Allan Massie: Harsh lessons loom for coalition's junior partner

Published on Monday 6 December 2010 18:50

For years the Liberal Party, which became the Liberal Democrats, hankered for coalition government. This was perfectly sensible. There was no way they were going to be the majority party in the House of Commons.

So they inveighed against the first-past-the post voting system, which they said gave a false picture of the balance of opinion in the country. This was obviously true. The last Labour government, for instance, had a comfortable Commons majority even though only just over one person in three (among those who went to the polls) voted Labour.

So the third party called for proportional representation, and, whenever a general election looked like being close, spoke lovingly of the virtue of a hung parliament in which they would hold the balance of power.

Some of us are old enough to remember the Two Davids, Steel and Owen, in 1987 coyly declining to say which partner they would accept if the election resulted in a hung parliament.

A coalition was the aim of successive Lib Dem leaders: Paddy Ashdown, Charles Kennedy and Menzies Campbell. Admittedly all three would have preferred coalition with Labour, and when the longed-for hung parliament was at last delivered in May, they still would rather have had what was called a "progressive alliance" with Labour, supported, if necessary, by the nationalist parties in Scotland, and Wales and by the Democratic Unionists of Northern Ireland. Their successor, Nick Clegg, discarding the pink-tinged spectacles, saw things more clearly. The electorate had denied the Conservatives a majority but it was clear that it had rejected Labour. He therefore opted for coalition with the Tories, and, playing his hand skilfully, extracted quite considerable concessions from David Cameron's negotiating team.

Mr Clegg understands the conditions of a coalition, many in his party don't. The last good novel Kingsley Amis wrote had the title You Can't Do Both, and it is a message the Lib Dems should learn. You can't assume the responsibility of government and enjoy the freedom of opposition.

The second condition of coalition government is equally clear - the parties give way on some issues so that they get their way on others.

Mr Clegg and his colleagues have had some notable successes. They have persuaded their partners to raise the tax allowance by stages to 10,000.They have secured softer policies with regard to short-term prison sentences, they have got the pupil premium and the promise of a more tender regard for civil liberties; and there will be a referendum on voting reform.

Moreover, David Cameron, to the dismay of some Tories, has taken a much more co-operative line on Europe than he did in opposition.

The third condition is less easily accepted and not always understood by party members and the general public alike. We are accustomed to believe, or at least to pretend to believe, that a party in government will carry out the pledges it made in its manifesto. (I say "pretend to believe" because we all know that very often this doesn't happen.) Failure to do so is not always dishonourable or dishonest. Sometimes what seemed desirable cannot sensibly be performed.

However, the nature of coalition government makes it impossible that the administration will do everything which one or other of the parties promised to do. It is impossible because these promises may be incompatible. One party or the other must therefore give way.

So we come to this week's "crisis in the coalition" over raising tuition fees in England as recommended by Lord Browne in his report on the financing of higher education. Lord Browne was commissioned to make this report by the Labour government. During the election both Labour and Conservatives steered clear of the issue: there was a tacit understanding that whichever was in office would be inclined to enact Lord Browne's recommendations. The Liberal Democrats, however, pledged to abolish tuition fees, replacing them by a graduate tax.

It was recognised during the negotiations that this was difficult territory, and indeed the coalition agreement which was published gives the Lib Dems an opt-out: "If the response of the government to Lord Browne's report is one that the Liberal Democrats cannot accept, arrangements will be made to enable Liberal Democrats to abstain".

This looks clear. Yet the phrasing is actually ambiguous. Consider the words "the response of the government." The Liberal Democrat ministers can't logically dissent from this response since they are part of the government which is responding. Indeed, it is the Lib Dem Vince Cable who is the minister responsible for putting that response before the Commons. The party leadership's dilemma has nothing to do with the merits, or otherwise, of Lord Browne's recommendations, but it is concerned with the principle of the collective responsibility of the Cabinet

What then of the party's manifesto promise? Mr Clegg has the choice of breaking up the coalition or explaining to his MPs and to those who voted Liberal Democrat, that this is a matter on which he has had to yield to what is, after all, the senior partner in the coalition.Since it would be irresponsible to take the former course, he must take the latter and tell Liberal Democrat ministers that they must either vote for the measure or resign their office.

This done, there is however no good reason why Lib Dem backbenchers should not be permitted a free vote, with the recommendation that at most they should abstain rather than vote against the government in which their leader is Deputy Prime Minister.

Governments can survive backbench rebellions - more than a hundred Labour members voted against the Iraq war. However, a coalition can't survive if ministers don't support its measures, whatever their private reservations.