Michael “I am a banana” Gove [1] appears right now to be doing his best to privatise the UK’s primary and secondary education system. He wrote to all secondary schools yesterday, inviting them to apply to become academies; additionally, he will be pushing legislation through Parliament allowing parents to set up so-called “free schools”. All this is in the name of the “new politics” – a significant pillar of which is to devolve things ever further down: from central to local government, from local government to “the people”. Other buzzwords in this trend include “decentralisation”, “Big Society”, “individual choice”. But really, all of this is code for dismantling the state as much as possible – surrendering control also means surrendering responsibility. And in the current economic climate, with the deficit and debt we’re facing, surrendering responsibility to the mythical Big Society, or to the private sector, is a tempting proposition for any government. In the case of education, this seems like a spectacularly bad idea.
As someone on Twitter pointed out when I first commented about this there, academies were a flagship Blairite Labour policy. I didn’t think they were a good idea then either. Under Labour, the academy structure focused on poorly performing schools. It allowed wealthy individuals or organisations to spend a relatively small amount of money and essentially acquire control of a state school. For a modest investment of a million or so, you could turn one of those “failing” schools into an academy, acquiring control over pay and conditions of staff, teaching and most importantly the curriculum, while the state continued to finance the running costs of the school. This in turn allowed those newly-fledged academies to ignore key parts of the national curriculum which didn’t suit their wealthy benefactors. Don’t like sex and relationships education because the kiddies might learn about contraception or *gasp* that gay people are okay too? Easy – have an academy. Don’t like evolution? Here – this academy teaches intelligent design on a equal footing; or even that the Earth was created 6000 years ago, like the three schools run by the Emmanuel Schools Foundation, sponsored by Sir Peter Vardy. Mr. Gove’s vision for future academies is that they will have complete control over the curriculum.
Let me say this very clearly: I believe that state control of the curriculum – within a democratic society – is a good idea. It allows us to do a number of things: Firstly, it allows us to have a common standard. This is not about league tables and SATs. But it is about knowing that a pupil with a B in maths from one school has a similar level of achievement to a pupil with a B in maths from another school. Secondly, the national curriculum also allows us as a society to democratically determine some key things we feel it’s important our children are taught: things like citizenship, sex & relationships education, and yes – that evolution is scientific fact while intelligent design is a fairy tale. I am particularly passionate about that latter part. I believe the best way to determine what we value sufficiently to teach our children is through public debate and the democratic process, at a national level. Anything else leads to unjustified local variation, potentially disadvantaging whole communities where the local school is controlled by people who, say, happen not to believe in evolution.
Devolving control of the curriculum to the local and school level is not a good idea. Ultimately, as a future parent, I don’t actually want “choice” in my school system. I don’t want to have to check the curriculum of every school in a 20-mile radius to make sure they’re not teaching my child to confuse scientific facts with fairy tales. I want a school system that works – one where, regardless of which school I send my child to, I can be confident that they will have a good-quality, wide-ranging, exciting and engaging education experience and they will learn the things that we as a society have democratically decided are important. Again, this is not about taking creativity away from teachers, or standardising and regimenting everything, testing pupils to death to make sure they conform to some standard. It’s about having an education system that works for all.
Another issue with academies and “free schools” is around access. They would more than likely end up diverting money from local state schools, having a negative impact on them, while having a more selective admissions policy (up to 10%, says Mr. Gove). While initial results of this approach in Sweden were encouraging, more recently free schools have been found to lead to increased social fragmentation and segregation.
Ultimately, the UK education system is already more than sufficiently fragmented. Between public and state schools, academies and faith schools, my future parent self already has more choice than I’d ideally like to have to cope with. I’d much rather see some real effort being put into making sure that the state education system works consistently for all, than see education in Britain broken up further.
[1] Mr. Gove declared publicly on the Today Programme that he was a banana. I have a recording of it. I’m also trying to get as many people as possible to habitually start referring to him as Michael “I am a banana” Gove. Go on. It would make my day.

