Analysis: We never promised you a Rose Garden, Cameron and Clegg tell coalition’s critics

AS RECENT studies of the old Lab-Lib Scottish Executive have shown, one of the problems of running a coalition government is that the parties spend so much time facing inwards, exchanging Policy A for Compromise B, that the end result gets watered down and lacks definition.

So focused much of the criticism on the Con-Lib Coalition’s legislative programme yesterday. “Tinkering”, “tweaking” and “hotch-potch” were just some of the phrases coming from the Left and the Right yesterday to describe the government’s proposals.

The business lobby was unhappy with the limited ambition of plans to strip away regulatory burdens on firms, and to boost business competitiveness. Specific cuts to red tape and tax reductions should have been pushed forward instead, they argued.

Meanwhile, the union lobby was just as unhappy, saying even the elements it approved of, such as moves to curb executive pay, “lack teeth”.

The fuzziness was seen elsewhere too. The reforms to the House of Lords may have been more specific than expected, but there was no timetable on getting the proposals through. And missing altogether were other radical plans, such as the proposal to give people the power to recall MPs, the legalisation of gay marriage and a new law to change the Rules of Succession. Ministers must hope that William and Kate don’t have a baby girl in the next year or so.

In addition, a commitment to setting a legal floor on Britain’s aid contribution will now come later in the parliament, if and when time allows.

Given the ambition of the some of the legislation passed by this government in its two years in office, particularly in education and welfare (and, not to mention the newly stamped Scotland Act), defenders of the coalition would argue that the limited scale in yesterday’s statement is well overdue.

Any spare time may soon get eaten up anyway, with the complicated reform of the Lords and the potential collapse in the eurozone likely to require a few more hours legislating over the coming year. Moreover, they add, this is a government which has now officially entered its delivery phase in the wake of the initial legislative frenzy.

Tory MPs yesterday sought to emphasise that parliament was not the place to go looking for action over the coming years. Better to go hunting in Whitehall and in the country at large, where the big task of implementing the government’s reforms is now rolling out.

However, with a newly confident Labour Party baying at its heels, the coalition looks vulnerable to claims that, just two years in, its only message is to stay the course and hold on tight. Two years of tough, austerity government have seen Mr Clegg and Mr Cameron going from their happy union in the Downing Street Rose Garden to them warning that any promises of Rose Gardens now have to be dismissed.

All hopes now rest on the economy picking up. The sense is that yesterday’s coalition fudge will not have made much difference either way.