncan Smith and Labour's Frank
Field to reform welfare may simply be no more than yet another piece of
smart politics and a sop to the Right.
There is a yawning gap where people once defended national identity,
morality and meritocracy.
In a previous era, when the Labour party owed more to Methodism than to
Marx, it promoted this agenda under the label 'ethical socialism'. Now
it is idiotically demonised as being of 'the Right'.
If those jockeying for the Labour leadership were able to raise their
sights above the tribal Left-wing prejudices that have brought them
down, they might realise they have a gloriously paradoxical opportunity
to fill this gap on 'the Right'.
If they were to do so, they might find that despite the love-in for the
Hugh Grant and Colin Firth of British politics, the big prize would be
theirs sooner than anyone might think.
Read more:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1278966/Dont-fooled-David-Camer
on--Nick-Cleggs-love--Left-wing-coup.html#ixzz0oD9fTqZb
Telegraph
Can Eton still produce a first-rate prime minister? As David Cameron
becomes the latest in a long line of Etonian prime ministers, Clive
Aslet examines those of the past.
By Clive Aslet
Published: 9:00PM BST 14 May 2010
Comments 21 | Comment on this article
David Cameron is the latest in a long list of Etonian prime ministers
Photo: Getty
Imagine. The prime minister is an Etonian. He has been in power for six
months, but dreams of a political entente with his opponents have long
since evaporated. There are riots in the capital. Reds have barricaded
themselves into the financial district, angry about the coalition
formed
at the recent election. Even worse than them are the yellows, whose
only
known principle is to be both anti-prime minister and anti-red. As
civil
order collapses and the currency goes through the floor, the only
constitutional force that enjoys universal respect, indeed reverence,
is
the royal family…
Reader, fear not. The picture I paint is not of Britain towards the end
of 2010 but of Thailand now. Abhisit Vejjajiva, the prime minister, was
a couple of years ahead of David Cameron at his old school. Michael
Heseltine has let slip that Cameron was, even then, known among his set
as the Prime Minister. Not so Kuhn Abhisit. He was generally called
"Veg" (a diminutive of his second name, not a reflection of his
ability.) But, according to one member of his year, he must have been
politically inept, since he didn't even make house captain – which
seems a bit much since Abhisit went on to get a first in PPE at Oxford.
But Eton is like that. Look at the 19 or so Etonian prime ministers
before Cameron (sorry to be vague, but I don't know whether to include
the 2nd Earl of Waldegrave, who couldn't form an administration), and
you will soon conclude – to the despair of the modern beaks – that
academic prowess at school has little to do with getting the top job
later. On the other hand, Eton sets the bar of expectation high.
"Nothing is said," an Old Etonian tells me. "But there is something
about the buildings that encourages you to live up to the history."
One could argue about whether having been at Eton helps or hinders a
21st-century politician. Boris Johnson has survived the stigma of
elitism, and the acting method that he developed – not bothering to
memorise his lines as Richard III, he would tape them onto the back of
the pillars in the Cloisters – tuned a genius for the extempore, which
has been a prime political asset. But as a preparation for the ugly
struggle of real life, the school's usefulness has long been
questioned.
Writing Enemies of Promise in 1938, Cyril Connolly thought that the
dreamy adolescence he spent at Eton, self-selectively detached from the
rest of humanity, poisoned his future as a writer; too easy a success
there spoilt him for anything else.
Not that Connolly got it absolutely right. His book contains a
memorable
portrait of Alec Dunglass – one of numerous boys who, to the confusion
of everyone else, would change their names as they grew older, in a
school where three quarters of the pupils were sons of peers. We know
Dundass better as Alec Douglas-Home, who renounced his earldom to
become
an MP but was later made Lord Home of the Hirsel.
