Coalition government - what do we think?

Pecker

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Just to start with, this is not intended to be a discussion of whether or not you agree with the current coalition government's policies.

You may an ardent socialist, or UKIP-er, and hate much of what has gone on, but that's not what this thread is about.

Has coalition government 'worked'?

The historical fear of coalition in the UK has been, as far as I can tell, threefold:

1 - It would be unstable, with parties walking in and out of the agreement, and a change of government every 5 minutes;
2 - It would be weak government where neither side could agree on anything, so little got done;
3 - The smaller, centre ground party (in this case the LDs) would hold power and influence larger than their vote suggests it should.

As far as I can tell none of this appear to have happened.

Whilst we've had the odd rumour of a fall out, the coalition has looked fairly solid.

There have been some fairly drastic/tough/innovative/draconian (depending on your point of view) policies over the last 5 years. Whether or not I like what they've done, they've certainly done things.

And whilst the LDs do appear to have perhaps taken the edge off the more extreme Conservative policies, this has certainly looked more like a blue administration than a gold one.

What does everyone else think?

Are there other fears about coalition government which I've missed or forgotten?

Have the parties been less successful in practicing the art of coalition than I think they have?

Discuss. But please remember that this isn't a discussion as to how much we agree with the coalition's policies.

Cheers.

Steve W
 
I think this one has worked well, but it might be beginners luck.

Plenty of other countries have coalitions, and as long as it brings the best of each party while suppressing the worst then it will be good, but that is pretty much in the eye of the beholder.

With the bitchyness of politics I can easily see an intransigent government formed from a coalition, one that holds a majority so cannot be dissolved, and nothing happens for a fixed term parliament. Then again that might not be a bad thing?
 
The next government is going to be a coalition if the pollsters are to be believed. It's worked to a certain extent the Liberals have managed to keep the lid on some of more radical and ideological policies of the Tories. That has certainly been the influence in the present government.

For the country as a whole I think the Liberals being involved again would not prove to be a disaster. For purely selfish reasons, a coalition that would be better for Wales, could very well be a Labour/SNP/Plaid Cymru government. But could that last a full five years although it was doubted that the present government would last a year.

We certainly don't want to see Italian style politics in the UK. The Tories and the Libs have proved it can work. It's going to be a fascinating election. Who is going to get in bed with who.

My politics are simple. Same s*** different party/parties.
 
The simple fact is that any coalition will represent a larger proportion of the electorate - and as voter / political apathy has increased over recent decades I see coalitions as much better for democracy than a single party, with a massive majority but elected by a diminishingly small percentage of the population.
What we need is more democratic engagement, and as far as I am seeing the increase in exposure of the smaller parties has certainly witnessed that.
I truly hope 2 party politics is on the wane and we never go back to it.
 
BISHI said:
I see coalitions as much better for democracy than a single party
I'm not sure I agree. Whilst I think its very good to have a ruling Government that "represents" closer to 50% of the electorate than a single party, do we really know what we are getting with a coalition? As things stand now how do we know what policies the parties will pursue or not in coalition agreements? None of them have articulated clear red lines for upcoming negotiations.

Another point I suppose is has the coalition worked for both its members? From my perspective it has done wonders for the Lib Dems - they are no longer the empty opportunists of pre-2010 but their support has been culled in the process. Perhaps that was to be expected?
 
Two parties is just one short of a dictatorship .
 
I think the coalition has been a big success based on its primary goal - to provide a stable government and retain the confidence of the money markets.

It hasn't been perfect by any means. The failure to meet the deficit targets is a big miss.

But there have been notable successes particularly on the interest rates we pay on the National Debt, and on employment/unemployment.
 
As things stand now how do we know what policies the parties will pursue or not in coalition agreements?

Is that any different from when we had a single party in power not delivering on it's manifesto?
 
Is that any different from when we had a single party in power not delivering on it's manifesto?
A valid point - but IMHO there was slightly more accountability. As things stand now we can dig out and quote the 2010 manifestos all we like but the answer is and was "we couldn't do that as we were in a coalition".
 
Yes I agree, it's probably safest to say that this coalition has nether been a lot worse, nor a lot better than a single party government, with the caveat that other coalitions may vary :)

We probably need to try out a few more coalitions before we decide whether they are a good or a bad thing for British Politics, and it looks likely we will get that chance in May.
 
Cannot wait for Conservative/Labour (no particular order) coalition. However, every time i think of the possibility I get this cold shiver of deja vu, strange. Maybe 3 way coalition, with the Liberals, Yippee, we will be stitched up, by the very grown up parties.
 
Yes I agree, it's probably safest to say that this coalition has nether been a lot worse, nor a lot better than a single party government, with the caveat that other coalitions may vary :)

We probably need to try out a few more coalitions before we decide whether they are a good or a bad thing for British Politics, and it looks likely we will get that chance in May.

Agree with that.

1 minor thing that springs to mind. The tax threshold has risen a lot during this term which is a good thing.

Dragging millions of others into the higher tax band was not so good.

