ANALYSIS:Coalition governments are the norm in many countries, but the British are suspicious of the idea and previous experiences have not been happy ones, writes MARK HENNESSY
QUOTES FROM long-dead political leaders tend to be dusted off as elections loom, as is happening now in the United Kingdom with Benjamin Disraeli’s maxim, “England does not love coalitions”.
For those of a certain age, and with long memories, hung parliaments in the United Kingdom evoke memories of the Great Depression in the 1930s and economic crises in the 1970s.
The UK has had just three experiences of coalition government in the last century: during and after the first World War; during the depths of economic calamity from 1931; and a national government in Second World War.
However, it has had multiple experiences of minority administrations: two in 1910 alone; and one each in 1924 and 1929. Two other governments lost their majority during their lifetimes: Jim Callaghan’s Labour government in 1977; and John Major’s Conservatives during their last days in 1997.
With the party long in the doldrums, many in Labour now believe they might be in with a chance of clinging on to power in the general election, which is now expected to take place on May 6th.
Given the Conservatives’ loss of momentum, the imbalance in the UK’s first-past-the-post system favouring Labour – even though this effect has been lessened since 2005 boundary changes – may prove influential in coming weeks.
Currently, Labour has a 64-seat majority in the Commons, though its lead would be cut to between 30 and 40 seats if the votes were to be divided under the 2005 rules brought in after the last election.
A small swing would see Labour lose its majority, but Conservative leader David Cameron needs to win 42 per cent of the vote to get a majority of his own. In contrast, Tony Blair did so in 2005 with 35.3 per cent of the vote.
Amid all of the speculation about a hung parliament, financial markets are looking warily upon sterling and the UK’s national debt, believing that such an outcome will prevent spending cuts.
The Conservatives recently warned that Armageddon looms if Labour wins, or if no party gets a majority. The manner in which the party did so, however, reflected its own panic about its stuttering performance in the polls as much as any rational examination of the situation.
Nevertheless, the historical omens do not bode well. Labour’s first minority government in 1924 lasted for just nine months. A second, bolstered by occasional support from the Liberals, failed to alleviate the worst of the Depression. In 1974, Labour prime minister Harold Wilson’s administration found the situation equally challenging. During the party’s fourth experience of minority rule, in 1979, an alliance with the Liberals collapsed and the party was skewered by voters in the wake of the Winter of Discontent
The past offers little guidance to today’s British politicians. Their predecessors operated in a world before the arrival of the 24-hours news cycle, which forces politicians often to make split-second decisions.
Conservative Stanley Baldwin stayed in office for six weeks after he lost his clear majority in the December 1923 election, while his fellow Tory Ted Heath gave up the ghost after four days in 1974.
Voting patterns have greatly changed too. In 1955, just 1 per cent of MPs were neither Labour nor Conservative – though the Conservative figure did include Ulster Unionists up to 1970. Today, 14 per cent of the
House of Commons roll is neither Tory nor Labour.
Gordon Brown will be able to stay in Downing Street if he loses his majority and Cameron fails to get his own, thus offering Brown a chance of doing a deal with the Liberal Democrats.
Already, he has made overtures to the Lib Dems, promising a referendum on voting in October that would, if passed, replace the first-past-the-post system with one where candidates would need to get 50 per cent of the vote to get elected – a poor’s man version of PR-STV.
Even this limited concession is not yet on the statute books, and the Liberal Democrats – who have long pined for full proportional representation – have reason to be wary of Labour promises.
In a 2005 British election survey, though the response was low, over half of all Liberal Democrats who expressed a second preference when offered a mock ballot paper opted for Labour; just a fifth favoured the Conservatives.
Politically, however, the Liberal leader, Nick Clegg, who is trying to maintain room for manoeuvre between Brown and Cameron, would face near-insurmountable difficulties if he agreed to negotiate a post-election deal with Brown.
Clegg has reason to be suspicious of Cameron too. The Conservative leader may be forced into dealing with the Lib-Dems but would gladly cast them aside and opt for a second election if the polls suited him.
For some in the United Kingdom, the concern is that Queen Elizabeth will be dragged into political controversy if any
stalemate results in Westminster, and, particularly, if a minority administration emerges.
Under constitutional conventions, the queen would reject an attempt by a prime minister who failed to get a new majority to call an election – although public opinion would make such a demand impossible in any event.
However, some have expressed fears of a constitutional crisis if a prime minister running a minority administration sought a speedy second election at a time to benefit his own party. No dissolution request has been rejected since 1834.
In November 2008, the queen’s representative in Canada, Governor General Michaëlle Jean, suspended parliament at the request of the Conservative premier Stephen Harper, thus allowing him to avoid a no-confidence vote – even though an opposition coalition could have made up the numbers. During the suspension, the coalition fractured and Harper is still in power.
Such fears in the United Kingdom are groundless, says Who Governs?, a new pamphlet produced for the Hansard Society, although it accepts that there is a case for “codifying the conventions that apply to early second elections”.
However, the idea that the monarch has some “reserve discretionary power” to act as as a broker between the party leaders in post-election wrangling is a myth, it argues.
“[Such] an analysis is particularly unhelpful in the event of a more politically interventionist personality succeeding to the throne, for it is essential to the future of the monarchy that its detachment from the political process is maintained,” it states.
Mark Hennessy is London Editor