Connolly describes him as "the kind of graceful, tolerant, sleepy boy
who is showered with favours and crowned with all the laurels, who is
liked by the Masters and admired by the boys without any apparent
exertion on his part, without experiencing the ill-effects of success
himself or arousing the pangs of envy in others… [in] the 18th century
he would have become prime minister before he was 30; [yet] as it was
he
appeared honourably ineligible for the struggle of life."
It seems an unlikely description to those of us who only knew Home from
news bulletins in his later years. Confounding Connolly's prediction,
he
did become prime minister in 1963, the last Etonian before Cameron,
although his gentle, patrician ways seemed to personify the ancient
regime: figuratively too stiff-kneed to twist to the Beatles, too
gentlemanly to outwit political intriguers like Harold Wilson. (He did,
however, score one hit against his pipe-smoking opponent, when the
Labour leader pilloried his title: "As far as the 14th Earl is
concerned, I suppose Mr Wilson, when you come to think of it, is the
14th Mr Wilson.") Home was the kind of man who, as Harold Macmillan
wrote from his hospital bed, clearly "represents the old governing
class
at its best". He knew the type; Macmillan was another Etonian.
Well, voters aren't so keen on the old governing class these days, but
some Etonian characteristics stand the test of time. Macmillan
displayed
one that has been passed to Cameron: unflappability. This was related,
perhaps, to the sang-froid that has won Etonians a disproportionate
number of VCs, although in the fin de siècle it could degenerate into
languor.
Becoming Conservative prime minister in 1902, Arthur Balfour cultivated
a limp wrist, in everything except golf. He loathed Eton; to encourage
manliness, he was forbidden to use spectacles, even though he was
chronically myopic. Not surprisingly, he was one of the many Etonian
prime ministers who hardly shone at school. But the charm and wit –
typically Etonian attributes – which were honed there masked the
laziness of a lifetime. "He could be energetic when he chose, but he
chose very seldom," summed up the Times journalist Henry Hamilton Fyfe.
He would give speeches without even reading the notes prepared for him;
the effect was mixed, but he was impervious to the reprimands of his
staff, saying: "Nothing matters very much, and few things matter at
all." Good philosophy, but not really the mantra to galvanise the party
for an election. In 1906, the Liberals won by a mile.
At Eton, it was the Duke of Wellington's brother, Lord Mornington, who
won applause for his classical studies and public speaking, not the
future prime minister. There were, of course, the playing fields,
supposed to have a not inconsiderable bearing on the outcome of
Waterloo. Trying to trace the origin of the quotation, Christopher
Hollis, one of Eton's many historians, gets no closer that an
observation made by the Duke when he revisited his alma mater in 1819:
"I really believe I owe my spirit of enterprise to the tricks I used to
play in the garden." The nature of these tricks is open to question;
certainly he thought he would be able to find his way to the Virgins'
Bower, as the accommodation of the maid servants was colloquially
known.
It was not a path that the Victorianly prim William Gladstone is likely
to have trodden.
We know a lot about Gladstone's Eton days, because of the dry, but
meticulous diary that he kept while he was there. "Read Ovid" is the
first entry. We have a different source of information for Pitt the
Elder's time at Eton: the school bill for 1719 ("Paid for curing his
chilblains 5s. 0d."). Later, he remembered more than chilblains,
commenting that "he had scarce observed a boy who was not cowed for
life
at Eton"; his son Pitt the Younger was privately tutored before being
sent to Oxford at the age of 14. In the next century, the young Winston
Churchill was, famously, regarded as too stupid to get in, being
consigned to an ignominious career at Harrow instead. Future triumphs
cannot always be predicted from school careers: a moral, if ever there
was one, for our own age, obsessed with examinations.
One thing that is noticeable among Etonians, then and now, is their
clubbability. Few Etonian prime ministers have taken this as far as
Douglas-Home, who practically married the institution, his wife being
his headmaster's daughter. But when Cameron crammed his shadow cabinet
with Etonians, he was simply following precedent. Half of Balfour's
Cabinet were Etonians, just as Stanley Baldwin clocked up a record
number of Harrovians (he had gone to Harrow). When Sir Robert Walpole –
described as having been "naturally indolent", with a dislike of
"application", while at school: you sense a pattern here – rose to
pre-eminence, he deluged his old Eton friends with appointments: sleaze
in the grandest tradition.
