Federal Judiciary

Coalition Blues -- By: The Editors

?With one bound Jack leapt free!?

That is supposedly how one episode in a penny dreadful serial began, when the previous episode had left the hero at the bottom of a deep well under attack from snapping crocodiles. It is also, broadly, how the threatened hero of the 2010 British election campaign escaped from the deep well of election defeat -- except that in this case two Jacks leapt free in a single bound.

Tory David Cameron and Liberal Democrat Nick Clegg both lost the election, and both were in the same dire straits: Either they would get into government or their parties would get rid of them. So they joined forces in a Con-Lib-Dem coalition government (or perhaps a Lib-Dem-Con one) and have thereby gained a lease of political life of indefinite duration, possibly as long as five years.

Of course, there are more high-minded ways of describing the same cohabitation. Two party leaders -- one center-left and one center-right -- have put country above party and formed a moderate government of all the talents ?in the national interest.? That was the theme of the Downing Street press conference at which the new prime minister and new deputy prime minister presented their ?new politics.? It was an interesting example of changing public rhetoric. ?National,? it seems, once again trumps ?progressive? in British politics -- just -- or at least it provides a plausible temporary excuse for the Lib-Dems to join with the Tories rather than with the superficially more congenial Labour party. But this rhetoric glides over the more fundamental truth that a party is supposed to advance a particular view of the national interest. The Tories and Lib-Dems advanced very different such views in the campaign. Which version of the national interest will shape public policy for the ?new politics? coalition?

To judge from the joint statement of the two parties, coalition policy will be a piebald thing, as one might expect. But the fact that the Lib-Dems are closer than the Tories to the pre-election status quo of government means that coalition policy will more reflect the former?s interest. It can be fairly confidently predicted that there will be no bold Tory initiative in government with the exception of Michael Gove?s policy of empowering parents to found schools with public money -- and even that will probably be neutered by forbidding such public-private schools to make a profit. What the Lib-Dems have surrendered consists almost entirely of dreams that lacked any possibility of fulfillment anyway, such as an amnesty for illegal immigrants and adopting the euro. What the Tories have given up is their principled defense of the British electoral system (and wider constitution) in their agreement to a referendum on electoral reform that, if passed, might make them a minority party indefinitely.

It is argued with bright optimism by the Tory adherents to the new coalition that the Lib-Dems have at least been persuaded to tackle the deficit seriously. To which two replies must be delivered. First, the markets would have compelled even a majority Lib-Dem government to deal with the deficit seriously (possibly within 15 minutes of the election result being known). And, second, how the deficit is cut is likely to be very different as a result of the Lib-Dems? enjoying such power. Tax hikes are likely to shoulder a larger part of the burden of deficit-cutting than are spending cuts. And the shape of tax policy -- a doubling of the capital-gains tax, for instance -- will discourage investment, deepen the recession, and retard the revival of enterprise.

In one respect, however, all members of the new coalition are realistic. They know that for most of this new parliament, the government is doomed to be unpopular. Because it has an overall majority of 68, it could in theory survive that unpopularity and last for the full five years it proposes to introduce as a fixed parliamentary term. A single-party government with traditional party discipline could certainly survive for that length of time. But would all the Lib-Dems -- many of them viscerally anti-Tory -- remain supportive if they began to lose safe seats in special elections on the issue of ?Tory cuts?? Would Tories think it wise to stick with their junior partner if their safe seats began to be plausibly threatened by UKIP or other right-wing protest parties? When even so cautious a figure as the governor of the Bank of England says that any party that imposes the necessary fiscal discipline on the British electorate is likely to be out of power for the next 30 years, the answers to such questions must be highly uncertain. And in even the most tranquil of times, no one can foretell the future.

Cameron and Clegg, however, have a greater chance of influencing the future than the rest of Britain does. As the coalition takes shape, it begins to look as if they may intend it to be a permanent new grouping in British politics that might even solidify into a new party. Both supporters and critics of this development have seen it as a way of depriving the Tory Right (a mythical beast in reality but shorthand in political journalism for mainstream conservatives) of any influence. This dream of a ?Centre Party? that would hold government indefinitely against the ?extremes? of Left and Right is an old fantasy in British politics. It was attempted by Lloyd George and Churchill in the 1920s. It is fundamentally undemocratic and -- paradoxically -- would lead to greater political instability as the so-called extremes grew to resent their permanent exclusion from influence. And it has always failed in the past. But given the peculiar incentives of the present parliamentary arithmetic, it might just hold the coalition together through hard times and into the next election.

More than 200 Tory MPs count as the ?Tory Right? in these calculations. Some will be bought off by office, others by appeals to party loyalty. The remainder is an endangered species. If the coalition becomes permanent, they will at best be kept on as pets or displayed in cages as once-powerful beasts. For American observers the stakes are higher than mere ideological sympathy with fellow conservatives. The British political tradition represented by these Tories is one that shares America?s tradition of political and economic liberty and that is willing on occasion to make common sacrifices for it. A Britain in which they were a marginalized influence would be a far more skittish and unreliable one.

If these party and national fates are to be avoided, then the Thatcherite Tories must establish an effective parliamentary cohesiveness and ideological independence -- and pull the coalition in their direction rather than watching a cohesive Lib-Dem party pulling it in the opposite one. Maybe the coalition would not survive organized criticism from within. Maybe it would splinter into its constituent parts after a while.

Well, would that be such a bad thing?

Full post as published by Bench Memos - National Review Online on May 13, 2010 (boomark / email).