Hard lessons in responsibility for the Lib Dems

Perhaps he didn’t mean what his words mean: that, not expecting to be in government, the Liberal Democrats could safely promise the moon in order to get votes. Be that as it may, his remark was still odd. A good many opinion polls indicated that a hung parliament was likely, and that there was consequently a fair chance that the Lib Dems would be part of a coalition government. If the coalition had been with Labour, as many of the party’s elder statesmen would have preferred, they would still have had to accept the increase in tuition fees in England. It was Labour, after all, which introduced these fees in the first place, and it was Labour which commissioned Lord Browne, the former head of BP, to draw up the report which recommended the increase, and which they had pledged to implement.

Actually, the Lib Dems’ U-turn was not as sharp as some who voted for them suppose. The party was against tuition fees, certainly, but it was in favour of a graduate tax, and given that most students take out loans to pay tuition fees, there is no great difference between the two forms of deferred payment for university education.

The coalition’s road is a rocky one, partly because times are tough, partly because there are differences of opinion between the two parties. There’s nothing surprising or unusual about that. There are differences of opinion in all governments.

The coalition government is comprised of very inexperienced ministers. The Lib Dems had never been in government; the Tories had been out for 13 years. Only Ken Clarke and William Hague survived from John Major’s Cabinet. Ministers of both parties are learning that what seems easy in opposition is rather more complicated in government.

This should surprise nobody. We have a comparable example before our eyes here in Scotland. While the SNP was in opposition, a long way from office, its policy on independence was clear-cut. Scotland would be an independent sovereign state with a seat at the United Nations and at the EU’s Council of Ministers; it would not be a member of the Nato alliance. These may still be the party’s ultimate aims but, recently, no more than lip service is given to them. It now seems that the break-up of the Union might be less than complete. Separatism is off the menu; instead the SNP seems to be settling, temporarily at least, for a more modest disengagement. Reality has a way of biting once a party is in a position of responsibility. This is what the Lib Dems are finding too.

Their support in the country has fallen away. This is the verdict of the opinion polls and of May’s Scottish election in which, undoubtedly, they suffered from their leaders’ decision to form the coalition with the Tories. One has to ask what those who voted Lib Dem last year thought they were voting for. They cannot have supposed that their party would win a majority and that Nick Clegg would be prime minister. The Lib Dems could be in government only if there was a hung parliament and a coalition was formed.

No doubt some Lib Dem voters, in all parts of the UK and certainly in Scotland, might have preferred a coalition with Labour – even with the discredited party that lost a hundred or so seats in the election. Yet such a coalition might have led to a loss of support too, especially in England.

Thinking of the defecting Lib Dem voters reminds me of a cricket story. Some three years ago the England batsman Ian Bell returned to his county, Warwickshire, after making 70 or 80 in a one-day international. Neal Abberley, who had coached and mentored Bell since he was a boy, greeted him with the words, “Don’t you like making centuries any more?” The question struck home. Bell realised he was in danger of not fulfilling his talent. He took a grip on himself, and has scarcely looked back since.

A similar question might be put to Lib Dem voters: “Don’t you like having your party in government?” A supplementary might be added: “If you don’t, what on earth were you voting for – permanent and futile opposition?” In the darkest days of the old Liberal party, it used to be said that “a vote for a Liberal is a wasted vote”.

If Mr Clegg and the Lib Dem leadership had turned down the chance of a share in government last summer, that old charge would have been justified. There is no point voting for a party that prefers the luxury of irresponsible opposition to the demands of government.

Naturally in a coalition government, the smaller party has to make more concessions than its partner. Nevertheless, it can make its influence felt, and the Lib Dems have at least four things to their credit. It is thanks to them that the threshold at which people start paying income tax has been raised; and they are on course to seeing it lifted to £10,000 by the end of this parliament. This is a worthwhile achievement. They have succeeded in watering down the proposed reforms of the NHS in England, they have made it easier for David Cameron to resist the Europhobes in his own party and to be sensibly co-operative in the EU, and they have kept up the pressure on greedy and delinquent bankers.

The irritation they provoke among Tory backbenchers is evidence of their influence in government – and that influence has mostly been for good.

Whether this will be rewarded at the next election is doubtful, but that election is some years away. People may think better of them when it comes than they do now – if, that is, both parties in the coalition hold their nerve.

One other thing is likely: next time the Lib Dems will make fewer promises that can’t be kept; simply because they will hope to be in government again, whoever their partner may be. So they will be thinking like a party of government, not a mere protest group.