LEARNING THE LESSONS
OF PAST COALITIONS

By Paul Richardson

My former Oxford tutor, Baron Morgan of Aberdyfi, is known to students of history as Kenneth O Morgan, author of biographies of James Callaghan, Michael Foot, Keir Hardie and Lloyd George, and such major works as Consensus and Disunity, Labour in Power and Ages of Reform (forthcoming in December). He is well placed to reflect on Britain's past experience of coalition government and I began with this subject when I interviewed him in the House of Lords.

We began with the pact between Labour and the Liberals that operated from 1977-78.

"This was unfortunate for the Liberals. The government consulted with them but there was no formal Liberal presence in the government. The Liberals thought they had an understanding that there would be direct elections to the European Parliament and proportional representation but they secured only the first of these. The voters gave them little credit for anything the government achieved. Labour managed to press on with its own programme but the Liberals did not succeed in pushing any of their issues. In the end the pact came to an end in depressing circumstances when the Liberals voted against the government in a vote of confidence. They went on to lose seats in the General Election."

Lopsided

We turn to the two formal coalitions that operated in the 20th century, from 1916-22 and again from 1931-32.

"The first coalition arose during the First World War because of the split in the Liberal Party. The unifying theme was the Prime Minister, Lloyd George. He held it together. It was only a partial coalition involving half of the parliamentary Liberal Party. The Asquithian Independent Liberals were in opposition. The relationship between the Lloyd George Liberals and the Unionists (Conservatives) in the coalition was edgy and difficult. The coalition did linger on until 1922 but it had very harmful results for the Liberals because the divisions in te party remained after 1922. A number of coalition Liberals actually joined the Conservative Party, the most famous of them being Winston Churchill.

"It was a lopsided coalition. The Liberals did feel they had some influence. At the start the social reform measures introduced by the government came from them, but the Liberals had to swallow a lot of things they didn't like such as the deployment of the Black and Tans in Ireland, inroads into Free Trade, and the massacre at Amritsar for which General Dyer was responsible. So the coalition was fairly unstable.

"There was a proposal in the summer of 1920 that the Liberals and Conservatives should form one party. But although many of the Liberals, with the exception of Churchill, were not the biggest hitters in politics they still felt they were Liberals and they refused to 'fuse' with the Conservatives. As a resul they were there to be picked off. If you look at by-elections between 1919 and 1922 the coalition Liberals were by far the most unsuccessful of the governing parties.

Sitting ducks

"The reason for this is that their seats were mostly in working-class areas, so they were sitting ducks for the Labour Party. The effect on the Liberal Party was very harmful. What kept them in the coalition was Lloyd George. Most of the other prominent figures in the government were Conservatives.

"The Conservatives disliked a number of Lloyd George's initiatives such as the decision to give home rule to Ireland and Lloyd George's grant of de facto recognition to the Soviet Union. One half felt the coalition was too conservative, the other half felt it was too radical. As a result the coalition was fundamentally unstable. It depended on Lloyd George. In the end he took his personal ascendancy too far, first by the sale of honours and then by pursuing his own foreign policy and threatening war with Turkey. The Conservatives were historically pro-Turk so this actually caused the downfall of the coalition, but there was much erosion and tension before the end. It was unstable for a long period and tarnished the very idea of coalition.

"However, as I have acknowledged in my account of the period, the coalition did manage to pursue some worthwhile policies at the beginning, largely due to the work of Liberal ministers. Addison pushed through the first Act for public housing. There was Fisher's measure on education and women were given the vote. It wasn't a total disaster and it wasn't as reactionary as elements in the Labour movement claimed. But the coalition began in the war and depended on Lloyd George. By 1922 the war was well and turly over and issues were driving the parties apart. It is not a good precedent for today."

Catastrophic

In 1931 Lloyd George refused to join the coalition. What were the factors at play in the Liberal Party then?

"This coalition is probably an even worse precedent for the Liberals. The Liberals divided into three. Lloyd George and his followers didn't join. The 'National Liberals' under John Simon in effect became Conservatives in the same way the Liberal Unionists had done under Joseph Chamberlain, although th union did not become formal for some time.

