Might the Queen call on Nick Clegg to be PM?

// April 28th, 2010 // No Comments » // Uncategorized

There is a presumption that the leader of the largest party should be PM but there is nothing requiring it. True the outgoing PM gets first dibs on forming a government and the outgoing government stays in place until another one is formed. If the outgoing PM can’t form one then the leader of the opposition has the next go, however if they can’t then it is possible especially if the LibDems had won the largest number of votes (which I doubt at the moment will be the case) that the Queen might ask Nick Clegg to try and form a government. Labour might be very tempted into agreeing to this, and if they were willing to jump in that direction then so too might the Tories. Fact is that the Conservatives served under a Labour PM in the 30s, of course that was the Great Depression.

To get Nick Clegg as PM does not require the LibDems be the largest party, it merely requires that he could assemble a majority in parliament. It could even be an agreed short term government of 2 years with a platform of reform of the electoral system while cutting public spending, rising some taxes while reducing others that might get the UK economy moving again.

William Hague as PM

// April 28th, 2010 // No Comments » // Uncategorized

Based on the noises from Clegg over last weekend, it sounds like he might not wish his party to serve with either Cameron or Brown as PM. So borrowing from the northern Ireland model where party leaders don’t necessarily go for the top gig, could we see Cable as Chancellor with Hague as PM?

Why would Clegg want Hague as PM? Clegg might prefer Hague because he would be electorally less popular than Cameron. Having him as PM would reduce the inclination of the Tories to cut and run too quickly from a Con-Lib agreement before the various pieces of electoral reform and items precious to the Lib-Dems have been legislated for. Cameron, under these circumstances, might well stay as party leader under what might be a time defined administration for say 2/3 years. Having Hague as PM minimises the chances of the Tories cutting and running for an overall majority before the key elements of the Lib-Dem program are passed. This merely adds to the reasons for his neither ‘Cameron nor Brown’ remarks to Marr last Sunday.

Why did Cameron agree to the debates?

// April 20th, 2010 // No Comments » // ukge2010

Many people will think at this point that David Cameron was quite mad to agree to the debates especially with the participation of the LibDems Nick Clegg but I suspect he knew that (a) the Tory support was soft and likely to fracture at some point and (b) there are many people who might still desert Labour but couldn’t bring themselves to vote for the Conservatives – they are still for many people who in their 40s now Thatcher’s children. So his logic in agreeing might have been that he was good at this sort of thing – considerably more so than Gordon Brown – so why not play to his strengths and also that those who could not bring themselves to vote Conservative and were staying with the Labour party for that reason alone might desert if the LibDem leader did ok.

And then Nick Clegg went and did a lot better than ok.

Now it has happened and a lot of Labour and Tory support has shifted over to the LibDems, having the effect of removing the last of Labour’s floating voter support. I think it is very much harder for Labour to win that support back while for the Tories it should be a more straight forward task to win back most of the few % lost so far. The issue of Europe and other little Englander angles in the press will serve them well in doing so. Yes it might leave them getting only 36/37% on polling day which could be short of an overall majority but that is how it has looked for a long while now anyway with the Tories unable to consistently break the 40% barrier. Plus, the LibDems will find it hard to retain all their new support in the face of the media backlash that will come as we approach the 2nd last weekend before polling. Yet a result of say, Tories on 37%, Labour on 29% and LibDems on 26% would be a very real win for the Tories. They will be reasonably able to square away a deal with the DUP and SNP to secure a majority for a couple of years.

So what would be the most important thing Cameron would have gained from the debate? The space that would be provided by a Labour party that might tear itself apart over the next year in a messy leadership contest as it faces up to a real contest for the role of opposition. Had there been no debate and the Tories won a small majority on the back of 38% against Labour on 32%, he would have faced a new Labour leader who didn’t have to worry about a challenge from the LibDems and indeed could count on them to guard a flank as they prepared to face another election within 2/3 years. Instead, they will view as they did in the 1980s the LibDems as rivals and it is that contest which will hurt their ability to bounce back quickly. Just as it did in the 80s when it was the divided opposition which give the Tories such large majorities in parliament despite only getting barely over 40% of the vote.