A large school, Eton specialises in the ease of manner that the dour,
fingernail-biting Gordon Brown conspicuously lacked. With it goes a
degree of self-assurance, which can seem perilously like arrogance. As
a
father who has recently sent his son to the school commented to me
after
the boy's first term, "They have to walk about the town in the sort of
clothes most people only wear to weddings. No wonder they have no
hang-ups about standing out from the crowd in later life." No wonder,
perhaps, that they seek the company of their own kind: other
individuals
whose background and education have, for good or ill, instilled a sense
of being different, of leading the pack rather than following it.
These days, Cameron has cast his net wider than he did when he became
leader of the Tory party. Although Nick Clegg and George Osborne would,
in marriage terms, be examples of assortative mating, they did go to
different, if, in their own ways, equally elite schools. In Clegg's
case, that was Westminster. So a word of caution is in order.
Westminster has produced a good crop of prime ministers, too. Mr
Etonian, watch out.
Clive Aslet is Editor at Large of Country Life. ??
Free Life Commentary,
A Personal View from
The Director of the Libertarian Alliance
Issue Number 193
16th May 2010
Linking url: http://www.seangabb.co.uk/flcomm/flc193.htm
Available for debate on LA Blog at http://wp.me/p29oR-3p4
Two Cheers for the Coalition:
The Libertarian Alliance on the New British Government
By Sean Gabb
I have been asked, as Director of the Libertarian Alliance, to make a
response to the forming of a coalition government last week in Britain
by
the Conservative and Liberal Parties. In making this response, I do not
claim to speak in every detail for the other members of the Executive
Committee. But what I will say is broadly the opinion of the majority.
Briefly put, we welcome the new Government. However dishonest the
individual Ministers may be, however bad may be their ideological
motivations, we believe that, in its overall effects, this Government
may,
by its own compound nature, be compelled to move the country in a more
libertarian direction. We understand the dejection of our conservative
friends. These regard the Coalition as a disaster. They were hoping for
a
Conservative Government led by conservatives. Instead, they have a
coalition government that will not withdraw from the European Union,
will
be easily as politically correct as Labour, and that will push forward
the
Green agenda regardless of cost and regardless of the scientific
evidence.
This seems a fair assessment of how our new masters at least want to
behave. Nevertheless, we believe that the Coalition – assuming it can
hold
together – is immeasurably an improvement on the Blair and Brown
Governments that went before it, and that it may even be rather good. We
may find much that is objectionable, and we have no doubt that there
will
be more. But there is no point in denying that we are quietly pleased.
The worst possible outcome of the general election would have been
another
Labour majority. The Blair and Brown Governments had created a police
state at home, and had involved us abroad in at least three wars of
military aggression. They had on their hands the blood of perhaps a
million innocents. That had turned the police and most of the
administration into arms of the Labour Party. They had doubled, or
tripled, or quadrupled, the national debt – no one seems to be quite
sure
by how much, but the debt has undoubtedly exploded. Though lavishing
huge
taxpayer subsidies on the Celtic nations, they were far advanced to
destroying England as any kind of recognisable nation. Their commitment
to
the European Union was solely for a procedural device for ruling by
decree. They had abolished habeas corpus and the protections against
double jeopardy. They were working to abolish trial by jury. It is
impossible to find any other government in British – or, before then, in
English – history that had destroyed so comprehensively and so
deliberately in so short a time. When I saw that Labour had lost its
majority, I rejoiced. When I thought it might cling to power in some
coalition of the losers, I trembled. When Gordon Brown finally
resigned,
I
opened a bottle of champagne
Nor, however, would we have welcomed a Conservative majority. David
Cameron is – unless constrained – an arrogant and untrustworthy
creature.
