Posted by Dr Simon Parker
If back around the time of my birth Harold Wilson could claim that ‘a week is a long time in politics’ we have just seen that yardstick disappear into the black hole of the space-time continuum that is 24 Hour Rolling News (or in the case of Sky News -Fight Club).
As recently as Tuesday lunchtime the Rainbow Coalition looked like it was heading for the Emerald City arm-in-arm with the Tin Man (Lord Mandelson), the Scarecrow (Ed Balls) and the Cowardly Lion (Lord Adonis) with Ed Miliband, ruby red slippers in hand auditioning for the part of Dorothy (don’t phone now because your vote won’t count and you may be charged a large subscription to the Labour Party).
I realised a deal was doomed as I woke to the cackling voice of the Wicked Witch of Westminster (played alternately by John Reid and David Blunkett)
“Ring around the Labour rosie, a pocket full of Blears! Thought you were pretty foxy, didn't you? Well! The last to go will see the first three go before him! And your mangy little Guardian bloggy, too!
While from North Yorkshire there blew an icy-cold tweet, it was the Hon. Member for Richmond warning us that he was on his way to Whitehall. The Munchkins of the media shimmered and swayed outside 10 Downing Street, while the BBC’s own Nikko the Monkey (ably played by Nick Robinson) declared that Mr Clegg was back on ‘his chosen path’—that being the YELLOW AND BLUE brick road and not that NASTY RED one which takes you to “the coalition of the defeated” in Munchkin City.
If back around the time of my birth Harold Wilson could claim that ‘a week is a long time in politics’ we have just seen that yardstick disappear into the black hole of the space-time continuum that is 24 Hour Rolling News (or in the case of Sky News -Fight Club).
As recently as Tuesday lunchtime the Rainbow Coalition looked like it was heading for the Emerald City arm-in-arm with the Tin Man (Lord Mandelson), the Scarecrow (Ed Balls) and the Cowardly Lion (Lord Adonis) with Ed Miliband, ruby red slippers in hand auditioning for the part of Dorothy (don’t phone now because your vote won’t count and you may be charged a large subscription to the Labour Party).
I realised a deal was doomed as I woke to the cackling voice of the Wicked Witch of Westminster (played alternately by John Reid and David Blunkett)
“Ring around the Labour rosie, a pocket full of Blears! Thought you were pretty foxy, didn't you? Well! The last to go will see the first three go before him! And your mangy little Guardian bloggy, too!
While from North Yorkshire there blew an icy-cold tweet, it was the Hon. Member for Richmond warning us that he was on his way to Whitehall. The Munchkins of the media shimmered and swayed outside 10 Downing Street, while the BBC’s own Nikko the Monkey (ably played by Nick Robinson) declared that Mr Clegg was back on ‘his chosen path’—that being the YELLOW AND BLUE brick road and not that NASTY RED one which takes you to “the coalition of the defeated” in Munchkin City.
Interestingly, Alan Johnson suggested that the failure of the Rainbow Initiative had as much to do with the state of exhaustion and mood of defeat in the parliamentary Labour Party than the difficulties of the arithmetic. It is unlikely that a single policy area or ‘red line’ scuppered the Lib-Lab deal given that so many cherished Liberal Democrat priorities—from Europe to migration to Trident— have been sacrificed on the alter of the Cabinet table. But what finally persuaded Clegg’s team to walk away from a rainbow alliance, according to one senior LibDem source, appears to have been Labour’s refusal to make any concessions on civil liberties.
If true this suggests that either Labour’s negotiators badly misunderstood what Nick Clegg’s real ‘red lines’ were (one suspects that they were written on more than one piece of paper) or that the whole exercise was something of a charade to give the Browns time to finish packing.
The release of the coalition agreement shows what an ill-fitting suit has been cut from the remnants of the two parties’ manifestos, but there are little silver linings sewn into each section of blue serge to appease the LibDem faithful.
· On immigration—gone is the amnesty, and in comes the annual cap on migration, but child immigration detention is to be stopped (a policy change which I frankly never expected to see under a majority Labour government)
· On tackling the deficit—the £6 billion cuts package will go ahead but some of the money saved from “efficiency savings” will be put into job creation and green investment.
· On the Spending Review there was more common ground to begin with on pupil premiums and protecting NHS spending in real terms, as well as the ring-fencing of overseas aid to 0.7 of GNI. But the costly replacement for Trident will no longer be part of the Defence Review. The state pension will have the earnings link restored but the value of public sector pensions will be drastically reduced (a fight that Liberals and Conservatives are happier to have with the unions than New Labour would have been).
· On tax, Vince Cable gets his £10,000 starting threshold and the inheritance tax threshold will stay where it is for the time being. But the national insurance rise planned by Labour (aka ‘the tax on jobs’) is now history.
· The planned political reforms with the significant exception of devolution to Scotland, Wales and N.Ireland are more far reaching than any measures introduced during the 13 years of a Labour government. These include fixed five year parliaments (the next ‘planned’ general election will be May 2015), there will be a mainly or wholly elected upper chamber elected by PR, and there will be referendum on AV for the House of Commons.
· On civil liberties, the ‘roll back’ of Labour legislation and policy proposals is genuinely significant: ID cards are to go, the right to peaceful protest without being branded a terrorist is to be restored along with the right to jury trial. DNA data retention will follow the much stricter Scottish model, and libel laws will be reformed to protect freedom of speech.
· Europe is the one area of policy where the Cameron red line appears to have been drawn most heavily and emphatically. There will be no ‘ever closer union’ under a Lib-Con government and to emphasise the point a new act restoring the sovereignty of the UK parliament. The working time directive will be opposed as will the jurisdiction of a European Public Prosecutor. The one fig leaf left for the Lib Dems is a vague commitment to European dialogue on climate change and poverty reduction.
All this amounts to a new manifesto, and civil servants will be studying it closely to work out how, together with the first coalition cabinet since the Second World War, they can re-tool the Whitehall machine to deliver a challenging array of policies in the context of a financial crisis that one wouldn’t wish on one’s worst political enemies.
Although, as Bank of England Governor, Mervyn King, unguardedly remarked, if the ‘winners’ of last Thursday’s election will be out of power for a generation—perhaps there really will be election gold over the rainbow once this little twister blows over.
Remember Gordon, just click your heels together and repeat, ‘there’s no place like Kirkcaldy, there’s no place like home…’