A 3-way Leader’s debate in Ireland

// April 15th, 2010 // 1 Comment » // ukge2010

With the first of the series of the Uk’s three PM debates on UTV tonight it appears not to have occurred to anyone here that if the polls in Ireland were to remain remotely like they are now that we would have to host a 3-way style debate too. If Labour were over 20% and FF on about 25% with FG over 30% and were all 3 parties were running enough candidates to get an overall majority then it would be almost impossible for RTe or anyone else to refuse the right of the Labour party’s leader to participate. Hell, it could even be that FF would be in third place and we’d be treated to a head to head with just Eamonn and Enda.

At least it would see an end to the desk, and perhaps podium or high stool based delivery.

My take on the Lisbon Treaty – part 1

// September 30th, 2009 // 2 Comments » // Uncategorized

In making any assessment on the merits of the Lisbon treaty we are encumbered rather than assisted by both the process leading up to the treaty signing and the process of the ratifying referendum itself. A referendum on an EU treaty marks the end of a long torturous process of trade-offs, horse trading, nuanced discussion, and negotiation. In suggesting as some have that we could renegotiate with Europe about aspects of the treaty we need to remember that it is a rather dull and messy compromise made by 27 elected governments.

Seeking to renegotiate aspects on which there is no settled national consensus goes beyond being merely complicated. The Socialist Party and Cóir, both of whom, like many others, seek to speak for those who voted No last time, would have an unbridgeable distance between them on say the issue of abortion, which isn’t even addressed in the treaty but which one of them believes is. For such groups the issues they and their forbearers raised first in the 70s have and will never go away you know. The arguments about a threat to Irish jobs was made by many on the left in the 1970s, others focused on neutrality or military non-engagement, an EU army, conscription, or abortion. All are issues that have been around since our accession debate. Despite repeating these claims in subsequent treaties, the day that our gay sons have been forced into EU armies for abortions while compelled to eat straight bananas has not come to pass.

The difficulty in addressing these concerns once they became the main focus of debate is that opposition groups, whether Sinn Fein, the Socialist Party and even Fine Gael and Labour amongst others, lost the battle to be directly involved in the detailed discussion about the treaty preparation when the general election of 2002 took place. Our democratic system requires that you win the elections leading up to the negotiations in order to for your people to be involved in the discussion. Part of the reason for this is that inherent to our system of representative democracy is the notion of putting your job on the line if you are wrong on the position you advocate.

Post the Nice Treaty debacle one of the core lessons the government should have learned was to never again come home from the EU fair with another Jack’s magic beans of a treaty. To facilitate this we need to look for a new more continuous form of public discourse and engagement that means fewer people are caught unawares of the process leading up to such treaties. And when it comes to the very detailed nuanced legal matters that form the basis of a treaty agreed by 27 participants we need to elect people to do a job of negotiating on our behalf and to trust them to do it. We pick those people via the electoral process and we should take considerably more care about it. That they turn out to be undeserving of our trust but are then re-elected is not their failing but ours.

It should be now evident that Ireland, and Europe more generally, is suffering from consultation fatigue. There is a strong argument to be made that the EU should have a moratorium on any more institutional changes for a decade or more. In his contribution to the Orange book, Nick Clegg of the Liberal Democrats spoke of the need for the EU to enjoy a period of stability with an absence of significant institutional change. A reformed system of public engagement prior to treaty agreements which in turns obviates the requirement for detailed debate after agreement has being reached and a period of stability in the EU institutions, for at least a decade or more, should be considered as priority lessons from the Lisbon process.

NB – there is a certain irony that the Zemanta thingy threw up an image of the signing of the Nice treaty one of its top options. So I stuck with it.