One of the things that tend to give away the fact that I didn’t grow up in the UK political culture is my habit of sniggering every time someone mentions the UK constitution. One of my earliest political memories is the Bulgarian Grand National Assembly being convened to create a new constitution after 45 years of communist rule. I was nine years old at the time – it was a formative experience as far as my political consciousness is concerned. And so, whenever someone mentions the UK constitution – that messy collection of laws, precedents and customs which seems to govern the UK – I am bound to exclaim “What constitution!?”
A constitution is that part of a country’s legislation which establishes how the state works, where the limits of the state are, what rights and duties the state and the citizen have with respect to each other, and often what core values the state is based on. Most countries (bar three) have what we call codified constitutions – i.e. constitutions which are explicitly set out as such generally in a single document. Most constitutions, or at least parts of them, are entrenched – i.e. they require a different, more onerous procedure before they can be changed. A constitution is pretty fundamental to a state – it is to be treated with respect.
Constitutions tend to be created after disruptive change: revolutions (peaceful or otherwise), wars, declarations of independence. Those are generally the times when states take a step back to reflect on their values, rights, duties, institutions and structures. They are also the times when people are more willing to set aside political differences in the name of principle. Not that constitutions aren’t huge exercises in compromise, but they tend to be a different kind of compromise to the normal day-to-day horse-trading of politics.
Thinking about the history of the UK, the state has been fundamentally constitutionally the same since 1066. There has been incremental change (expansion out of England, Empire and decline thereof, the very gradual waning of the power of the monarchy and rise of democracy), but the UK has not really seen disruptive change in nearly 1000 years. The closest this country has had to it was the English Civil War, and the disruptive part of the change initiated by that didn’t last.
And so the UK is stuck with a messy collection of laws, precedents and customs instead of a formally set out single legal document which enjoys special status among the country’s laws. This has all sorts of interesting side effects.
Constitutional change in the UK is difficult to achieve – not because, like in other countries, the constitution is entrenched and changing it requires special procedures, but precisely because it isn’t. Therefore constitutional reform becomes part of the same kind of day-to-day political horse-trading as everything else. Equally, this also makes it easy to play fast and loose with the constitution.
Changes to the UK constitution are often incomplete, inconsistent with other parts of the constitution, unclear. The West Lothian Question is a classic example of that. In any other country, when power was devolved in one part of the country, a full constitutional review would have been required to ensure the changes were compatible. As it is, devolution of some powers to national legislatures in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland do leave a number of open questions about the exact constitutional make-up of the United Kingdom. This is not just about why England has no national Parliament; it also covers issues such the huge variations between what powers are devolved to the different national legislatures, as well as more practical matters.
And then we get to the downright paradoxical. Take, for instance, the much talked about introduction of fixed-term Parliaments and the associated 55% rule. Because the UK constitution is not entrenched, even should the 55% rule pass, it would only take a simple majority to repeal it even a few months down the line. This is no way to implement constitutional reform.
So if Nick Clegg really is serious about initiating the biggest shake-up of UK democracy since 1832 – or ever for that matter – here’s where to start: create a constitution. Create one single formal document which sets out the values and duties of the state, the rights of individuals, and defines how the structures and institutions of the state work. Ensure that that constitution is entrenched: require special procedures and a qualified majority to change it. Ensure it is coherent, consistent, complete.
It would not be an easy task – it never is. Arguably it shouldn’t be undertaken by this or any other ordinary Parliament. Convene a special body – elected, ideally by PR – with the sole and explicit purpose of drafting a constitution to be adopted through a referendum. Ensure that the constitution is taken seriously and treated with the respect it deserves. That would be a true shake-up of democracy.
Just a thought.

I spent my lunch break today reading Nick Clegg’s big speech and dissecting it line-by-line on Twitter. This is a slightly more coherent/elaborate version of that initial reaction.
I guess it goes without saying (and I didn’t say it on Twitter) that the whole preamble about how this is the “biggest shake-up of our democracy since 1832” can be safely ignored. The Channel 4 News Fact Check blog does a pretty good job of debunking that one in a couple of paragraphs. The one part of the preamble that’s worth mentioning is where Clegg praises those 19th century politicians who introduced the reforms he’s referring to for standing up “for the freedom of the many, not the privilege of the few.” One does wonder what his coalition partners think of this one. Anyway, let’s get to the actual content.
The first thing that struck me was this quote: “Britain was once the cradle of modern democracy. We are now, on some measures, the most centralised country in Europe, bar Malta.”
This seems to suggest a dichotomy between democracy and centralisation. It appears to imply that one is the opposite of the other. Now, we can argue quite happily over whether centralisation is good or bad, over whether it’s desirable or not, but I wouldn’t go as far as framing it as the opposite of democracy. Lazy rhetoric, Mr. Clegg.
Here’s another one: “My starting point is always optimism about people. The view that most people, most of the time, will make the right decisions for themselves and their families.” There’s nothing wrong with a bit of optimism or idealism. I’m occasionally prone to it myself. However, at this scale, Mr. Clegg appears to be ignoring a substantial body of scientific evidence. People are not rational, they are bad at evaluating risk, they tend to be fairly short-sighted, and thus rarely make the right decision. If people were rational, economics and psychology would be hard sciences. They are not. The second cognitive error here is the implication that just because I make the right choice for me and my family and you make the right choice for you and yours, those choices will necessarily be harmonious and compatible with each other. They are not. I can make choices that actively harm you and vice versa. It’s not always a zero-sum-game, but a lot of the time it is.
Let’s take the Tory flagship policy of free schools as an example. I may be in a position – both financially and by virtue of my education, qualifications and skills – to get together with a bunch of parents and create our own “free school” where we can have smaller class sizes, better teachers, and get state funding to boot. This may well be the right choice for me and my family. And yet, if I do that, it takes money away from the local comprehensive which may be already struggling, thus further undermining it and the children of the people who don’t have the money, free time or skills to establish a school. So while you and I may both be able to tell which option is right for us personally, where our interests and priorities diverge, we need to use the tools of society and the state to resolve that conflict. I am not convinced that devolving everything down as far as possible helps with that. I think we have choices with regards to what level best to deal with particular issues at, and I am not convinced this government will be making the right choices for the majority of people.
Clegg sets out the actual policy agenda in his speech in three parts: civil liberties, political reform, and decentralisation. Let’s take them in turn.
There is very little for me to say on the civil liberties section. It’s spot-on as far as I’m concerned. It’s rolling back Labour’s excesses in this area: ID cards, national identity register, all of those criminal offences the last government created out of the blue (one for each day they were in office!), restrictions on peaceful protest, etc. In some ways this is low-hanging fruit as Labour’s record in this area is so appallingly poor, but it needs to be done and it’s good to see this work is a high priority. The one additional item on my wish list is the Digital Economy Act, and currently it’s looking quite promising that that, too, will get looked at by some sane people. (Incidentally, Eric Joyce, MP for Falkirk, is looking to pull together a Parliamentary Group on the Digital Economy Act. From what I hear, he’s still short some Tory MPs, so if you have one, drop them a line and ask them to contact Eric. For that matter, drop a line to your MP and ask them to contact Eric, regardless of their party affiliation.)
Next we get to political reform. Nick Clegg would like to drag Westminster into the 21st century. There is a longer and more serious blog post in the pipeline on this, but here are some of my flippant suggestions on how to drag Westminster into the 21st century:

