Clegg and Cameron: It's Complicated

The funniest joke doing the rounds on social media today is that British LibDem leader Nick Clegg has now changed his Facebook relationship status to “it's complicated”. It is an amusing but accurate enough summary of where things stand after the tightest British election since February 1974. That year’s hung parliament forced another election later that year and many are predicting the same outcome after last Thursday’s election produced no clear winner. Despite losing seats from 2005, Clegg’s party is in a position to woo a suitor and some heavy duty negotiation is on the cards before a shotgun wedding can happen in the days and weeks to come. (Photograph: Luke Macgregor/Reuters)

The most obvious and workable coalition would be between the Conservatives and the LibDems. The Financial Times reports David Cameron and Clegg are involved in “intense negotiation” to agree on a power-sharing pact before the markets open on Monday morning. During the election campaign Cameron had ruled out such an arrangement but he appears to have now woken up to the realpolitik of the situation.

Cameron is likely to realise his dream of being the first Tory Prime Minister since John Major yet the election must be tinged with some disappointment. After seemingly heading for a landslide victory in poll after poll, his popularity slumped in a mediocre election campaign. Voters wanted Gordon Brown out but did not trust Cameron enough to give him an undiluted majority. The Tory-leaning Telegraph is openly talking about who might replace him if attempts at forming a government fell apart.

With 649 seats up for decision, a party must get 325 seats to form a majority. In practice it needs to be even higher to counter the risk of MPs crossing the floor or losing by-elections. The Tories had the most votes and the most seats in a swing of 3.8 percent but could only turn this into 306 seats. With the LibDems on 57 seats (down 5 from 2005), a coalition between the two would muster 363 seats for a comfortable majority of 77 seats. The question remains however is whether either would survive for five years to another election, given the philosophical differences between the parties.

A possible alternative would be allowing the Tories to form a minority government on the understanding the LibDems would not block supply, but this would appear to be a very slippery slope towards an early election. What Clegg wants most is electoral reform so that their 23 percent of the vote translates into a similar number of seats (at the moment they have 8.8 percent). Neither the Tories nor Labour (nor the media which prefers the clean lines of "first past the post") are inclined to support this reform.

But if Clegg has some hope of getting a negotiated settlement with Cameron, there appears no chance of him supporting Gordon Brown to return to 10 Downing Street, even though the two parties are closer. With Labour on 258 seats, the combined parties would be 12 seats short of an outright majority and requiring the support of motley nationalist groups such as the Scotland’s SNP (6), Wales’ Plaid Cymru (3) and Northern Ireland’s SLDP (3) to get them over the line. While such a rainbow coalition is possible and common enough in Europe, experience suggests they rarely last for long.

There was also probably a great deal of truth in the rumour the post-election phone call between Clegg and Brown ended acrimoniously. It seems reasonable that Clegg might have suggested Labour was tainted by Brown’s leadership and the two parties might work better together with a new Labour leader. A senior unnamed LibDem source told the BBC’s Jon Sopel the conversation went downhill after Clegg’s resignation suggestion with Brown launching into a “diatribe and a rant” though both parties have strenuously denied Sopel’s report.

Yet whatever the outcome, Labour can cling to the idea the election was a relief. Previous by-elections had seen the party slaughtered with the ultimate humiliation of finishing fifth behind the Greens and the BNP in the 2008 Henley by-election. At that stage, YouGov were polling the Tories at 46 percent to Labour’s 28 percent. Labour haven't improved much since then - they only took 29 percent of the vote last week. But the big difference is the Tories lost 10 percent of the vote in the last two years saving Labour from an electoral whitewash.

Smart money at this stage has to be on a repeat of 1974 and another general election in November or thereabouts. Gordon Brown will be gone by then and one of the Miliband brothers will probably lead the party (it is just too difficult to imagine a British political party led by a man named “Balls”). Just as in 1974, the biggest party should win outright second time round. It is likely the Tories will learn from the mistakes of this campaign and get over the line as UK citizens worry about the effects of continued instability and Labour struggle with a new line up. And electoral reform is likely to wither on the vine.

Britain set for an election and a change of power

In one of those wonderfully quaint British rituals, Gordon Brown drove the short distance from Downing Street to Buckingham Palace today to seek “permission” to dissolve parliament next week and call a general election for 6 May. Brown is heartened for his four-week campaign by a narrowing of the polls according to Guardian ICM. Nevertheless most pundits expect David Cameron’s Conservative Party to win their first election in 18 years in what will be a test of new faces. It is the first election in charge for all three major party leaders Brown, Cameron and the LibDem’s Nick Clegg.

The latest yougov opinion poll has the Tories on 41 percent, Labour 31 and LibDems 18 which is typical of most UK polls which give the Conservatives a lead of 10 points, enough to win an outright majority if it is applied consistently across the country. They are also favoured by notionally redrawn electoral boundaries. The number of seats has risen by 4 since 2005 to 650. Labour had a majority of 66 seats in 2005 with 35 percent of the vote. This has been reduced by successive by-election losses to a working majority of 48. The Tories need a uniform swing of 4.3 percent to be the largest party in parliament and a swing of 7.0 percent for an overall majority. However the first past the post system complicates matters entirely: Labour got almost double the Tory seats in 2005 despite only getting 3 percent more of the popular vote and the LibDems got less than 10 percent of the seats despite getting 22 percent of the vote.