"In the middle there was the orthodox mainstream Liberal Party that took the line that Liberals have taken today. In other words, there was an agreement to differ on certain issues, as now on PR. That proved to be catastrophic. The Liberals were totally opposed to imperial tariffs and campaigned from the government benches for Free Trade. There were no referendums in those days so this made the position of the Liberals untenable, with ministers saying completely different things from the front bench. There was really only a coalition for about a year and it is another unfortunate precedent for the present. In fact their history doesn't offer much hope for a successful coalition today."

What about 1895?

"In 1895 the Liberal Unionists were really at one with the Conservatives. They didn't run candidates against each other and Joseph Chamberlain was a key figure in the Cabinet. This is another unfortunate precedent. There wasn't much that was Liberal about some of the Liberal Unionists. Chamberlain pushed the government in an imperialist direction and was largely responsible for the Boer War.

Party splits

"After the war, Chamberlain took up imperial tariffs and this lost Liberal support. In 1906 a number of Liberal Unionists actually went back to the Liberal Party over Free Trade. You could say the results of the coalition were the Boer War and part splits (in 1903 Unionist Free Fooders' split with Chamberlain) so this, too, is not a good advertisement for a Liberal-Conservative coalition. On the whole they have all been pretty disastrous. Usually they have led to splits in the Liberal Party.

"In 1945 there were a mere 12 Liberal MPs. You can trace the fall of the party to the coalitions. Although you had prominent Liberals like Beveridge and Keynes, their influence came from their own ideas and policies, not from party support."

We turn to New Labour. In the light of Labour Party history, was this really completely new or can it be traced back to trends in the party's history?

"I think it is a divergence. Not all the aspects of New Labour represented a break with the past. There was a strong commitment to the welfare state and to social justice evident in the minimum wage, tax credits and addressing child poverty. But central features of Labour policy such as public ownership, redistribution of wealth, reducing the gap between rich and poor, and commitment to planning, were set aside.

Philosophy

"There was an attempt to cling on to some of Labour's social policy while jettisoning a good deal of economic philosophy. However, New Labour was the first Labour government to take constitutional reform seriously. There was reform of the House of Lords, devolution, the Human Rights Act, elected mayors, and the Freedom of Information Act. There was also a new outlook on matters relating to individual freedom such as Civil Partnerships and gay rights.

"This is not an area that has interested Labour too much in the past, apart from the period when Roy Jenkins was Home Secretary. The party deserves credit for investing in the public services, particularly for improvements in the NHS, though there were elements of privatisation with foundation hospitals. Primary school education has also improved. Unfortunately New Labour has also had a very belligerent foreign policy. In the past Harold Wilson kept us out of Vietnam, but New Labour was quick to intervene in Iraq. This was the beginning of the decline in New Labour, as can be seen from the big slump in votes in the 2005 election.

"Many people were also alarmed at the way the Labour government ignored civil liberties over such issues as 42 days detention, Asbos, personal data, restrictions on jury trial and control orders. At the root of New Labour was the premise that it was a coalition that had been successful in securing aspiring middle class votes in the South of England and had to hang on to these even at the expense of jettisoning some traditional Labour policies. Tony Blair was mainly interested in winning. But you have to ask what you are going to do when you win."

Intelligent

How will Gordon Brown be assessed as a Labour leader?

"In some ways an improvement on Tony Blair. He was more in tune with the Labour ethic. He was perhaps our most intelligent Labour leader, but he was not good at communicating with the public. This is partly because of his poor eyesight which makes it difficult for him to read notes and means that he doesn't come across as warm and engaging. He didn't lead the parliamentary party terribly well because he operated too much via cronyism. But he has real achievements.

"For a long time he was a successful Chancellor. He intervened most effectively in the credit crunch. On the Euro he was probably right, though I would not have said so some years ago. He took a keener interest in international development than Labour leaders have in the past, perhaps because of his Christian background. He took an interest in constitutional reform, though he didn't advance the agenda as much as he could.

