Dream on..
Posted by Ricky in Opinion under National | on May 11 2010
This is really ‘crunch time’, as they say, for the Liberal Democrats. One can’t but feel sympathy - mixed with a sense of just-desserts. They’re having to grow up politically, in the space of a few hours, to a maturity that usually takes years. Their manifesto was cruelly exposed during the campaign for its fantasy politics - they just weren’t prepared for the real world scrutiny precipitated by the Televised Debates. Sadly, though, I feel that a coalition with Labour, though right in principle, would founder on the unpreparedness of the Labour Party and the Unions to make the necessary compromises.
This is not just about forming a governing coalition. This is about a fundamental reworking of the British political system, of which the voting system is one part. Party funding has to be settled, and that means that the financial link to the Unions will have to be undone, and some sort of public support funding for political parties introduced. The unfinished business of devolution will have to be revisited if we are to retain the Union: that means reducing central government funding to Scotland, and devolving more fiscal and legislative powers to the devolved regions. It is absurd that we have different electoral systems in different parts of our tiny island. The Tories rightly fixate on freeing up Local Government and empowering local communities, but have no sensible plan on how to achieve the results they wish for. There is a consensus, I believe, that all these issues, and many more, have urgently to be addressed, but it is fantasy to think that a Labour Liberal Democrat coalition would move beyond a marriage of convenience given the state of weakness and unpreparedness of the two parties. And then there is the proverbial gorilla in the room - the Financial Crisis. Perhaps the one, genuinely good proposal, is for a National Council of all the Parties, to deal specifically with the crisis. The pain and the blame will have to be shared out.