Gordon Brown missed his best chance to win an election in his honeymoon period after he replaced Tony Blair in June 2007. At the time Cameron said Brown had shown "great weakness and indecision", and had made a "humiliating retreat" but he later admitted the Conservatives would have most likely lost that election. By the end of the year, the Tories had regained the lead in the polls they had gained in the dying days of the Blair Government and never looked back.

The 2008 GFC left the British economy in ruins and by 2009 the MP expenses scandal had erupted. All parties were affected (and both Brown and Cameron apologised) to the effect the 2005 election was dubbed “the rotten parliament”. But it was Labour who bore the public brunt of the anger with high-profile casualties such as Speaker Michael Martin (the first to be forced out of office since 1695), and Cabinet ministers Shahid Malik, Jacqui Smith, Hazel Blears and Tony McNulty.

In the event of a hung parliament, the fortunes of the minor parties could become crucial. The LibDems have not made the advances they expected five years ago but the balance of power offers them their best chance to change the voting rules to something more democratic. The Greens have their best ever chance of a breakthrough in Brighton Pavilion and may also do well in Lewisham Deptford. Respect MP George Galloway moves to fight Poplar and Limehouse while they hope to retain his old Bethnal Green and Bow seat too. BNP party leader Nick Griffin is likely to stand in Barking where new boundaries give him a good chance of success. The UKIP’s best hope is Buckingham where their former leader Nigel Farage takes on new Speaker John Bercow.

Nevertheless the main political narrative will be the presidential style contest between Brown and Cameron. Both men are hamstrung. As Matthew Flinders (the British academic not the sailor) wrote, Brown may have the political inclination to deliver far-reaching reform but he lacks the capacity; Cameron is likely to have the capacity but not the inclination. Both will campaign around the state of the economy and whether it is too early to jeopardise the recovery by applying the spending cuts the Tories want. But in the end, it may just be about change. The electorate is tired of Labour. Cameron will most likely win, despite his Posh Boy baggage, simply because he is not Gordon Brown.

London waits as Labour face massive council election defeat

While counting continues in the London mayoral contest, the ruling Labour Party has suffered a massive defeat elsewhere in council elections in England and Wales. As of midday Friday, British time, the Conservatives had taken 44 per cent of the votes with the Liberal Democrats on 25 per cent and Labour relegated to third place with just 24 per cent. The margin of defeat is significant as it is similar to the watershed defeat of John Major’s Tory Government in the 1995 council elections just two years before he was voted out of office. If these results are repeated in the next general election which must happen by mid 2010, the Conservatives would win a landslide victory of about 150 seats under Britain’s crude first-past-the-post electoral system.

The London mayoral election is one of the few British elections that uses proportional representation and this is the main reason why it is proving so hard to call. Labour maverick Ken Livingstone is seeking a third term in office since he won the resurrected mayoralty in 2000. Livingstone was also mayor of the Greater London Council in the 1980s until it was abolished by Margaret Thatcher. Livingstone has always been to the left of his party and has been a constant thorn in the side of his own national leadership. But he can take credit for the successful congestion charge policy that has cut traffic by a fifth in the capital though has not yet impacted air quality.

Livingstone’s opponent this time is a fellow maverick. He is 43 year old Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, more plainly known as Boris Johnson. Johnson is an MP, a journalist and TV personality with chaotic blond hair and a shambling, jokey image. Educated in the classics at Eton and Oxford, he worked his way through the journalist ranks to become editor of The Spectator in 1999. He was elected Tory MP for Henley-on-Thames in 2001 after the retirement of Michael Heseltine. He became a shadow minister in 2004 but was sacked that same year for lying about a sexual affair. He won a place back in the shadow cabinet a year later and this time held onto it despite allegations of another affair, this time with Times journalist Anna Fazackerley.

Johnson resigned his post in July 2007 when he announced his decision to stand for London Mayor. After comfortably winning the Tory party nomination, he announced in typical flamboyant style that "King Newt's days are numbered," alluding to Livingstone's hobby of keeping newts in a garden pond. Significantly Johnson has dropped his opposition to the congestion charges in an effort for voters to take him seriously as a candidate. He has also concentrated his campaign on London’s more populous outer suburbs while Livingstone prefers to court the more trendy inner suburbs.

Johnson’s gamble may now have paid off with a final exit poll showing he has won a narrow victory. A YouGov survey suggested that Johnson was six percentage points ahead of Livingstone with low profile Liberal Democrat candidate Brian Paddick a distant third. Many analysts had predicted Paddick’s preferences would decide the election but if the YouGov result is accurate, Johnson will win outright. The final result will be announced later today, British time.

The result will be another shattering blow to the tattered regime of Gordon Brown. With results from 100 out of 159 local councils officially announced, the Conservatives had won 45, Labour 14 and the Liberal Democrats six. The remainder were not controlled by any single party. Speaking this morning, Brown blamed his party’s poor performance on the effects of the global credit crunch on Britain. But while his party has been dogged by scandals, poor polls and dissent over tax and anti-terrorism laws, his position as Prime Minister remains safe for now.

Writing on his BBC blog site, Nick Robinson says that despite the results, there is no clamour among Labour MPs for a change of leader. However he says that the Tory’s most successful election result since John Major surprisingly won the 1992 election (despite polls suggesting he would lose to Neil Kinnock’s Labour) means that “something drastic” needs to happen to prevent David Cameron from defeating Brown in the next election. The only advice Robinson has for Brown is: “he will simply have to hope that - in the words of the old election song - things can only get better”. This election song is of little comfort to Brown, and in the context of current worldwide economic conditions, highly unlikely to be sung.