"Although he will be judged as someone who led Labour to a heavy electoral defeat, he will also in time be given credit for his achievements. He wasn't good at leading a team or at delegating. He didn't like it when people disagreed with him and this was a weakness, but I wouldn't give much weight to what Andrew Rawnsley say in his recent book. That is based on journalistic tittle-tattle. He called his book The End of the Party. He must be weeping bitter tears of disappointment that the party hasn't come to an end. It came in a strong second. Labour is better placed now than it was in 1983, with no deep divisions as there were then. I am not depressed about the state of the party, and that is to the credit of Gordon Brown."

Isolated

There is one policy on which Lord Morgan will be supporting the coalition. He agrees with Michael Gove that there is a case for reforming the history curriculum.

"You need a narrative sweep to understand what happened in history. I strongly support what is called continuous history. You can't just study isolated incidents like Munich or the Cuban missile crisis. Students need to understand the sweep of history to see how forces operate. This includes social and cultural history, not simply political history. Aneurin Bevan used to say that when he was lost in mists on the Waun hill above Tredegar he found the way to progress was to retrace his footsteps and see where he had come from. For Bevan you could only see where you were going if you knew where you had been.

"Both Michael Foot and Jim Callaghan had a sense of the past and a feel for the history of the Labour movement. Blair had neither. Schools should teach more history and it should certainly be in the national curriculum."

# The above article first appeared in the July/August 2010 edition of Government Gazette

HAGUE ON HOW THE
COALITION 'CLICKED'

Foreign Secretary William Hague has opened a revealing window on the talks that paved the way for the coalition agreement between the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats.

He has spoken enthusiastically of the "great personal chemistry" between David Cameron and Nick Clegg, and the swathes of common ground achieved by the parties on key policy issues.

"A full chapter in William Hague's diaries, one suspects, will be given over to his role in the historic negotiations," wrote political editor Patrick Hennessy in the Sunday Telegraph.

"Over several sessions at the Cabinet Office, the Tory side (Mr Hague, George Osborne, Oliver Letwin and Ed Llewellyn) and their Liberal Democrat counterparts (Chris Huhne, David Laws, Danny Alexander and Andrew Stunell) hammered out a deal – with David Cameron and Nick Clegg meeting face-to-face and by telephone.

Speakerphone

"In the fullest account yet given by anyone on either side, Mr Hague reveals that the Tory negotiators communicated with their leader via a speakerphone, that both sides agreed to talk without civil servants present - and that Europe, contrary to expectations, was not one of the hardest points to resolve."

Hague has described the post-election talks as "the most fascinating political thing in all my 21 years in Parliament. We entered negotiations with the Lib Dems thinking the most likely outcome would be a Conservative minority government.

"It wasn't our ideal outcome, and in these financial circumstances the likelihood of an early General Election would not be the right thing for the country or the new government. It was a pleasant surprise to discover a coalition was possible.

"There is great personal chemistry between Clegg and Cameron – and the whole negotiating teams. We enjoyed our discussions together; we could see it was possible to sit around the same Cabinet table together.

Refreshing

"It was a refreshing discovery – and many of the policy issues could be resolved.

"This was made possible by the Conservative Party having become more socially liberal, stronger on civil liberties, while the Lib Dems became more fiscally conservative – robust about our economic decisions.

"There was more than personal chemistry; there were substantial policy terms. We picked the 11 most difficult policies to see if we could agree on them."

According to Hague, the "decisive point" came when the Tory side offered a referendum on switching from first-past-the-post in General Elections to the Alternative Vote system.

Surprised

But tax was a "complex" issue which took some time, and constitutional changes such as fixed-term parliaments – required by the Lib Dems – were "quite difficult areas".

Hague added: "On the continent they're surprised by the speed of it all. They would take weeks – once it took 282 days to assemble a coalition in Belgium.

"We had the financial pressure on us, the Government was in paralysis, we had to crack on.

"We had a separate room with a speakerphone to ring David Cameron. We would all sit round and discuss developments together. We were in contact with him all the time."

NUTS & BOLTS OF THE
COALITION AGREEMENT

It took David Cameron and Nick Clegg little more than a fortnight to produce The Coalition - Our Programme for Government . This full 36-page version of the document agreed by the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats can be downloaded here.