• Let’s start by making sure that there are enough physical seats in the House of Commons for all MPs.
• Next, I propose ditching the shooting gallery.
• Let’s also convert at least some of the 47 bars into creches.
• And finally, we might want to consider doing something about the mouse problem. Maybe get a cat or something.

Clegg’s own shopping list for political reform is slightly less flippant. He wants a proportionally elected second chamber. Broadly I think I agree with that, but would like to see some more detail. (Incidentally, for some really good arguments against an elected second chamber, go read this post by Nicholas. Certainly food for thought.)
Next, he talks about a fixed-term Parliament and the 55% rule. I really like the quote “We’re not taking away parliament’s right to throw out government; we’re taking away government’s right to throw out parliament.” It’s a good summary of the intention, and I have already written at great length about this. For me, the devil on this one will be very much in the detail of the implementation and it could either go very right or horribly wrong. We still don’t have enough information to judge.
Another one under political reform is the power of recall. I am on the fence here, and I asked the Twitterverse to convince me either way. I got a lot of examples of MPs in safe seats who are corrupt, unrepresentative and do not engage with their constituents. I fully sympathise. I am stuck with the right honourable Mr. Nicholas Brown, MP (Lab). I may have already remarked on his record. However, I am not convinced that the power of recall will address the root cause of this issue. The only thing that will is an electoral system which makes every seat worth fighting for. (And here’s a hint – AV ain’t it.) So I’m still on the fence about the power of recall. Nick Clegg does give examples of other countries where this works so I may go read up on those.
Clegg wants to regulate lobbying and make it transparent. Awesome. Go for it. Do it now!
Clegg also wants to get real. To be honest, I prefer my politicians complex. But they rarely are.
I was struck by this: “David Cameron and I are determined to reform party funding.” I do wonder what Lord Ashcroft thinks of it. I suspect that on this one, too, the devil will be in the detail.
Then we come to electoral reform, where the buzzwords are AV and larger, more equally sized constituencies. I have said before and I will say it again (and again): AV is a scam. It is in no way more proportional, it still leaves us with large numbers of votes which don’t count. And if implemented, it is likely to block further reform for decades because “we’ve only just had reform”. Having said that, when the referendum comes, I will be out on the streets campaigning like hell for AV, because scam or no scam it’s what we’ve got and we’ve got to work with that. Fewer MPs/larger/more equal constituencies are not just a scam but a Tory scam. I’m not overly impressed with those.
And finally, on decentralisation, I already said that I’m not convinced it’s the answer to everything. What worries me is that that whole section sounds like Mr. Clegg has swallowed the Big Society hook, line and sinker, and I’m not happy about that. Here is the thing about the Big Society that no one’s actually asked you: If the government cut large chunks of your public services and a small chunk of your taxes, which of those formerly public services will you personally commit to being responsible for and providing? Because if the answer is none – and it is for most people – then there is no such thing as the Big Society. The one sentence that gives me hope is this: “We know that devolution of power is meaningless without money.” The glaring omission of course is any indication as to what the government intends to do with that knowledge.
To sum up (this was only supposed to be a short post): Clegg’s three-step programme:

• Civil liberties: Two thumbs up!
• Political reform: Tell me more.
• Decentralisation: Was he wearing a blue tie?

Perhaps the most badly (as in confusingly and hysterically) covered part of the Con/Lib coalition agreement this week has been the so-called 55% rule. To recap, this is what the coalition agreement says, in the section on fixed-term Parliaments:

“This legislation will also provide for dissolution if 55% or more of the House votes in favour.”

