One year on.
Plenty of opinion pieces on how well the coalition has done ranging from very well to evil. Listening to LBC's Yougov forum Its as good as any, even if it is extremely tribal and partisan. Outcome, Tories are doing better than expected, Labour a bit worse, Liberals, catastrophically badly. 60% in favour of the coalition continuing.
Nothing very remarkable really. The coalition could have had a much easier ride if the Liberals had sacrificed AV and electoral reform for tuition fees in the agreement. Coming on top of the expenses scandal with MP's integrity being at a new low, the 'Lying Democrats' made a fatal mistake. Liberals have lost all their hard won popularity for being 'the nice party.'
And lost it without much gain.
So what now?
BQ says..1. Stop the NHS reform.
The government is reforming Health, Defence, Welfare, Education and Home. That's really the entire government. Arts and culture and F&CO are very small beer.
Mrs T was very careful to not fight too many battles at once. Tony Blair didn't like to have any battles, and wasted his first term, but had approval ratings that couldn't be overcome even two elections later, despite all his later problems. Now we know Dave wants to achieve everything day one, so that he can relax on the Sabbath, but the coalition really is cutting too fast, if not too far.
There is a golden opportunity to ditch this here. The Liberals need a massive win. The public don't understand why reform is necessary, the doctors aren't on side and the Tories promised no top down reform of the NHS... So dump it, or do a Blair and allow it to be so watered down its meanigless, and let the Lib Dems take a great slice of credit for 'defeating privatisation of the health service.'
2. The Economy.
That's all that matters. If no improvement then the cuts will have to be ever deeper, and last longer. There has to be growth. Tax reductions would be great, but that's impossible right now so there has to be more business initiatives. I can't recall what the Cable Guy's big ideas are? But unless the government can get investment for existing and new bushiness we are reliant on the banks making a profit, which they are reluctant to do.
Rates reductions, match funding grants for the smallest business, Vat holiday. A one year freeze on employer N.I payments for new starters, .. The old Labour government used to produce three or four of this sort of very expensive sound-bite chasing idea a week. The coalition should at least have SOME of them. A new business secretary wouldn't hurt either.
3. Sort the message.
The government is in the envious position of being able to do popular things that don't cost much. It should do them. A bit of distraction to keep the cuts, cuts, cuts, rolling news away.
Labour readily made non-pronouncements on nothing, repeated promises already made, re announced old ideas as if they were new. In short. It Spun like a gyroscope 24/7.
I'm not advocating a return to the transparent spin of the desperate Brown era, more a much better focused handling of the media to get them to talk about other things apart from cuts.
EU bailouts. Talk tough on how much, how long, how likely. Foreign trucks to have UK road fund licence. Divorce settlements and child access. Tackle the endless tube strikes. Ban them! {Public sector is already on strike. Might as well tackle something that's already burning and needs attention} The government doesn't have to DO anything on these, or similar initiatives, {though it should.} It just needs to make enquiries and get the papers interested.
4. The junior partner
Help them out, but don't worry too much. The liberals have nowhere to go. They can pretend to flounce off if they like, but that road leads to oblivion. Their slim chance of avoiding annihilation is to hang on until 2015, carving out a role for themselves and trying to undo the self inflicted wounds. Liberals only have themselves to blame for the mess they are in. Their position is so poor because they were caught lying on a huge scale. 'We pledge not to...erm..oh..we've done it.'
They can pretend to themselves that if they had formed their own government then they would never have increased Vat or fees or made any cuts but the reality is they stood on a fantasy manifesto, never expecting to achieve any power,and would have had the voter backlash with a Labour alliance too. Labour would have put up Vat and would have increased student fees.
So don't worry too much about placating the Liberals. They've had their Casablanca conference moment. From now on its Yalta, and they're only on the top table out of courtesy.