The Cameron/Clegg relationship is obviously pivotal to the coalition's success or otherwise, but other key players includes the Lib Dem Danny Alexander, providing ministerial support to the Deputy Prime Minister, and Tory Oliver Letwin, main policy and strategy adviser to Cameron.

Letwin and Alexander will jointly chair a new Coalition Operation and Strategic Planning Group - in effect a clearing house for managing decisions and disputes. Alexander will sit on six Cabinet committees, Letwin on eight..

Experience

Also important is the knowledge and experience of  the Advocate-General for Scotland, Lord Wallace, who - in the words of one respected commentator - "knows more about the working of coalitions than anyone in Whitehall". He was Deputy First Minister for the first six years of the Lab-Lib coalition in Scotland, helping to set up and run it.

The inner workings of how the government will operate in this new environment are revealed with the publication of the Cabinet committee list, downloadable here, and the new, tighter, Ministerial Code.

In his foreword to the Ministerial Code, which can be downloaded here, the Prime Minister outlines the government's "historic responsibility to rebuild confidence in our political system". The seven principles of public life are listed as selflessness, integrity, objectivity, accountability, openness, honesty and leadership.

CHARTER 2010'S GUIDE
TO A HUNG PARLIAMENT

Conventions and precedents

There are no specific rules; there are conventions and past precedent to guide senior politicians who accept that we live under a constitutional Monarch where the responsibility of politicians is to keep the Monarch out of partisan party politics.

Her Majesty’s Government must be continued with only a short interval between a Prime Minister going to the Palace to resign and a new leader being called to the Palace to be appointed Prime Minister. On one recent occasion in 1963 Lord Home asked the Queen not to appoint him but to ask him to go away to see if he could form a government.

If on Friday, 7 May the Conservative Party have 322 (allowing for the Speaker and his deputy who do not vote and assuming five Sinn Fein MPs do not take their seats) MPs elected who all accept the Conservative Party Whip, then Gordon Brown would automatically go to the Palace and resign in the middle of the day and shortly afterwards David Cameron would be called to the Palace and be appointed Prime Minister. If the Conservative Party have the largest number of MPs, but is just short of an outright majority, the Queen’s advisers would consult to see whether he could expect to carry the confidence of the House of Commons in any vote on the Queen’s Speech. Once they were satisfied that this was the case, and this might take until Monday, 10 May or Tuesday, 11 May, Gordon Brown would resign and David Cameron would be called to the Palace. If there was uncertainty as to whether or not David Cameron could command the confidence of the House of Commons, Gordon Brown, as Prime Minister, would be entitled to plan to stay in No 10 until the vote on the Queen’s Speech. He would, however, be serving as a caretaker Prime Minister, limited by the same rules that govern during the period of the Dissolution of Parliament and the General Election.

During this period it would be up to David Cameron and Gordon Brown to speak to whichever parties or MPs that they wished to see if they could assemble a Parliamentary majority sufficient to win the confidence of the House of Commons. If David Cameron achieved this prior to the Queen’s Speech, Gordon Brown would be expected to go to the Palace to resign Conventions and Precedents and the Queen would appoint David Cameron as Prime Minister.

If David Cameron, as he is entitled to do, decided not to first speak to Nick Clegg then Nick Clegg would be released from the pledge to talk first to the party with the ‘strongest mandate’ which he had made during the General Election. He could then in good conscience start to open negotiations with Gordon Brown as leader of the Labour Party. If for these negotiations to be successful, any agreement depended on a new Labour Prime Minister, not Gordon Brown, then it would be likely that Gordon Brown would go to the Palace to hand in his seals of office prior to the Queen’s Speech, and recommend to the Queen that she appoint as Prime Minister the Labour MP who had the support of the Labour Parliamentary Party and the Liberal Democrats.

If no leader had been able to clearly establish that they command the majority of the House of Commons in a Queen’s Speech then the existing Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, could present a Queen’s speech to the House of Commons and hope to continue in office as a minority government. If through other party MPs’ votes or abstentions he had a majority in the vote he could expect to remain Prime Minister without need for reappointment and have full powers to govern for a few months and then be granted a dissolution of Parliament by the Queen at a time of his choosing.

