TORY LEADER David Cameron and Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg held a second meeting last night as efforts intensify to agree a pact between the two parties after last week’s general election.
Talks between negotiators from both parties, including former Conservative leader William Hague, had ended earlier after nearly seven hours of “positive and productive” discussions, and will resume today.
Mr Hague and Lib Dem negotiator Danny Alexander both laid equal stress on the need for the next government to tackle the UK’s overspending and national debt, and pointed to the areas where the parties can co-operate on civil liberties and on the environment.
Senior Lib Dems, including former leader Paddy Ashdown, insisted that one of the party’s conditions for agreement is an end to first-past-the post voting, which left it with 57 seats despite getting seven million votes.
Reflecting the unease in Lib Dem ranks about an alliance with the Conservatives, a key figure in the party’s governing body, Richard Grayson, last night warned that the party could be split irretrievably if a deal is reached that does not deliver electoral reform.
Mr Grayson is the vice-chairman of the party’s Federal Executive Committee, which will have to agree to any coalition package agreed, should that happen, in the talks with the Conservatives. “If the Liberal Democrats enter a formal coalition with the Conservatives or prop up a minority Conservative government then they will lose for a generation and probably forever the right to call themselves a party of progress,” he warned, in an article he co-writes for the Guardian.
The optimistic tone struck by senior Conservatives and Liberal Democrats after yesterday’s talks that a deal can be reached is undoubtedly constructed to soothe financial markets worried about UK instability when they open today.
“We’ve had some very positive and productive discussions over many key policy areas,” said Mr Hague, who pointedly highlighted political and banking reform, civil liberties and environmental concerns.
In a bid, perhaps, to quell discontent in his own ranks, Mr Cameron offered to meet any new MP who wanted to do so in the House of Commons yesterday afternoon. Tory backbenchers will meet tonight at 6pm.
Conservative MPs have remained relatively quiet on the prospects of a deal with the Lib Dems, though significant concessions on electoral reform could threaten a major revolt.
Labour prime minister Gordon Brown yesterday met Mr Clegg, though sources said Mr Clegg had simply briefed him on the current state of negotiations, and that Mr Cameron had been told of the meeting.