Our conservative friends may have expected much of him. Or they may have
thought they could extract much from him. But they were always deluding
themselves. We knew, from the way he slithered out of his promise of a
referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, that he had no intention of looking at
British Membership of the European Union. We knew that he would never
lift
a finger against coercive multiculturalism, and that he would drive on
the
Green agenda. In these respects, a Conservative Government would have
been
no different in its actions – rhetoric being another matter – than the
actual Coalition Government will be.
From our point of view, indeed, a Conservative majority would have been
far worse than the Coalition. The Conservatives had promised to roll
back
much of the Labour police state. They promised to scrap identity cards
and
the national identity register. They promised to look at the thousands
of
new criminal offences created since 1997, and to restore many of the
procedural rights taken away by Labour. We always regarded these
promises
as worthless. Conservatives – Thatcherite or Cameronian – have never had
much commitment to civil liberties. They know something about economics,
and have some regard for the national interest. But they have never been
enthusiastic about substantive freedom and its procedural safeguards. If
they denounce police states, it is usually because they think the wrong
people are in control of them. The Labour police state, after all, was
built on foundations laid down by the preceding Conservative
Governments.
The commitments on civil liberties were simply intended as bargaining
counters between Mr Cameron and his traditionalist wing. He would deny
his
traditionalists any shift in European policy. He would buy them off by
shelving the abolition of identity cards, and by cancelling any efforts
to
bring the police and bureaucracy back under the rule of law.
And an outright Conservative win would have strengthened Mr Cameron’s
position within the Party, and the position of all the worthless young
men
and women who had attached themselves to him. They would have regarded
this as a mandate for their own remodelling of the Conservative Party.
The
purges and centralised control that began when Mr Cameron took over
would
have been carried ruthlessly forward.
But, thanks to his general dishonesty and to the particular incompetence
of his election campaign, Mr Cameron did not get his majority. Instead
of
being carried in shoulder high, he and his friends were forced to crawl
naked on their bellies into Downing Street. He was forced to enter a
coalition with the Liberal Democrats. These, to be sure, are not as
liberal or democratic as they like to claim. Their belief in liberty is
often little more than political correctness. Many of them are state
socialists. Their cooperation with the Brown Government to deny us our
promised referendum on the European Constitution shows what they think
of
voting when its result might not go their own way. No one can blame them
for threatening Mr Cameron that they would go into coalition with Labour
if he did not give them what they wanted. But we can doubt the sanity
and
goodness of those who continue regretting that there was no
“progressive”
coalition – a coalition, that is, with tyrants and murderers. Even so,
the
Coalition Government has now been formed; and there is some chance that
it
may compel each party to behave better than either might have by itself.
There probably will now be a considerable rolling back of the Labour
police state. Identity cards and the national identity register will
almost certainly go. We do not believe that the extension of detention
without charge will be formally reversed. But we do believe that it will
be surrounded with safeguards that effectively reverse it. We hope it
will
be the same with juryless trials and the DNA database, and with police
powers in general. There will be at least a limited return to freedom of
speech as it was enjoyed before 1997, and of the right to peaceful
protest, and of security of our homes from arbitrary searches and
seizures. As said, we never believed any of the Conservative assurances
about civil liberties. But the Liberal Democrats will demand their full
implementation – plus a little more. They will demand this to settle
their
own consciences for supporting cuts in government spending.
Turning to the economy, here as well the Coalition may do good work. The
Labour Ministers never understood economics. They were fundamentally
Marxists in expensive suits. Intellectually, they never appreciated the
nexus of individual choices that is market freedom as other than some
aggregated box called “The Economy” into which they could dip as they
pleased. What they described as their promotion of enterprise never went
beyond trading favours with big business.