The practicalities

In practice the leaders of all three political parties will be highly aware of the need for Britain to sustain international confidence in the handling of the economy given the size of the structural fiscal deficit. They will know that an agreement on the shape and composition of a new government will have to be reached soon preferably well before the start of the Queen’s Speech. The likelihood is that perhaps with some pressure on sterling on the Friday and Monday, the international financiers will watch the process closely over the next week and provided the normal conventions and precedents are being followed, they will await the result of the negotiations in the expectation that by the end of that first week it will become pretty clear that a successful negotiation is underway and that a stable government will be formed, though the full agreement may not be until the following week.

Possible structures

A full coalition: where the parties involved agree a relatively detailed programme and participate in the government by holding ministerial posts.

A ‘partial’ coalition: where the parties involved agree some key elements of a programme and the ‘minor’ partner may only take a few ministerial posts.

A ‘confidence and supply’ agreement: where, in return for specific policy concessions, the second party to the agreement takes no posts, but agrees not to allow a minority government to be defeated on a vote of confidence or on matters of ‘supply’ (i.e. taxation and public spending).

Support ‘issue by issue’: where the second party agrees to allow a minority government to get it’s Queen’s Speech vote through and then will decide issue by issue whether to support the government or not.

All of these possibilities, except the last, imply that a time duration is part of the agreement made. This might be for a period of years or months, or until a particular event has taken place( for example a referendum on electoral reform).

How to negotiate for a coalition

First, the objectives. The nature of the negotiation is critical. It must be about a programme for government in the best interests of Britain. Each party’s manifesto must be treated with respect but not as Holy Writ.

The negotiations must first concentrate on the fiscal deficit. On other issues the party leaders should privately communicate any “sticking points” they may have, so that time is not wasted on fruitless discussion of matters that turn out to have been undeliverable from the start.

Responsibilities

Assuming there is no appetite, as yet at least, for a Grand Coalition, the negotiators should nevertheless, from the start, be open to new policies and new solutions, including items from the manifesto of the third party not represented. Even though it may only be two parties negotiating, they must not assume they have a monopoly of wisdom. Allocation of ministerial responsibilities should be a matter for the party leaders alone.

Second, the negotiating teams. They should be chosen by the party leaders, not just for their ability and acceptability to hold the big offices of state, but to help carry party members in both the House of Commons and the Lords. Numbers should be as small as possible, consistent with the latter objective.

Ideally it would be best to have only four negotiators from each party. The process should be staffed by the Cabinet Secretary, with the party leaders each choosing a staff member from their personal team.

Confidential

Third, the process. The media pressure will be intense and it will not be conducive to building trust and understanding, or ultimate agreement, if those involved fail to keep proceedings confidential. They should agree this at the outset.

An agreed press statement should be issued by the Cabinet Office after each meeting - preferably short, perhaps only stating the date and time of the next meeting. Any other necessary statements should be made only with the approval of all the party leaders involved.

The fact that the meetings will take place on government premises serviced by the Cabinet Office and, where necessary, provided with factual information by government departments, makes it more likely that they will be treated as the meetings of a future inner Cabinet. They should proceed as if they were such meetings.

Key dates

This is the announced timetable:

Thursday 6 May: ELECTION DAY

Friday 7 May: Results from final constituencies during afternoon

Tuesday 18 May: Parliament re-assembles for the purpose of Members of both Houses to take the Oath of office

Tuesday 25 May: Queen’s Speech debate begins

Monday 31 May: First possible date for vote on Queen’s Speech

THERE ARE NO NEW
CONSTITUTIONAL RULES

By Dr Ruth Fox of the Hansard Society

Despite the claims of certain media commentators and aggrieved Conservative politicians at the weekend, there has been no "new rule" dreamt up in the Cabinet Office for the event of a hung parliament. The constitutional position has long been clear: if no party secures an overall majority then Gordon Brown, as the incumbent prime minister, has the constitutional right to remain in office to try to form a government.

