Last word (for now)
Wednesday, May 12th, 2010 09:06 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
caddymanI absolutely fail to see why so many peaople are afraid of the idea of coalition government. Many of the same people are those who would favour electoral reform, something that could quite conceivably increase the chances of future coalitions.
I can absolutely understand why politicians don't like coalitions - it means that there is someone much closer to them than the public, someone locked into the same isolated little world, who will be acting as a check and balance on their worst excesses, it means that they have to compromise and therefore be far more restrained than otherwise they might.
As to the junior Lib Dem partner in the coalition? Well, it's all worked so well for them in getting their policies over in the last 80 years, hasn't it? Now we can see some of their more moderate policies actually happen and their reputation will be enhanced or otherwise on how those policies play out. As to the minor party taking the fall for the larger if it all goes wrong?
Well, if it is policy failure, with the Tory party outnumbering the other by a factor of five and that being reflected in the balance of Cabinet responsibility, I doubt that the public will be overly gulled by any attempt to load the blame unreasonably. Of course, if the minor party holds the major party to ransom over pointless precedural details, the public will spot that, too.
I for one am on board for a coalition. I should have preferred a few more Lib Dem seats in Parliament, which would have justified a wider representation in Government, but the electorate didn't vote for that and there's no pretending they did. The Lib Dem surge was not refglected in the percentage vote, much less the distribution of seats. Conclusion: there was no Lib Dem surge.
I can absolutely understand why politicians don't like coalitions - it means that there is someone much closer to them than the public, someone locked into the same isolated little world, who will be acting as a check and balance on their worst excesses, it means that they have to compromise and therefore be far more restrained than otherwise they might.
As to the junior Lib Dem partner in the coalition? Well, it's all worked so well for them in getting their policies over in the last 80 years, hasn't it? Now we can see some of their more moderate policies actually happen and their reputation will be enhanced or otherwise on how those policies play out. As to the minor party taking the fall for the larger if it all goes wrong?
Well, if it is policy failure, with the Tory party outnumbering the other by a factor of five and that being reflected in the balance of Cabinet responsibility, I doubt that the public will be overly gulled by any attempt to load the blame unreasonably. Of course, if the minor party holds the major party to ransom over pointless precedural details, the public will spot that, too.
I for one am on board for a coalition. I should have preferred a few more Lib Dem seats in Parliament, which would have justified a wider representation in Government, but the electorate didn't vote for that and there's no pretending they did. The Lib Dem surge was not refglected in the percentage vote, much less the distribution of seats. Conclusion: there was no Lib Dem surge.