Anthony Painter

Following on from yesterday, here are three further observations.

1. PR

What an amazing demonstration today with special congratulations to Pam Giddy of Power 2010 who has set up the Take Back Parliament campaign. I’ve signed.

This keeps the issue of PR and political reform very much at the centre of political discussion as political coalition/ pact talks are ongoing.

The Parliamentary arithmetic isn’t there to deliver PR or a referendum on PR. The Conservatives, Labour, and the Liberal Democrats all currently favour three very different voting systems. The Tories favour the status quo, Labour favour the Alternative Vote, and the Liberal Democrats are in favour of the Single Transferable Vote system of PR. If Gordon Brown offers a referendum on PR he can’t get it through Parliament anyway so it’s worthless (at least a quarter of the Parliamentary Labour Party are implacably opposed.)

So keep the issue on the agenda- that is why today was so important. Then the task is: (i) To convince the Labour party to back full PR rather than just AV; and (ii) To build support within the Conservative party.

PR will come- but getting there needs some painstaking coalition building and popular support and that will take some time. We aren’t there yet. But sign up to the petition, write to your MP, get your friends involved, keep it going!

2. Government

I’m just going to reiterate my first observation from yesterday- the Conservatives will be in Government. There was an election. Look at the result if you don’t believe me. It is likely to be a ‘confidence and supply‘ model where the Liberal Democrats support specifically agreed legislation and allow the Tories to get a Queen’s Speech and Budget passed.

It seems amazing that Nick Clegg would form a coalition with the Conservatives without any substantive agreement on electoral reform (referendum on PR in other words….) David Cameron won’t and can’t agree to that. To form a coalition in these circumstances could break apart the Liberal Democratic party.

But there is another scenario….that Liberal Democrats do enter a coalition but without an insistence on electoral reform. In so doing, they take the gamble that they will be seen as responsible and reasonable and that holds their party and their support together. With all the talk of ‘stable government’ in the ‘national interest’ this seems to be a possibility….and a big gamble.

One further point, the Liberal Democrats have conducted themselves with dignity and statesmanship over the last two days. It’s a good advert for PR. That needs to be said.

3. National Government or new election?

Less commented in the last 24 hours is the fact that the Conservatives may not get to choose the date of the next election. The next 9 months is relatively easy in terms of what needs to happen with the deficit but then gets very tough. Will the Liberal Democrats want to be seen propping up a Government that is cutting public spending in a very politically unpopular way? It is an alliance/ coalition that is very unstable and becomes more unstable over time.

How much stomach will the Liberal Democrats have for taking the political hit for Conservative spending decisions?

And there are other unforeseens. Just take what is happening in global bond markets. What if what is happening to Greece does spread to our shores? What happens then? What if there is a fundamental disagreement about how to deal with that? Public expenditure would have to cut but how and by how much? The scope for fissure is enormous.

And you have to wonder, in these circumstances, whether David Marquand’s insistence that a ‘grand coalition’ might be necessary is astute. The choice within 12 months might be for a National Government or another election.