Constitutionally, a PM cannot be forced to resign because the opposition believes it has a better mandate to govern. But in practice, whether the PM stays in office and tries to form a government is dependent on the political circumstances in which he finds himself.

Britain's system is unusual in that the prime minister does not have to resign if his party fails to secure a majority. Until a deal is done he would serve as a caretaker premier, whose powers and authority are limited by the rules governing electoral "purdah". The constitutional conventions and precedents are designed to provide continuity – to ensure that at no time is the sovereign without a government.

Confidence

The basic principle is that the government must command the confidence of the Commons. That is not the same as securing an outright majority – merely that no combination of parties can form a majority against it. If the incumbent PM has the confidence of the Commons then he can continue in office.

Far from being a recent Cabinet Office invention, this long held constitutional position applied equally to a Conservative premier – Edward Heath – in 1974, in a position similar to that in which Brown may find himself on Friday morning. Heath spent four days in No 10 negotiating with Liberal party leader Jeremy Thorpe to see if a coalition could be formed, only resigning after concluding that a satisfactory agreement between the parties could not be reached.

Reports suggest that some in the Conservative party believe they should challenge Brown's right to form a government and ignore the guidance recently set out by the Cabinet Office on the procedures that will apply in the event of a hung parliament.

Argument

If the Conservatives win the largest share of the popular vote and the largest number of seats, albeit short of an overall majority, they may feel aggrieved they cannot claim first right to form the government, and may command public support for their predicament. In these circumstances, though Brown would retain the right to try to form a government first, political pressure means he would be likely to resign relatively quickly.

However, if the Conservatives win the largest share of the popular vote but not the most seats, the debate is more open: who has won and has a mandate? Labour could argue that, in the absence of an outright winner, if they can agree a legislative programme with the Lib Dems that would command more support in the Commons than the Conservatives then why should they not be allowed to do so? Their argument may command some public support if, at the heart of that deal, there is a commitment to electoral reform.

Ultimately the politics of the situation will dictate the outcome. The PM has the right to try to form a government first but, as Heath found, success is not guaranteed. Which party possesses the political momentum and moral authority to govern will depend on a complex nexus of political calculations and electoral imperatives. It will be influenced by the perceived direction of public opinion, the response of the financial markets, the 24-hour news cycle and the blogosphere, in the immediate days after the election. Patience is as likely to be as effective as constitutional confrontation.

# This article appeared in The Guardian on Wednesday 5 May 2010

CONSTITUTIONAL ISSUES: CHARTER 2010 OVERVIEW

Charter 2010’s proposals on how the constitutional issues surrounding a hung parliament should be approached have been given new emphasis and weight by the deliberations of the Justice Committee of the House of Commons, chaired by Sir Alan Beith. The committee’s excellent discussion of the main constitutional issues, on Wednesday 24 February 2010, is dealt with towards the end of this article.

The principal feature of the evidence session was the presentation of the draft of a new Chapter of the Cabinet Manual ( 6: Elections and Government Formation). Several paragraphs in the draft Chapter deal with “hung parliaments”. The Cabinet Secretary sought opinions on the draft and we have submitted our suggested changes. A link to the final version of the Chapter will be placed on www.charter2010.co.uk as soon as it is released. This is expected to be before the election is called.

Further required reading for any sitting or prospective MP is a new pamphlet published by the Hansard Society and the Study of Parliament Group. Who governs? Forming a coalition or a minority government in the event of a hung parliament is an invaluable guide to what may happen in the event of an indecisive General Election result. No stone is unturned by the report, which emphasises that a hung parliament "need not be weak and unstable".

No-one denies that the constitutional issues surrounding a hung parliament are complex. It has to be stressed that Charter 2010’s proposals on how to deal with the situation where no one party has an overall majority (the formation of a multi-party supported government for a fixed period of four years) are directed only at the particular situation of a hung parliament occurring in 2010. We are motivated essentially by the urgent need to ensure that a stable and representative government emerges from any hung parliament in this year’s election, because of the especially grave financial and economic problems our country contemporarily faces. Our advocacy of this approach to a hung parliament in 2010 does not imply any assumption that it would necessarily be appropriate in total, or in parts, at another time - or in other circumstances.