Overall, as you say, neither worse or better.

My overall feeling is that, just like the norm, decisions are taken for points scoring reasons and instant popularity rather than for the long term benefit of the UK. The whole airports fiasco being just one case in point.

There's so much to do, a lot of it involving radical change but no single party, or coalition has the balls to do it.:(
 
Cheers everyone.

Quite a few people saying it's been 'okay'.

May I ask if you were expecting that, or were you expecting the three problems I listed in post 1 ?

If coalition politics is here to stay, would you now say that's okay, obviously with the caveat that IG gave (we've only had one).

Steve W
 
Not sure what i was expecting. Probably not a lot. Just like with any other party.:rolleyes:

The problem if it happens again, say the same deal, is that they're just too far apart on ideals for anything of note to be done.

We face a number of long term issues (crisis soon) that need some radical changes. The NHS and immigration being just 2.

They'll never agree on anything other that some half baked short term measures.

Of course you could argue that 2 wrongs make a right but i'm a bit sceptical on that one.
 
Don't think we can generalize about coalition governments.
In the present case the Lib dems had a very career oriented leader, Clegg who could actually work with the Conservatives. The others, Vince Cable were probably dragged in, as I suspect he would have much preferred Labour and by the attraction of actually being important for a change. Once given and important job the dust settled.

Can't see that sort of arrangement happening with say the Greens or SNP. The former are fruitcakes and the the latter are far too socialist (and not malleable).
 
I think the coalition has been a big success based on its primary goal - to provide a stable government and retain the confidence of the money markets.

Stability is what the Money Markets prefer (hence the ratings agencies flexing their muscles when the Republicans were threatening to not raise the US debt ceiling, they fell into line pretty quickly once a credit rating downgrade was mooted). All Osborne has done is to buy time off the money markets to try and get growth going. It remains to be seen if he's done enough or if the current recovery is a strong one or a flash in the pan that will fail once house prices go up whenever the BoE pushes interest rates up.

It hasn't been perfect by any means. The failure to meet the deficit targets is a big miss.

He's missed just about every target he set himself, his plan to slash the size of the state to encourage the private sector to fill the gap failed to materalise hence he had to borrow more to fill in the spending gaps. The National Debt has continued it's upward trajectory regardless of deficit reduction. Which is more about getting the interest debt payments to an affordable level not to deal with politicians spending addiction. Put simply the coalition has spending addiction like all Governments before it.

But there have been notable successes particularly on the interest rates we pay on the National Debt, and on employment/unemployment.

Only because Osborne has placated the Bond markets. If they don't see the kind of growth from the UK as they are expecting, you may find out debt interest payments will shoot up. Osborne was lucky that the bond markets only downgraded our credit rating slightly.

As for employment and unemployment figures ? As with all Governments we most likely do not have the full picture. If a lot of jobs are zero hour contracts than that's a lot of lost tax revenue from people not having fixed hours and a stable wage.

We are still in a dire fiscal position, which will take decades to fix if we are lucky and no other global economic shocks occur.

As for coalitions ? I think we'd better get used to it, the days of two parties dominating politics is likely to be over for a long while. We are coming more into line with what happens in other parts of Europe. It's not a bad thing, as majority Governments can be quite ineffective at times, usually down to naval gazing within a party.
 
Sorry guys, but the last two posts have become about what your opinion is of Osborne, Clegg, etc. and thats not what this thread is supposed to be about. Please feel free to continue that elsewhere though, obviously.

If coalitions were to continue, become the norm, or whatever, we'd still have politicians good and bad, some people would like X, others would hate them, etc.

Steve W
 
Cheers everyone.

Quite a few people saying it's been 'okay'.

May I ask if you were expecting that, or were you expecting the three problems I listed in post 1 ?

If coalition politics is here to stay, would you now say that's okay, obviously with the caveat that IG gave (we've only had one).

Steve W

I believe the coalition has operated so well primarily down to the Lib Dems and their compliance with the overall majority of Tories in the government.
I suspect that many other parties or mixtures of political ideas would not necessarily be so smooth sailing.
 
Coalition is just a multi-party government. Bickering, power control, manipulation and whipping into party lines takes place anyway - just more complicated inter-party negotiations required to tie-in the manifestos and bites of media time etc.

Coalition governments can work well as long as the person in charge (PM, president etc) has the charisma, personality and powerful presence required to keep all in check. For example, Churchill during WWII did a good job keeping the various political factions in line.
 
I believe the coalition has operated so well primarily down to the Lib Dems and their compliance with the overall majority of Tories in the government.
I suspect that many other parties or mixtures of political ideas would not necessarily be so smooth sailing.

You see, here's the thing.

We don't really know what went on behind closed doors as to how much give and take there was. Nothing new there, we have no idea how much of that goes on in one party government between different factions of the ruling party.

We can have an educated guess. We can listen to the noises being made by the relevant individuals, and look at the manifestos from the last election.

