Simon's Blog

So sense appears to have prevailed and we have a the makings of a coalition government between the Conservatives and the Lib Dems.  During the day the proposed Labour offer appears to have evaporated for whatever reason.   Now we have the scramble for government jobs.

As I write this the Lib Dems have yet to formally agree to the deal and they may just decided to throw it out.  However, the lure of being in government will no doubt be too strong.  There will no doubt be some mumbling from the side lines but the thought of a ministerial car, pay and privilege is very appealing – especially to MPs who just 4 weeks ago didn’t really expect to actually be in this position to actually enact their policies, however, changed they may be.

As for the Conservatives they have one really big advantage going for them.   Their MPs are going to be made up of a people who directly owe their seat to David Cameron.   They have no experience of working in parliament beyond this week and so are far less likely to cause problems.  There will always be some discontents but they will very quickly be voices in the wilderness and there is always a sweetener or two that the Prime Minister can push their way.

So what of Labour?   Who knows – I certainly don’t.   They need sometime to recharge their batteries as well the party’s bank balance so I would expect that they will be fairly subdued for the rest of this year.  They have, after all, to elect a new leader which may create some rather unseemly wounds they could well take a time to heal.  In short term  they are spent.  Their long term future really depends on the Nick Clegg.  If he is a success then they are in serious trouble.  If he fails then things might not be as bad.  However, it is worth remembering that the last time they got such drubbing at the polls it took the Labour party 14 years to get back in power – that was without a resurgent Lib Dem party.  Perhaps they might try to out Lib Dem the Lib Dems in an effort to be able to form the next coalition government.

This is all just speculation – the Lib Dems fail to ratify the agreement and the Conservatives will try to govern on their own.  If this happens then whole picture changes and it could really be RIP Lib Dem.  Events dear boy Events.
 

Simon Marchini LRPS

Web: http://WWW.simonmarchini.co.uk

Twitter: http://twitter.com/@simonmarchini

I have had a night’s sleep to mull over the coming and going at Westminster and I think I need to make a few points clear.  The first is I think this whole process is healthy.   I cannot see any reason why we shouldn’t have a while to sort out which way the government will go.  Already we have seen significant changes in the Conservative stance which may well better reflect what the country wants.  The second is that a Lib/Lab coalition has the potential to be a game changer for the country – it really does.     These are all positives.   Another positive has been the ridicule that Lord Tebbit has exposed himself to.   He might have been a voice at one time but now he is just an old man ragging against the modern world.

Having said all these things I just cannot see what is going to be achieved by such a coalition.   I have just heard Lord Ashdown saying that he cannot see any circumstance  that such a coalition will be voted down by the Nationalist or Greens.  His argument is, I think,  if you think we are bad then look at the alternatives i.e. the Tories.    It is also based on the on the notion that there will be meaningful electoral reform – well here is the first thing that may well cause the thing to fall apart.  Where is the mandate for such a move?   There are many Labour MPs who are against this.   I think that the DUP might also have a thing to say about this as they got 25% of the vote yet nearly 50% of the seats.   How will they be persuaded that giving more power to Sinn Fein (which got slightly more votes) is a good thing?

Then we come to real issue – the economy.   It is all very well saying that the Nationalists are likely to vote with the Lib/Lab coalition but what about England in all this?  If it can be shown that England is being disadvantaged to help prop up a Lib/Lab coalition by pandering to Nationalist demands then the roof will fall in.  Nothing is more likely to cause real problems than this as MPs work out that they are likely to be voted out at the next election unless they do something to stop their constituents being disadvantaged.   It can be argued that this might only be one or two MPs but that is all it takes to bring a government down. I could go on. 

So having slept on it I still cannot see any real logic in a Lib/Lab coalition.   There is a huge amount empathy between the Lib Dems and Labour but they just don’t have the votes to make it stick in any realistic sense.  The Lib Dem heart may wish such a thing to come about but surely the Lib Dem head will say that it is a none starter.  Which leaves us with a Lib Dem/Conservative coalition or Conservative minority government.  As things stand I would suspect that the latter is the most likely but you just never know.   

Is it Lib Dem RIP?   I think it really is in their hands or perhaps more likely their hearts.   

Simon Marchini LRPS

Web: http://WWW.simonmarchini.co.uk

Twitter: http://twitter.com/@simonmarchini

I know I have been very critical of so called experts who claim to be able to see the future with 20/20 vision so I think it is important to state I have no idea what is going to happen.  I think it is also important to say that in principle I have no problems with a Lib Lab pact/coalition/merger.   

So given all those caveats I am totally bemused by the turn of events of the last hour or so.   Gordon Brown has resigned, well sort of.  He will be gone by September – probably.  this was no doubt part of a strategy to try and turn the Lib Dems heads away from the Conservatives.  In truth it wasn’t difficult to do and it certainly makes far more sense for Labour and the Liberals to get together.  However, and this is such a huge stumbling block, even together they do not have a simple majority, let alone a working majority, in the House of Commons.  So there will have to be deals with the nationalist parties and possibly the single green party member.  In the best of circumstances this wouldn’t be easy but with forthcoming need for significant, no the largest ever, cut back in public spending. How will this hang together?   I just can’t see it.

