(UPDATED) By Denis Campbell
Even if 1/3 of the 52 LibDems flatly vote against every coalition issue or bolt for the safety of the Labour Party, the loss of those 17-18 votes means the maths still work in the favour of the Con-Lib majority. David Cameron and Nick Clegg both know this and don’t care, they’ve got the power.
Most of the UK press corps behave like serial movie zombies. “Must give Con-Lib government coalition its chance… Must not be negative… Must not speak rubbish… Must realise 1st loser and 3rd loser now = winners (with mandate!)… Must accept Con-Lib bro-marriage will blame everything on Labour (well not much there has changed there)…”
The Conservatives call me Rubbishman, so to live up to my reputation as a nattering nabob of negativity (disgraced US-VP Spiro Agnew’s best ever line), let’s review.
Phill Jupitus summed it up on Radio 4’s Friday Night Comedy News Quiz, “it’s gotta be the fastest personality change by any political party, because in under an hour the Liberals went from political virgins, to hangin’ around on the street corner with their knickers around their ankles. They went from ‘oh we abhor the old politics,’ to ‘right, let’s make a deal, come on guvner.’ ”
Added Jupitus: “What has Clegg got? The only thing he’s got out of the deal is we’re going to look at the voting system so that it’s more favourable to Liberals in the future… well who’s gonna vote Liberal in the future?”
Politics.co.uk today compared the Number 10 Rose Garden love-fest of PM Cameron and Deputy Clegg to the dance of star-crossed kid lovers from the Montague and Capulet families. While smiling sweetly, both men clutch knives behind their backs as we enter Week 2 of the ‘bro-marriage’ government.
With a ceremonial paycut of 5% for Cabinet ministers (about £7K per minister or £150K total) they were showing how they too could take a haircut. Really? £550 a month is a haircut? On a salary of £11K per month? Cut it by half and most will think it real. And what will that do to the £6 billion in cuts needed?
Will the coalition be similarly ceremonial or did David and Nick do their political calculus? Knowing the coalition could be strained when real, deep social service cuts need to be made in liberal democratic social programmes, is it just a matter of simple mathematics?
Former LibDem leader Charles Kennedy could not sign on to support this marriage under any circumstance. In the 1st post-election poll conducted this weekend, 1/3 of Liberal Democrats are angry about the marriage. Have Cameron and, more importantly Clegg merely said to the party faithful ‘too bad.’
Is Nick Clegg’s leadership calculus so cravenly political that he could preside over the death of his party to maintain his coalition leadership status? Is his gambit pragmatism vs party idealism or is Nick simply playing the oldest political game in the book… grabbing raw, ego-based political power?
It will be fun and potentially scary to watch.
When posh frat boys lead a nation though, their insular club ties can often lead to disastrous affect. There are few more important recent examples than Harvard/Yale/Delta Kappa Epsilon/Skull and Bones/Philips-Exeter’s George ‘W’ Bush lying his way into war whilst simultaneously trying to be a ‘good ole boy’ clearing brush on the ranch in Crawford, Texas.
How similar a piture will we see from Oxford’s Brasenose/Bullingdon Club/Eton/Heatherdown Prep bred Cameron and Cambridge’s Robinson/Westminster/Caldicott Clegg as they ‘got down with the common man’ during the election campaign, remains to be seen. Most in government hate campaigning and trying to lure the great unwashed of the electorate. Now the club circle is complete and off everyone goes to lead.
One thing is for certain. Much more than 5% pseudo ‘cuts’ and pretending to care about the common man whilst criss-crossing the nation in the last 36-hours of the election without sleep will be needed to pull this one off.
Otherwise a certain pseudo frat boy, Harvard Law/Columbia/Occidental College/Besuki Public School (Jakarta) named Obama may have a thing or two to say about the “special relationship.
As they say in the advertising world, watch this space...
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Update:
The LibDems control 57 seats, Conservatives 306. That = 363 (with one contest to de decided on 27 May because a candidate died).
326 is a simple majority of 650, however, the real number needed is around 318 because the 5 Northern Ireland Sinn Fein MPs and a few other fringers refuse to travel to London to vote even though they are MPs.
The coalition can therefore hold even if they lose up to 45 votes. That's all but 7 LibDems... thus the cockiness.
Power politics at it's worst!