A good summary of the 20th century experience of hung parliaments is contained in a recent House of Commons Library Note. And there are few better objective and detailed introductions to the general constitutional issues raised than the papers published by the Constitution Unit at University College London - Coalition Government in Britain: Lessons from Overseas and Coalition Governance in Scotland and Wales.

Another valuable paper is Making Minority Government Work, published by the Institute of Government. A short but impartial assessment of Fixed Term Parliaments is published by the House of Commons Library, and further thoughts on this topic can be found at www.fixedterm.org.uk. This has contributions from Conservative MPs and candidates - including David Cameron, who has shown a readiness to consider introducing fixed-term parliaments.

Additionally, there is a memorandum by Professor Robert Blackburn to the House of Commons Home Affairs Select Committee, particularly section four on General Election timing, dealing with the circumstance when an election might be permitted within a four-year fixed term parliament. This subject is also covered in the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany, specifically Articles 39 and 68.

The New Statesman devoted a whole edition to a hung parliament on 30 November 2009 and there are five interesting

Lord Owen, one of the founder supporters of Charter 2010, also contributes a detailed article, The urgency of parliamentary reform, to this website - read in full here.

Nick Clegg’s interview with Andrew Marr on 22 November 2009 provides important insights into his thinking and can be accessed here. The Lib Dem leader tells Marr that, in any hung parliament, it is “obvious” that the party with the strongest mandate from the people should have the first right to try to govern, either on its own or with others.

Mr Clegg revisits the theme in The Times on 4 January 2010 but insists: “I can promise voters that there are no backroom deals or under-the-counter ‘understandings’ with either the Conservatives or Labour. The Liberal Democrats are not up for sale.” He maintains that the public, not he, will be the kingmaker at the next election. Read more here.

However, that “not for sale” claim is scorned by Geoffrey Wheatcroft in The Guardian of 6 January 2010. “The Lib Dems would surrender themselves body and soul to either party if it offered the holy grail of proportional representation,” writes Wheatcroft. “However much Clegg says he isn't a kingmaker, that's just what he will be if no party has an absolute majority. Is it cynical to suppose that the question then will be not whom he gets into bed with, but what his price will be?” Read more here.

Conservative hostility to any prospect of a hung parliament was summed up by party chairman Eric Pickles: "It would be utterly dreadful - no-one would have a clear mandate, it would be hideous, it would be hand-to-mouth and it wouldn't last very long." Read more here. But Tory leader David Cameron acknowledged the value of co-operation in certain circumstances when he announced plans for a cross-party "war cabinet" to take charge of operations in Afghanistan if he won the election.

Meanwhile the New Statesman has called for discussion now, not later, on how Britain could still emerge with a strong government from a hung parliament. "Wait-and-see is not good enough," it wrote. "Voters deserve to know what they are voting for - not just in terms of manifesto policies, but what kind of government might emerge from a hung parliament." Read more here.

The argument that only firm government can retain confidence in Britain is also visited by Andreas Whittam Smith in The Independent here and on his new website www.brokengovernment.ning.com.

In a damning report released at the end of January, the Better Government Initiative said the need for constitutional reform was hard to ignore - especially with the possibility of a hung parliament.

So what of electoral reform and, specifically, Gordon Brown's pledge to hold a referendum on changing Westminster's first-past-the-post voting system to the Alternative Vote format? Peter Riddell of The Times says many Labour MPs see AV as a lifeline to keep them in play if there is a hung parliament and as a means of attracting support from the Liberal Democrats. But did Nick Clegg feel the same? More here. Paddy Ashdown always opposed being bought off by Tony Blair over AV.

There are many other pamphlets, articles and books which inform debate on these subjects and the Charter 2010 website will be updated regularly. Suggestions from you, drawing attention to other relevant material, would also be welcome. The wider and more informed the debate on how to convert a hung parliament into a representative, democratic and effective government, the more it will justify the establishment of Charter 2010.