Of course it's extremely difficult to quantity, but I think the policies of the coalition probably balance fairly evenly with the manifestos with the Conservative and LD parties in 2010, given the size of the parties after the election.

Steve W
 
Okay, so a follow up question.

The main reason that some people have not wanted a proportional voting system in this country is that it would lead to perpetual coalition government, and that coalitions would be problematic (see post 1).

Has the performance (function as opposed to policies) of this coalition altered anything?

And, supplementary to that, it now looks like coalitions are going to be with us for quite a while. It's difficult to see round the corner, but I'm struggling to see anyone winning an outright majority in a few weeks. And once the smaller parties are on the map with a few MPs I suspect it'd be difficult to put the genie back in the bottle.

So, if we are going to have coalitions, would it not be better to have them proportionate to the votes the parties received?

In short, I believe in the past that most people didn't like the unfair voting system but put up with at as, against coalition government, disproportionality was seen as the lesser of two evils. Now that coalition isn't seen as quite so 'evil' (and even if it is, we're probably stuck with it anyway) is disproportionality now the larger 'evil'?

Sorry if I've not put that very well.

Steve W
 
Okay, so a follow up question.

The main reason that some people have not wanted a proportional voting system in this country is that it would lead to perpetual coalition government, and that coalitions would be problematic (see post 1).

Has the performance (function as opposed to policies) of this coalition altered anything?

And, supplementary to that, it now looks like coalitions are going to be with us for quite a while. It's difficult to see round the corner, but I'm struggling to see anyone winning an outright majority in a few weeks. And once the smaller parties are on the map with a few MPs I suspect it'd be difficult to put the genie back in the bottle.

So, if we are going to have coalitions, would it not be better to have them proportionate to the votes the parties received?

In short, I believe in the past that most people didn't like the unfair voting system but put up with at as, against coalition government, disproportionality was seen as the lesser of two evils. Now that coalition isn't seen as quite so 'evil' (and even if it is, we're probably stuck with it anyway) is disproportionality now the larger 'evil'?

Sorry if I've not put that very well.

Steve W

It has helped but hasn't- yet- delivered the fracturing of parties required to make PR work properly. We still have two parties designed for FPTP and until they break into two or more units each, the required 'spread' for PR to feel right isn't there for me. In my constituency (a semi marginal), the Lib Dem candidate is still the only real kingmaker and that isn't enough.
 
Okay, so a follow up question.

The main reason that some people have not wanted a proportional voting system in this country is that it would lead to perpetual coalition government, and that coalitions would be problematic (see post 1).

Has the performance (function as opposed to policies) of this coalition altered anything?

And, supplementary to that, it now looks like coalitions are going to be with us for quite a while. It's difficult to see round the corner, but I'm struggling to see anyone winning an outright majority in a few weeks. And once the smaller parties are on the map with a few MPs I suspect it'd be difficult to put the genie back in the bottle.

So, if we are going to have coalitions, would it not be better to have them proportionate to the votes the parties received?

In short, I believe in the past that most people didn't like the unfair voting system but put up with at as, against coalition government, disproportionality was seen as the lesser of two evils. Now that coalition isn't seen as quite so 'evil' (and even if it is, we're probably stuck with it anyway) is disproportionality now the larger 'evil'?

Sorry if I've not put that very well.

Steve W
In all honesty I don't think coalition Government is with us here long term. As and when we get a charismatic leader of one of the main political parties people will vote accordingly - had David Miliband been leader of Labour now we would probably be looking at a majority Government.

I'm also not sure your assessment that UK coalition Government works, based on the Con/Lib Dem pact, as particularly sound. It has required the Lib Dems to abandon all their nutty policies and cost them two-thirds of their support. Don't get me wrong, I think the UK has benefitted from that - but would other minor parties have been as brave as Nick Clegg? I doubt it.

I would also argue that the FPTP system is key to ensuring extremists are kept to a minimum in Parliament. I think we will reap the benefit of that in a few weeks.
 
Interesting comments in some of the media regarding the Lib Dems willingness to enter into another coalition:
BBC News - No mood in Lib Dems for another coalition, Lord Steel says

If is true - and comes to pass - then perhaps it is right and proper to say that coalition government has not 'worked'?

I think what DS means is that many LDs will feel that they've done nothing wrong (fees pledge aside) and are getting an unfair kicking for it. They'd have been crucified for the instability caused by them doing anything other than going into coalition with the Conservatives, and once in coalition they've been as successful as could be reasonably expected in reigning in right wing excesses.

I think we could also replace 'coalition' government with 'non-majority' government. Ultimately it'd amount to the same - the largest party can't operate without the consent of a smaller party (or parties) and has to moderate its policies accordingly. Whether this is a formal coalition, or an ad hoc confidence and supply basis doesn't really matter too much to the end result - which policies are passed into law.

As ever in politics it's difficult to read the future. But let's suppose for a moment we're due a few non-majority parliaments. Perhaps we'll see a non-majority government after May's election, but then in the coming years I think coalitions will be seen as more stable.

Steve W
 

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