New politics or power grab?

Hasan Suroor

A political revolution? Or a power-grab cooked up in the fields of Eton and Westminster (the school, not the political village)?

The surprise Con-Lib takeover of Britain on the back of an indecisive election result has left the famous British upper lip quivering as much with excitement as with rage and trepidation. Will it usher in “new politics”? How long will the “Dave-Nick love-in” last? Will there be another election in a few months?

Questions are piling up as Brits start to realise the consequences of voting for a hung Parliament: a government led by men (yes, it is all mostly pale and male) who were barely on talking terms until the other day. Add to this fundamental differences on a range of major policy issues from immigration and voting reforms to Europe and the wider foreign policy agenda and, on the face of it, the alliance has nothing going for it.

Even the much-vaunted personal chemistry between Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat leader and Deputy Prime Minister, and Prime Minister David Cameron is newly-discovered. There was a time when Mr. Clegg haughtily refused a dinner invitation from Mr. Cameron and his wife because he did not want to be seen rubbing shoulders with the Conservatives.

Nor did Mr. Cameron think much of Mr. Clegg, judging from an answer he gave when asked during an interview what was his favourite joke.

“Nick Clegg,” he replied.

Reminded of this at his first post-alliance public appearance with Mr. Clegg (an event that spawned a whole new line in some pretty lewd jokes about their body language), Mr. Cameron pulled a mock grimace and pleaded guilty but wondered what the fuss was all about. It was just a joke, for heaven's sake.

“We're all going to have things we said thrown back at us...If it means swallowing some humble pie and eating some of your words. I can't think of a more excellent diet with which to provide the country with good government,” he said.

The problem is that there are too many people in the Cabinet, from both sides, who are having to eat their words. We had Vince Cable, the Lib Dems' economic guru and now the Business Secretary, acknowledging how he once vowed to abolish the department he was now going to preside over.

“I'm on record somewhere saying that if I had my way I would abolish this department,” he recalled with a barely concealed sense of helplessness and frustration at the idea of having to embrace something he detested so much.

Then there is Kenneth Clarke, Justice Secretary and the most senior Conservative figure in the Cameron government. He spent much of the election campaign warning that a coalition government would lead to “paralysis”, send the pound tumbling and Britain would end up like Greece. And, here is what Mr. Cameron himself said about the “danger” of a hung Parliament: “A hung Parliament would be a bunch of politicians haggling, not deciding. They would be fighting for their own interests, not fighting for your interests. They would not be making long-term decisions for the country's future, they would be making short-term decisions for their own future.”

Yet the same lot is now singing the virtues of a coalition government portraying it as the face of “new politics” and a “shared vision” of a better Britain.

Not surprisingly, outside the “Dave-Nick bubble”, there is anger in both parties over what their activists and supporters see as a “betrayal” of their long-held beliefs.

Both Mr. Cameron and Mr. Clegg are facing accusations of sacrificing policies at the altar of power.

“This coalition won't last a year,” one Conservative Minister is reported as saying. The anger is more palpable among senior Conservative MPs who were crowded out of the government because a large number of ministerial posts had to be given to the Lib Dems to get them on board.

The right-wing Conservative press is even more upset; portraying the deal as a coup for the Lib Dems and predicting that it would all end in tears.

“Don't believe everything that the happy couple is telling you,” was the headline of a leader page article in The Daily Telegraph — a long diatribe against a deal that, it said, was the outcome of “crude political calculation”. The “brave new world” that Messrs Cameron and Clegg claimed to be building would turn out to be a “mirage”, it warned.

Meanwhile, Lib Dem members, angry with the leadership for helping the Conservatives get into power, are reportedly leaving in droves — many joining Labour. Not so long ago it used to be the other way round with disillusioned Labour supporters going over to Lib Dems.

Mr. Clegg has admitted that his decision to get into bed with the Conservatives has caused “much surprise” and “some offence” but laid the blame squarely on voters arguing that the “arithmetic” resulting from a hung verdict left him with no options.

“There was no other responsible way to play the hand dealt to the political parties by the British people at the election. The parliamentary arithmetic made a Lib-Lab coalition unworkable….Equally, a minority administration would have been too fragile to tackle the political and economic challenges ahead,” he wrote in The Observer.

Away from the wheeling-dealing in Westminster, Gordon Brown seems to be enjoying himself, finally. Speaking at a college in his constituency, he took a swipe at the Cameron-Clegg's media-driven politics telling the audience that he was thinking of “applying for the course on communication skills, then I thought I might do public relations, then maybe media management, drama and performance”.

Anything but politics, Gordon.