The coverage was so confusing that that I spent a whole day raging against the 55% rule before having it explained to me properly and have since come out saying 55% is actually too low. This is a complex constitutional issue and bears some further discussion.
Me? I’m on the fence. It’s important to remember that (as far as I know) all we have from the coalition at this point is that one single sentence above. That sentence is so vague, and so widely open to interpretation, it’s hardly surprising that everyone is confused. So let’s have a look at some of the key concepts involved here and the possible interpretations of that one pesky sentence. (I knew that politics degree would come in handy one day…)
I guess the first question is why we might want a fixed-term Parliament, as opposed to the current system where it is the Prime Minister’s right to ask the Queen to dissolve Parliament and call a general election. There’s a good reason this little oddity of the UK constitution is referred to as a “right” of the PM. There is a certain amount of advantage to incumbency in politics. The way elections are called in the UK, however, magnifies that advantage significantly. It allows the ruling party to pick the time for a general election based on how well they are doing in opinion polls, thus significantly disadvantaging any opposition parties. Currently the only limitation on this is that an election has to happen no later than 5 years after the last one. The keen-eyed among you may spot that the last two times an incumbent party has lost the election (1997, 2010) that election has been held at the 5-year limit. A fixed-term Parliament would mean that the ruling party can no longer find the best moment for them during a Parliament to call an election. They would have to take their chances every 5 years, just like everyone else. In my book, this is considerably more democratic than the current system. YMMV.
Next, let’s look at two important concepts: the legislature and the executive. And while we’re at it, we might as well include the judiciary for the sake of completeness. Those are the three branches of power. The legislature makes laws. The executive puts those laws into practice. The judiciary ensures laws are consistent with each other and are applied consistently across the board (the rule of law). The idea for most modern democracies is that these three branches of power keep an eye on each other – checks and balances. Each of the three has some powers to control the other two, none has absolute power. From the people’s point of view, this is basically divide (your rulers) and conquer. And it’s a good thing.
In the UK, Parliament is the legislative branch of power. The government is the executive. And yes, the government tends to be more or less a subset of Parliament, i.e. MPs from the party with the most seats in the Commons, led by the leader of that party as Prime Minister. Nevertheless, it’s really really important to understand that the two institutions are separate, have different interests, and have very different functions. They usually have a symbiotic relationship, as well as one of checks and balances; but they are different.
So now that we have established that Parliament and government are two different things, let’s look at the two concepts of a vote of no confidence in the government and the dissolution of Parliament. The former is one of the powers Parliament has to keep the government in check. If for some reason the government stops commanding a majority in Parliament, Parliament can declare that the government no longer has its confidence, and the government falls. The latter is a power government has over Parliament, a right of the PM to dissolve Parliament when it suits them. We’ve established above that I think this right is undemocratic because it disadvantages opposition parties in elections. There seems to be a misguided perception among commentators over the last few days that the government falling and the dissolution of Parliament are the same thing or somehow go hand-in-hand. They do not.
Parliament consists of the people’s elected representatives. If we, the people, have a friend among the three branches of power, it is Parliament. If a no confidence motion is passed by Parliament, that means the people’s representatives have declared that they will not support the government. That clearly puts an end to that particular configuration of the executive. This in no way means that the legislature has to be dissolved. There is no reason to think that the legislature is no longer representative of the people and a new election is needed. Under some circumstances it is still possible for Parliament to find someone who can command a majority, perhaps under a different coalition, and therefore form a new government within the same Parliament. This is not a bad thing and, as fas as I’m concerned, in no way undemocratic. They’re still your representatives, they should be trusted to be able to sort it out.
Obviously, we need some sort of safety measure. If a government loses the confidence of Parliament halfway through a five-year term, and Parliament cannot produce someone who can command a majority, we can’t go for two and half years without a government until the fixed term expires. Most systems handle this with a time limit. The Scottish Parliament, for instance, has 28 days to form a new government. If that doesn’t happen, a new election is called, regardless of the fixed term.
So having covered the basic concepts and constitutional theory here, let’s look at the numbers. And let’s first of all remind ourselves what the coalition agreement says:

“This legislation will also provide for dissolution if 55% or more of the House votes in favour.”

So, it clearly says dissolution. A lot of commentators, however, seemed to think at least initially that it applied to no confidence votes as well. That would clearly be undemocratic, it would be an artificial prop for an unstable coalition that was sold to us as the only “strong and stable government” which could come out of this Parliament. I am inclined to believe that the agreement does mean dissolution only, and that the traditional 50% + 1 MP would still apply to votes of no confidence. (Incidentally, this does not mean 51% of MPs.)
Once we had established this, the next set of commentators came along and said “Don’t be absurd, that would mean that if the government lost the confidence of Parliament but there wasn’t the required 55% majority to dissolve Parliament (Tories only have 47% of seats by themselves, for instance) things would just go on without a government and nothing would get done.” Jack Straw is a key proponent of this argument. And aye, therein does lie the rub. As the statement stands, we currently have no idea how the coalition intends to handle the case above. I believe there is no other way to do it but to introduce a time limit in which another government can be formed. How long this time limit should be is still open to debate as far as I’m concerned.
And finally, here is one more point about the numbers game. The 55% threshold appears to be very cynically designed for this particular government. It means that if the Lib Dems and the Tories agree, they can still between them vote to dissolve Parliament, yet the Tories can’t turn around and shaft the Lib Dems by calling an election as soon as they have a chance of obtaining a true majority by themselves. While this is all well and good in the next five years, it is no way to make a fundamental change to the constitution.
After all, this country still has a first past the post election system and therefore generally tends to produce large single-party majorities. If in the next Parliament either Labour or the Tories have more than 55% of the seats, suddenly you don’t have a fixed-term Parliament anymore, and we’re back to the old extremely exaggerated incumbency advantage. In Scotland, the majority required to dissolve Parliament and call an election (other than when there has been a vote of no confidence and no new government has been formed within 28 days) is 66%. This seems like a much more reasonable number.
In summary, I think decoupling votes of no confidence from dissolution of Parliament is a good idea and certainly necessary if we want to achieve fixed-term Parliaments. I believe it would be genuinely more democratic, as it transfers power from the government to Parliament (remember – the legislature is your friend!). However, for this to be a. practical and b. sustainable, two things need to be true:
1. There needs to be a time limit to handle the situation where a government falls.
2. The threshold needs to be much higher than 55%.
These are the two things you might want to start asking your MPs awkward and difficult questions about now.
If you’re interested in further reading, here are some reactions from both sides of the spectrum. The second one is especially worth a read.
Vikram Dodd declares 55% undemocratic in the Guardian.
loveandgarbage from LJ on the other hand, writes a piece that is both informative and amusing about the constitutional implications over at Liberal Conspiracy.