The Conservatives and many of the Liberal Democrats do seem to
understand
economics. They know that taxes and government spending are both too
high,
and that the objects of government spending are often malign. They
believe
not only that the current nature and scale of government activity is
unaffordable, but also that it is immoral. They will deregulate.
Now, economics was always the Conservative strong point, and it may be
thought that the Liberal Democrats have nothing of their own to offer.
However, we in the Libertarian Alliance have never liked the
Conservative
approach to economic reform. Their tax cuts favoured the rich. Their
deregulations turned those at the bottom into casualised serfs. Their
privatisations turned state monopolies into income streams for their
friends in big business. They were better in all these respects than
Labour. But we are interested to see what the Liberal Democrats will now
be able to contribute with their belief in raising tax thresholds for
the
poor at the expense of the rich, and their belief in mutual institutions
to provide public services in place both of the State and of big
business.
As for political reform, we hear the complaints of our conservative
friends that the Constitution will be overthrown if the electoral system
is changed, or if the lifetime of a Parliament is fixed. We are also
astonished at these complaints. We are not about to suffer a revolution.
We have already had a revolution. Since 1997, Labour has come close to
destroying the whole constitutional settlement of this country as it
emerged after 1688. However unwise or evil it may have been to do this,
it
has been done, and there is no going back to the old order. We need a
thorough reform of our political institutions to safeguard such liberty
as
we retain, or such liberty as may be returned to us. We see nothing
wrong
with any of the changes so far suggested.
Our conservative friends defend the current electoral system as ensuring
“strong government”. We know what they really mean. Their fantasy is
that
they can stage some coup within the Conservative Party and then get a
majority in Parliament on about a quarter of the total possible vote. We
are still waiting for them to take over the Conservative Party. While
waiting, we have endured thirty one years of strong – and usually
disastrously bad – government. If neither the Conservative not Labour
Parties had got a majority since 1983, it is hard to see how this
country
would be worse off than it is. It might easily be better.
Another objection we hear to electoral reform is that it would put the
Liberal Democrats permanently into government. This claim is based on
the
assumption that the three main parties would continue in being. In
truth,
all of these parties are diverse coalitions brought together by history
and kept together by the iron logic of the first-past-the-post system.
Give us some less random – or perhaps less biased – correlation of seats
in Parliament to votes cast, and all these parities will be gradually
pulled apart, and their parts may then be recombined into more natural
groupings.
We will not comment on the proposed fixed term to the current
Parliament,
or on the enhanced majority needed to bring down the Coalition. We
understand that these proposals extend to this Parliament alone. If they
are found to be convenient, they may continue by statute or by
convention.
If not, they will not continue. But these are not libertarian issues.
In conclusion, the Libertarian Alliance wants more – much more –
than all
this. We want the full relegalisation of drugs. We want the right to
keep
and bear arms for self-defence. We want complete freedom of speech and
association, and this includes the right of consenting adults to free
expression of their sexuality. We want the removal of all corporate
privilege from the rich and well-connected. We want the poor to be given
free opportunity to make themselves independent of both state welfare
and
wage labour. We want taxes and government spending cut back to where
they
stood before the Great War – and that is only a beginning. We believe in
freedom in the fullest sense. The Coalition will not come close to
giving
us what we want.
Nevertheless, we do welcome what we have so far seen of the Coalition.
Its
nature may force both the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats to do
better than either would have done given complete freedom. The
Conservatives may be compelled to deliver on their civil liberties
promises. The Liberal Democrats may be forced to think seriously about
their mutualist leanings now that their preferred state socialist option
is off the table. The British electorate is not a single creature. It is
only a singular noun that describes several dozen million individuals
and
a system that allocates votes to seats almost randomly. But we can
understand those who claim that the British people, in all their wisdom,
have stood up at last and given themselves the very best government that
was on offer.
NB—Sean Gabb's book, Cultural Revolution, Culture War: How Conservatives
Lost England, and How to Get It Back, can be downloaded for free from
http://tinyurl.com/ya4pzuh
Posts