A transcript of the the House of Commons Justice Committee’s full session can be viewed here and it provides valuable arguments against those who still argue that a hung parliament would be a bad or even an unstable outcome. The Cabinet Secretary, Sir Gus O’Donnell, a former Permanent Secretary to the Treasury, said “a lot of people talk about markets being very jittery if the election doesn’t produce a clear result but, based on opinion polls and spread betting, the markets would already have a pretty good understanding of the outcome and, even if it takes some time to create a stable government, they would prefer that to a quickly established government that turns out to be unstable”.

Professor Robert Hazell, Director of the Constitution Unit, urged that more clear-cut guidance should be issued about decision making within government during the period of time following the General Election and a new government being formed and obtaining the support of the House of Commons for a Queen’s Speech: “If the Cabinet Office here wants to look for models of more clear-cut guidance, there are very strong ones in Australia and New Zealand.” The Cabinet Secretary implied this could be one of the areas the draft Cabinet Manual might be improved on and said he was intending to travel soon to both these countries.

The draft Cabinet Manual Chapter 6, para 9 says that recent practice has been for Parliament to meet on the Wednesday following the Thursday of voting in a General Election, but that previously there was a longer interval of about 12 days between polling day and first meeting. The House of Commons Select Committee report on the modernisation of the House of Commons - Revitalising the Chamber: the role of the backbench member (HC 337,2006-7) – has recommended reverting to the practice of there being around 12 days between polling day and first meeting.

On behalf of Charter 2010, Lord Owen has written to the chairman of this committee asking if he would consider taking evidence from the political parties about whether 12 days is sufficient to both negotiate an outline programme for government for a four-year fixed term from 2010-2014 and obtain the democratic endorsement of their party for any such arrangement in the light of the Liberal Democrats in 1992 envisaging that 17 days might be required. Charter 2010 has submitted its views on this specific issue to the Cabinet Secretary.

Now, a little history. We called ourselves Charter 2010 partly because we felt there had been an excellent example of how to focus attention on constitutional matters in Charter 88. An account of how Charter 88 brought constitutional issues before the British public in the 1992 General Election is contained in the book Unlocking Democracy. There can be found a description of how it

operated during the General Election of 1992:

In the electronic world of 2010, campaigning to register our views may be rather different from those of Charter 88. But theirs was an endeavour in whose footsteps we are proud to follow.

Anthony Barnett, who helped found Charter 88 and was its first director, contributes a powerful essay to the 22 March edition of the New Statesman, calling for radical action to reform and revitalise politics.

Barnett writes: "We need to hang parliament and hang the two main parties. We need to vote Brown and Mandelson out, first of all, but not vote Cameron and company in to carry on where Labour has left off. We need a hung parliament so that invention and new voices are registered, so that the public can express how it has lost trust in the political class, and different forces be allowed to reshape the political scene."

Generating widespread support, Barnett turned Charter 88 into a movement for the democratic reform of Britain; at the end of the 90s the Daily Telegraph hailed it as the UK's "most influential pressure group of the decade". Since then he has founded openDemocracy and become editor of its UK section, Our Kingdom.

Barnett's views inspire an editorial in the same issue of the New Statesman which suggests that a hung parliament could be the saving of the Labour Party by heralding a more progressive politics. The magazine also promises to publish a series of replies to Barnett's essay over the coming weeks; the first is by David Marquand, who "admires Barnett hugely" but "disagrees passionately with his diatribe".

Hung parliament: how Hazell sees it

click image for Professor Robert Hazell's mini-lecture

OPEN DEMOCRACY'S BARNETT COMES OUT FOR A HUNG PARLIAMENT

PARALLEL CRISES CALL
FOR JOINED-UP THINKING

WILL HISTORY
REPEAT ITSELF?

ALLOW TIME TO FORM
MULTI-PARTY
SUPPORTED GOVERNMENT,
SAYS CHARTER 2010

O'DONNELL: MARKETS & CIVIL SERVICE CAN COPE WITH HUNG PARLIAMENT OR COALITION

Hung Parliament possibility

Click image to open up video in new page.

SECOND ELECTION BY
NO MEANS GUARANTEED