Today has been an emotional day for me, as well as for a lot of friends. So, we have a Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition government. I have been mostly angry all day, but here’s a list of some of the other emotions I’m seeing around me:
– Anger is a big one.
– A sense of betrayal, especially among Lib Dem voters.
– A lot of people looking for justifications – it was the only choice, it was the only stable configuration in the current Parliament. Whether they genuinely believe this, I don’t know.
– There is a fair amount of worry and concern: what will a Tory government do to us?
– And a few people looking for a silver lining – the sense that this is the least bad option we could have ended up with, hoping that the Liberal Democrats will moderate some of the worst Tory excesses. I can see where those arguments are coming from, but whether I believe them I don’t know.
So here’s where I’m coming out after about 16 hours of knowing that David Cameron is Prime Minister: I don’t like it. I don’t trust the Conservatives as far as I can throw them. I can see the line of argument that led the Liberal Democrats to make the choice they made. I can see how they might think that this is the best chance they have to actually influence something, put some of their policies into practice, limit the damage the Conservatives can do on their own. I don’t envy them for being in this situation.
So I will suspend my disbelief. I will give them the benefit of the doubt. I will judge them on outcomes, not on beginnings. But I think it’s only fair to lay out what I will judge them on. So here is my list of things that I will hold the Liberal Democrats personally accountable for over this Parliament, regardless of whether they formally have that portfolio in cabinet or not. This is what I expect them to deliver.
Women’s Rights
(Has anyone else noticed that so far diversity – of any kind! – in the cabinet seems to extend to Teresa May and one of them being ginger?)
Here’s what I expect: No reduction on the time limit for abortion. Significant steps to address the gender pay gap (paying women £3 a week to stay at home once married doesn’t count). No reduction in the availability or affordability of childcare.
Gay Rights
Civil partnerships must not become in any way significantly different to marriage. That includes tax breaks. Bonus if you manage to turn civil partnerships into marriages but I’m not holding my breath. No reversal of any equality legislation so far passed – on any of the six pillars.
Political Reform
Some of this is already in the coalition agreement, but it’s worth spelling out. Coalition agreements have a tendency to fall by the wayside when the going gets tough. Fixed term Parliaments. Fully elected upper house, with no reserved seats for, say, bishops. Upper house elected by proportional representation. Commons elected by AV at a minimum. (No, not a referendum. The real thing.)
Education
Every single child in every single school must receive high-quality sex and relationships education. No opt-outs. No child in no school must be taught any form or creationism on an equal footing with evolution.
Civil Liberties
Some of these are low-hanging fruit that both parties in government have already successfully identified and started to move on. It is also actually a real opportunity area – the one area Labour got consistently and deeply wrong for over a decade. Scrap ID cards. Scrap the National Identity Register. Remove innocent people from the DNA database. Repeal the Digital Economy Act and start from scratch, involving some people who actually know something about the digital economy, rather than people who would like it best if the whole digital economy just disappeared.
Europe
No repatriation of powers. Not the social chapter, not criminal justice, and most definitely not human rights.
Work & Pensions
I do not expect this government to make the minimum wage a living wage. But I do expect the Liberal Democrats to ensure that it does not fall in real terms. Not by a penny.
Strong and Stable Government
We, the people, were sold this deal on the narrative of it being the only one which could produce a strong and stable government. I will be judging both parties on whether they make it work. If there is a general election before May 2015, I will consider the deal a failure and a con.
Make no mistake. These are incredibly low expectations. The Liberal Democrats are essentially tasked with maintaining the status quo in the face of the full-blown return to the 1980s that would be Conservative government. It is also far from an exhaustive list and I may add things to it as I think of them. I’d encourage everyone to make a similar list of the things they care about. And then maybe we can mail them to Lib Dem MPs.
Looking at the above, I am increasingly less convinced that this coalition is in any way an opportunity for the Liberal Democrats to put some of their policies into action. It is only an opportunity for them to curb the worst of Tory excesses. Whether that is good thing remains to be seen, and whether the Liberal Democrats ever recover their credibility as a political party, let alone a progressive one, is also for history to judge.

I’ve been watching the coalition talks unfold over the weekend, paying particular attention to the way the message track from the Liberal Democrats has evolved. And something struck me.
Yesterday, the main message track was “we are listening to what the Conservatives have to offer, we are consulting with all parts of the party, there is a triple lock in place which stops Nick Clegg from doing a deal without the full support of the party, some of our senior MPs are still not convinced, and we want our supporters to tell us what they think”. I emailed balancedparliament@libdemvoice.org, copying one of the co-editors of LibDem Voice. I spread the word on Twitter and even texted all my friends, especially those in the South West with LibDem MPs, letting them know and urging them to make sure the LibDems were aware of their views. (One upside was that I actually re-established contact with someone I hadn’t spoken to in a while – you know who you are. 🙂 Yesterday, everything was still to play for.
Today, the message has been evolving. Lord Ashdown came out saying the LibDems’ instincts pulled them one way, while the maths of the hung Parliament pulled them the other. I got an email from the co-editor of LibDem Voice:

“I don’t disagree with any of what you say – but I don’t see how the votes will stack up for a Lib/Lab coalition that will last. And I can’t see Lab backbenchers actually deciding to vote for PR.”

