James Forsyth reviews the week in politics
It is a sign of how well things are going with the coalition that the civil servants left the room towards the end of the Cabinet meeting on Tuesday and let the politicians get on with it. The first ‘political Cabinet’ — when its members talk about party business rather than government business — was a brief affair; it only lasted about five minutes and consisted of everyone agreeing that until Labour came up with a credible position on cuts, their joint enemy was going to be isolated. But a full political Cabinet has been scheduled for the end of next month.
When the coalition was first formed, no one quite knew what would happen to political Cabinets. It was unclear whether the two parties — thrown together by the need to form a government — would feel comfortable doing politics in each other’s presence. Some Tory Cabinet members assumed that the Liberal Democrats would leave the room along with the civil servants. But as the Cabinet meetings have gone on, the two parties have grown more and more comfortable making political points in front of each other. It now seems natural for the two sides to conspire together against the enemy they face across the Commons chamber, the Labour party. It is another example of how the adversarial nature of British politics is driving the coalition partners together rather than apart.
Inside No. 10, the two sides are bonding remarkably well and seem genuinely to enjoy each other’s company. On Friday night, a Tory and a couple of Lib Dems were spotted having a drink together; if a Blairite and Brownite had been spotted sharing a beer it would have been regarded as a summit meeting rather than a social occasion.
There is, though, an event lurking on the horizon that could mean that it is never glad confident morning again for the coalition: the AV (Alternative Vote) referendum. This vote on changing the general election voting system was the final concession that the Lib Dems extracted from the Conservatives in coalition negotiations. It was the prize that ensured that Clegg could get the deal past his party.
But ever since it has been an obvious flashpoint: the two parties in the coalition will be on different sides of the referendum campaign. The Lib Dems fret that if the vote was lost, Clegg would have a very hard time keeping his party in the coalition; his internal critics would claim that all the Lib Dems were getting out of it was a chance to share the blame for the cuts with the Tories. So they have set about trying to persuade the Tories that they have nothing to fear from AV.
Lord Rennard, the grand panjandrum of Lib Dem election strategy, told a recent meeting organised by the activists’ group ConservativeHome that the Tories would actually benefit from voting reform. He was making in public an argument that many Lib Dems have been making in private. It all boils down to these second preference votes, he said, and if the coalition endures then the Tories could rely on getting a great many Lib Dem second preferences. In the seats where they are a decent second to Labour this should be enough to put them over the top. AV, the argument goes, would formalise anti-Labour tactical voting and realign British politics in the centre-right’s favour.
There are some in Conservative circles who are receptive to this case. ResPublica, the think-tank run by the self-styled ‘Red Tory’ Phillip Blond, has emerged as a pro-AV voice — to the approval of some in Downing Street. Many Tories are not greatly excited about the whole affair, arguing that the plan to reduce the number of MPs by 10 per cent and equalise the size of constituencies (thereby triggering a new boundary review) helps the Tories more than voting reform could hurt them. Certainly, the Tories in Downing Street are not spending nearly as much time thinking about the referendum as the Liberal Democrats are.
Some more conspiracy-minded Tory MPs suspect a plot by the leadership to allow the Lib Dems to win the referendum. They mutter about how Nick Clegg confirmed in the Chamber on Monday that, during his party’s post-election talks about entering coalition with Labour, it never offered AV without a referendum. A great many Tories believe that David Cameron told them different — and said that he had to offer a referendum on voting reform as otherwise Labour and the Liberal Democrats would just pass it through parliament without a referendum. One Conservative minister has been complaining that ‘we’ve been f***ing lied to.’
When Cameron said he would take no active part in the campaign, but merely state his support for the status quo, it was seen by some Tories as another betrayal. He had previously assured his MPs that, although he was offering the Lib Dems a referendum on voting reform, he would campaign against it. Yet here some Tories are growing a little overanxious. Cameron was only trying to stress that he would not personally lead the campaign against voting reform. I’m assured that he will still campaign against it.
In this campaign, there will be an official ‘No’ party entitled to televised referendum broadcasts and so on. There are two putative No campaigns. Both are very much at the drawing-board stage. One consists of veterans of the anti-Euro campaigns and the north-east referendum campaign. Some Tory MPs are playing a role in this. But this group is arguing that it is crucial that the Save First Past the Post campaign not be seen as a front for the Conservative party.
One potential problem for Cameron is that many of the points that anyone running the No campaign would probably make will overlap with the ones he was making six weeks ago in party political broadcasts warning about the dangers of a hung parliament: that coalitions are fundamentally undemocratic, and involve behind-closed-doors deals. There is much to commend this argument, but it is rather embarrassing to Mr Cameron now that he is leading a coalition. There is a danger that the No campaign could make voters see the coalition as a stitch-up by politicians rather than as an example of them working together in the national interest.
The Liberal Democrats want this referendum as soon as possible, ideally in May next year. The Tories would rather make the Liberal Democrats wait for their reward for good behaviour.
But when the time comes, Cameron will have to decide which he regards as the bigger prize: the possible realignment of British politics, or maintaining an electoral system that offers his party the best chance of gaining a majority. He will have to choose between breaking the heart of his party or his coalition.
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