The rhetoric of stability, of trying to build a coalition government that will actually last, of not having to go back to the country in 12-18 months’ time has become more prominent over the course of today.
And here is the elephant in the room: The maths of the hung Parliament we have ended up with is such that any coalition coming out of it, short of a Grand Coalition, is highly unlikely to last more than 18 months. Even if the LibDems and the Tories reach some sort of agreement over the next couple of days that would give them the majority the Tories want, there is too much dissent in both of those parties for them not to fall our over some of the policies where they don’t have common ground. The hardline Tory backbenchers will walk out, or half the LibDem MPs will at some point realise that they can’t quite square the circle anymore. Whatever coalition we finally get is highly unlikely to be stable or last.
And having addressed the elephant in the room, here is the question: Are we being stitched up by a narrative of a mythical stable government to accept a LibDem/Tory coalition which ultimately will not only not last but will also not address some of the key issues we are facing, especially electoral reform? I’ll leave it to you to make up your minds.

Nick Clegg has had a very disappointing 24 hours. After a successful performance in the first debate and weeks of Clegg-mania, some pundits before yesterday even went as far as imagining a LibDem majority. And yet, the support Clegg and his party gained in the pre-election opinion polls failed to translate into votes and seats. Ultimately, when they stood at the ballot box, British voters believed all the scare-mongering the two main parties and Rupert Murdoch’s propaganda machine have been feeding them over the last few weeks – the “Vote Clegg, get Brown/Vote Clegg, get Cameron/Oooh, the Markets won’t like a hung Parliament” litany we’ve been unable to escape since Clegg’s triumphant performance in the first debate.
And yet, the electorate did not exactly express confidence in either Labour or the Conservatives, and this morning Nick Clegg found himself in the position he has spent the entire campaign rejecting: the kingmaker. So, despite losing five seats and failing to capitalise on their pre-election popularity, the Liberal Democrats still have everything to play for. They are currently talking to the Conservatives about a fairly wide range of issues to understand where they can find common ground. They may still talk to Labour. Issues that have been mentioned by the various party leaders over the course of the day and the courtship include taxation, defence, the EU (the Tories’ “line in the sand”), education, tackling the deficit, low-carbon economy, the economic recovery and, of course, the elephant in the room that is electoral reform.
So on what criteria should Nick Clegg and the Parliamentary Liberal Democrats base a decision as to who to attempt to form a government with? There are practical issues for a start: Con/Lib would have an absolute majority, Lab/Lib wouldn’t. While chances are that a Lab/Lib government could work, there would be no guarantee that some of the smaller parties wouldn’t try to throw a spanner in the works, especially when it comes to, say, cuts in Scotland or Wales. Another question to consider would be what government positions they can get. Arguably having Vince Cable as Chancellor would do us all a world of good in the short to medium term. Though Lord Kalms has already explained (on PM) in no uncertain terms that no major cabinet positions would be given to the LibDems in the event of a Con/Lib coalition.
We then start looking at policies and manifesto issues, and it very quickly becomes clear that the only thing worth playing for – for the Liberal Democrats and the country both – is electoral reform. Changing Britain’s electoral system to a form of Proportional Representation would be something that would leave a legacy for generations. It would drastically change the political landscape and culture of this country – and for the better. Gone would be the days of tactical voting, the days when a Labour seat is worth 33k votes whereas a LibDem one is worth 126k and a seat for the Greens 200k. Michael “I am a banana” Gove may disagree with me, but any other system would be more democratic than the current one.
Realistically, there is no way for the Liberal Democrats to achieve true electoral reform in a coalition with the Tories. David Cameron’s overtures on the subject were extremely cagey, and it is doubtful whether he can carry the rest of his party with him even that far. A Con/Lib coalition therefore is unlikely to achieve anything significant. It would legitimise a largely Tory government, with largely Tory policies which would severely damage the country socially and economically. It would also get the Liberal Democrats implicated in the savage cuts which will need to come regardless of who’s in power and which are likely to make the party implementing them unelectable for a generation in Mervyn King’s assessment. And it could not achieve anything like true electoral reform.
A Lab/Lib coalition, personality clashes between Clegg and Brown notwithstanding, is a lot more likely to achieve good, lasting political reform. Labour are a lot more open to the idea than the Tories. In addition, Labour and the LibDems are far more natural allies in both economic and social policy. Even if they ended up implementing the necessary budget cuts to tackle the deficit, a Lab/Lib coalition is much more likely to protect the poorest and cushion the worst of the impact. And once PR is through, in about 18 months’ time, they could call a new election. The LibDems would have left a lasting legacy while also making it possible for them to play a meaningful, influential role in British politics for generations to come.
Therefore, the only item on the LibDem shopping list really should be serious, lasting electoral reform; and it should be non-negotiable.
Once we’ve crossed that bridge, of course, the question is how to best achieve the right kind of electoral reform through a referendum. The public is notoriously fickle and referenda are a risky business. Many a referendum has failed because of the way the question was worded. Had it not been for that, for instance, the Queen would in all likelihood no longer be Head of State of Australia.
@norightturnnz over on Twitter pointed me in the direction of the New Zealand electoral reform this morning. A two-stage approach seems like the best way to go about it, as it separates the question of whether we should scrap First Past the Post from the question of what we should replace it with, and thus doesn’t split the pro-reform vote.
I’m getting carried away of course. First we need a government – any government. Ideally, though, it should be one fully committed to comprehensive electoral reform and moving away from FPTP. And just because I haven’t quoted this stat enough today, here it is again:
Number of votes needed to gain one seat in Parliament under the current UK electoral system: Lab: 33k, Con: 35k, LibDem: 126k, Greens: 200k
If that is democracy, Michael Gove is a banana.

I’ve been twittering away on some of these issues and a few others overnight/early this morning. Longer post is coming, but will probably focus on electoral reform to start with. However, a friend over on LJ asked some interesting questions and I thought I’d cross-post my answers.
Does failing to crush a government as unpopular as Gordon Brown’s bode badly for David Cameron in terms of public support for Conservatives and their policies?
I think so, and I hope so. I also suspect that if the Conservatives do manage to form a government, it will become very clear very quickly that Big Society doesn’t work and Compassionate Conservatism doesn’t exist. That combined with the harsh public spending cuts they’ll need to make may well prove Mervyn King right and make them unlectable for a generation, which would be a good result in my books. Of course the question remains of how much damage they’ll do to the country before they’re kicked out. I’m still hoping for Lib/Lab deal with a main priority of bringing about electoral reform in the next 18 months.
Does the fact that Liberal Democrat popular support in polls failed to translate to votes depress you, or give you hope for the electorate that a few television appearances were not enough to swing the election?
I think there are three significant factors here.
1. First Past the Post is an appalling electoral system. Here are the numbers as of 7am today: Lib Dem: 6202692 votes = 50 seats, Lab: 7803647 votes = 234 seats. Labour have 1.26 times the number of votes of the Lib Dems but 4.68 times the number of seats.
2. And this plays in with (1): Because FPTP is so incredibly bad, the scaremongering that both Labour and the Tories, as well as Rupert Murdoch’s propaganda machine, threw at the electorate (Vote Clegg, get Brown/Vote Clegg, get Cameron) clearly worked. I’ve not looked at the seat-by-seat numbers (and probably won’t – not feeling quite geeky enough), but I suspect that the LibDems got smeared between Labour and the Tories in marginals both ways.
3. Personally I think Nick Clegg didn’t play his cards right. He tried to have his cake and eat it. Declaring that he couldn’t work with Gordon Brown, cozying up a little too much with David Cameron, and at the same time trying to stay on the fence and position himself as the outsider is a bit too much of a contortionist’s act and he lost credibility over it.
For me the bigger story this morning is actually the failure of the infrastructure to cope with the turnout and the resulting disenfranchisement of thousands of people who turned up and were not allowed to vote. We had polling stations running out of ballot papers, as well as turning away people who in some cases had been queuing for hours from 9.30 pm onwards, and in one place 600 people who were registered to vote weren’t on the electoral roll. Two points about this:
1. The Electoral Commission appears to be most concerned with rule book thumping and thus with the handful of people who did get to vote after 10 pm, rather than with the thousands turned away. I am unimpressed.
2. (This came across a lot more strongly on Twitter than it did in mainstream media.) In a number of constituencies students (a lot of whom would be first-time voters!) seem to have been disproportionately affected by this failure of infrastructure. One returning officer fed us the line of “They turned up without polling cards and therefore took longer to process”, but eyewitness accounts talk of students being put in separate queues to “residents” regardless of whether they had a polling card or not, and disproportionately it was the students who didn’t get to vote.
This casts a very dark shadow over this election, and unless it is addressed quickly and decisively, the risk is that an entire generation get alienated from the political process because this was their first brush with it.

With the general election fast approaching, I’m finding myself in a dilemma. I am not British, and while I have been living here for 10 years I have reasons for not applying for British citizenship (mostly to do with the fact that the country I’m currently a citizen of will not let me have dual citizenship). So in the coming general election, I have no voice.
I’ve become a lot more politically active over the last few months, largely prompted by the Digital Economy Bill. I have written to my MP three times and called their office twice. I have written to Parliamentary candidates in my constituency to ask their views on secret lobbying and electoral reform. I display an election poster in my window, asking candidates to come and talk to me about their take on the Digital Economy Act. And every time I do one of these things I feel like a complete and utter fraud. Because they’re not my MP, or my constituency. They’re the MP and the constituency of all the people who live there and happen to hold a UK passport, and I’m not one of those people.
The running joke is that, should any Parliamentary candidates be foolish enough to knock on my door and want to talk to me I’ll do one of two things: If they’re Green or LibDem I will be completely open about the fact that talking to me is a waste of their time and they should go and convince someone who actually has a vote to cast; candidates from other parties will face a long list of questions I have on a wide variety of issues, to stop them from hassling other people for as long as possible. I guess that’s one way of making my voice heard, but to be honest so far hardly anyone (notable exception: personal note from the Green Party Parliamentary candidate in response to the poster in my window) has actually tried to talk to me – or anyone in Newcastle as far as I can tell: not in my street, not in the town centre.
Part of me desperately wants to have a voice, to be able to vote and participate in the political system of this country. I’ve been here for 10 years, I work here, I live here, my partner is British, I pay taxes and contribute to the UK economy and society in a variety of ways. I’m hoping to live in this country for years to come, and I’m hoping to raise my children here. There is a wide range of issues under discussion in this general election which will have a profound impact on my life and the lives of my future children. And yet, I have no right for my opinions to be heard.
Here’s a (non-exhaustive, in no particular order) list of the issues that I care about, and a little bit about why and how they’re playing out in the election campaign so far.
Education: From nursery school, right up until higher education and research funding, I care about it all. As I said, I plan to have children, I hope to raise them in this country, and I want the best possible eduction for them. Here are some buzzowrds to watch out for in the campaign: SureStart; academies; free schools; faith schools; sex and relationships eduction; league tables. Personally, I firmly believe that the state should provide high-quality education to all children, regardless of class or ability level, and that the state should control the school curriculum (as opposed to, say, private companies or religious organisations). I genuinely don’t want to end up as the kind of middle class parent who firmly believes in the theory of the state comprehensive but sends her children to public school because that’s the best she can do for them. On the higher education front, watch out for tuition fees, top-up fees, funding for research councils, funding for lower or equivalent qualifications, targets for young people in higher education. Will you/your children leave university in debt to the tune of 60k and go into a job market flooded with 2:2 media studies graduates?
Immigration: Every time I hear the phrase “economic migrant” – invariably said with disdain and contempt – I want to punch things. I’m an economic migrant (albeit a privileged one, with an EU passport). I would really like to see some balanced statistics about the impact of economic migrants on the economy. Yes, of course some of us aren’t fluent in English, and our kids might need special attention at school for a bit until they pick up the language, or we might need an interpreter at the doctor’s, but equally, we contribute a huge amount to the economy. Some of us, frankly, do jobs that British people wouldn’t be seen dead doing. Some of us are hideously overqualified for the jobs we end up in. Some of us pay higher rate income tax. Some of us volunteer in the community. Generally someone who comes over here as an economic migrant comes with the will and intention to work, make a contribution, and make a better life for themselves, not sponge off the system. That’s what being an economic migrant means. Stop talking about us like we’re some sort of plague.
Young people: There’s a separate post coming on this, but as a starter for ten, do you want your children growing up in a society where teenagers are seen as walking ASBOs? Where they have nothing to do and nowhere to go once they’re out of school? Where cities actively declare war on them, be it through disproportionately targeting them with stop-and-search powers, or making it hugely expensive for landlords to let houses to sharers?
Old people: Can you afford to put aside 8k at retirement? Would you rather the money to pay for any care you might need be taken out of your estate after your death? Would you like to work until you’re 80? (You might have to, what with retirement age going up, but then again you might find you can’t as the government refuses to extend age discrimination legislation to those over 65.)
Diversity, inclusion and equality: This one covers a multitude of sins. I’m a foreign bisexual woman. I’d be asking my Parliamentary candidates about addressing homophobic bullying in schools and homophobic hate crime on the streets; same-sex marriage/asking other countries to legally recognise UK civil partnerships; discrimination against LGB people in the provision of public services (It may be illegal but it still happens!); asylum-seekers who are persecuted in their country for their sexual orientation.
I’d also be asking them about the gender pay gap, availability and status of part-time work and other flexible working arrangements, parental/paternity leave, child care provisions. And while we’re on women’s rights and equality, let’s talk abortion. This is still very much a current issue. There was a serious attempt in this Parliament, strongly supported by the Conservatives, to significantly reduce the time limit for late-term abortions. Additionally, there are still nearly 1 million women in the UK without access to safe and legal abortion: the women of Northern Ireland. Just a thought.
And if I was having a laugh I might challenge my Parliamentary candidates to a little competition involving the Life in the UK citizenship test.
Climate change: Will your grandchildren live in a UK where East Anglia has been obliterated from the map? Is the long-term solution to climate change consuming less or coming up with clever technology to produce carbon-free energy, or even geo-engineering? And regardless of which of these things we go for, how do we actually get there? Is nuclear a safe bridging technology? How about if that nuclear powerplant or wind farm was in your village?
Transport: There’s no continuous motorway on the East coast north of Leeds (we’re getting there with the improvements to the A1, but right now there isn’t). And don’t get me started on ways of crossing the river Tyne. The rail network is a mess, and it’s cheaper to fly pretty much anywhere within the UK as well as outside (see also climate change). Public transport in many cities is not even worth talking about.
The digital economy: Is copyright infringement really a criminal offense? And will your Internet connection get cut because your teenage kid has been downloading music in their bedroom without you even knowing? Will Facebook sell all your data to Microsoft, and can you do anything about it?
Electoral reform: Do you really want to sit here in another five years’ time wanting to vote for one party but having to vote for another to keep a third one out? Do you want Alan Sugar and a bunch of bishops making the laws of your country or a fully elected second chamber? Do you want an MP tied to your constituency like a social worker, or a Parliament which reflects proportionally what everyone voted for and which deals with national issues? Do you think AV might just be a way of further entrenching the injustices and inequalities of the current system while blocking further reform because “we’ve just had reform, we should let it bed in”? Or do you think that first past the post is the best thing since sliced bread?
These may not be issues that touch you personally. Or you may disagree with my assessment of them. But I can guarantee that there are things being talked about by every political party out there that do touch you and that will have a very significant impact on your life over the coming years, regardless of who forms the next government.
I started this post saying that I found myself in a dilemma. Not being allowed to vote is half of it. The other half of course is that, if I had the right to vote, I’d have serious trouble making up my mind between a number of almost-identical candidates in a system that would disenfranchise me regardless because I don’t happen to support Labour or the Tories. Nevertheless, the only way – short, of course, of a revolution – that we can ever change anything is by turning out and voting. I’d encourage you to come up with your own list of things you care about and go talk to your Parliamentary candidates about it over the next week and a half, make up your mind based on the answers, and on the 6th of May go do the one thing I can’t do: vote.