I am old enough to remember when this was tried before in the late 1970s.   It stuck for over 18 months and then unravelled very quickly.   It could be argued that the economic circumstances were even graver then so the current mess, in itself, shouldn’t be a problem.   But the Lib/Lab pact was able to provide a working majority between themselves – this is not the case.  Also the nationalist parties are so much stronger now in this potential arrangement that they will be able to block any changes that would effect their own parts of the UK.   This has disaster written all over it but I think it is what is going to happen – now I hope the financial markets are looking the other way and are being very charitable.    This whole thing could collapse within months and so the next election date may well be the 13th October 2010.  If this is the case I really think it will be RIP Lib Dems.   However, what the hell do I know?
 

Simon Marchini LRPS

Web: http://WWW.simonmarchini.co.uk

Twitter: http://twitter.com/@simonmarchini

We start day three of the great negotiation and guess what the financial markets are not in any real lather about the political situation in Britain.   This doesn’t mean they wont it just means that all the ‘we are doomed’ na’sayers over the weekend perhaps have less faith in the position of Britain than the people whose job it is to make money out of the capital markets.  Now I wonder why they have been trying to scare us all?

This doesn’t mean that there isn’t a huge problem to sort out, there is, it is just that perhaps many of the commentators have their own or their paper’s political agenda to put forward rather than any rational, balanced reporting.  Just a thought.
 

Simon Marchini LRPS

Web: http://WWW.simonmarchini.co.uk

Twitter: http://twitter.com/@simonmarchini

The pressure is starting to mount on all the parties after the inconclusive election.  Who will do a deal with whom?  At the moment no one really knows but one thing is for sure.  If the Lib Dems make a mess of this then they will never get another chance to change things – Never.  All they will do is demonstrate to the electorate as a whole that they are incapable of being anything other than the people on the outside shouting.   Governing is a messy business and means upsetting many people.   Do they want to do this?  

I have not got a clue but what I do know is that there appears many within the Lib Dems who like their ivory tower position rather than the murky waters of real politics.  PR is about doing deals with whomever is in the best position to form a government.  No matter which way you cut it the Labour party are not realistically in that position form the new government – it really wouldn’t have any legitimacy even if they can coble together what looks like a parliamentary majority.  A majority that would collapse at the first sign of the real cuts that will be coming in the next six months as these will fall disproportionally on Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland as they have a larger state sector than  England.   So the Lib Dems appear to be stuck between a rock and hard place.

One final thought – just how quick can a second election be arranged?  I suspect four weeks is the minimum.  If the Lib Dems fail then we could have another election by the end of June.   If this happens I wouldn’t take any bets as to how many Lib Dems there would be left in parliament as they would be portrayed, rightly or wrongly, as putting their own sectional interests above the national interest.   

Oh I am glad I am not a Lib Dem at the moment.

Simon Marchini LRPS

Web: http://WWW.simonmarchini.co.uk

Twitter: http://twitter.com/@simonmarchini

Life can seem very strange when you are young, it’s pretty strange when you’re older but that is another story.  So back to the wide wonder that the world is.  This morning I spent some time with a very young, and certainly naive, Collared Dove.  He or she was sitting on our garden fence for what seems like forever.  At first I thought there was something wrong with it but as I watched I came to realise that it was just shell shocked.   Only a few days ago it had two parents to look after it’s every need.  It was warm and dry in the small world he had known – now it was on its own wits to prevent it being someone else’s breakfast.

So there it sat and just watched me.  Eventually it went to feed on one of our feeders and then returned to its previous perch where it just flopped.  Life can be really hard.  I couldn’t resist the temptation and so out came the camera.  I only had my 180mm macro lens so the depth of field was always going to be very shallow even at a small f stop but that didn’t seem to matter.  I just sat there and snapped away  

‘..Just how trusting was this new arrival?’.  Well I decided to test it.  Slowly I walked towards the young bird.  Still no movement.  I got closer and all it did was look at me.   ‘This is going to be Sparrowhawk food if it doesn’t shape up’ – I stepped closer.  Eventually I was able to get to within a metre before it decide to fly off, not far just onto the pergola.   I just hope it gets a bit more street wise. 
 

Simon Marchini LRPS

Web: http://WWW.simonmarchini.co.uk

Twitter: http://twitter.com/@simonmarchini

So the bargaining starts and no one knows the outcome.  Both sides are unhappy about any deal being made and are demanding purity of action and thought – both forgetting the result of the election.   So will there be some sort of deal?   Who knows but my feelings is yes.  The initial offer was just that and there will now be negotiations as to how to take this forward.  The slight complication is the Lib Dem party rules and structures and this could be their great undoing if they are not careful.  At the moment they have goodwill on their side but should the party start to bulk at some of the things that have to be done then it will be disastrous for them.   The key element of PR is that parties negotiate to form a government – should the Lib Dem party and MPs reject this then it will be the end of PR for a generation and we will return to more tribal politics of which the Lib Dems will have no part.  No pressure then.

The good thing is that they have quite a lot of experience of this process from Scotland and Wales so I would hope that some type of deal can be stomached with the Conservatives.   There is the option of trying to do a deal with Labour but I just cannot see parliamentary numbers adding up.  A deal with the Conservatives, not their natural allies, will be uneasy at best. A deal with Labour would be unwieldy.  So what to do?  I don’t know but one thing is clear – the Conservatives had clearly thought about a deal with the Lib Dems before the election and so lets hope that the Lib Dems had done the same.
 

Simon Marchini LRPS

Web: http://WWW.simonmarchini.co.uk

Twitter: http://twitter.com/@simonmarchini

Well the coverage has now finished and I have say I have nothing but the utmost admiration for David Dimbleby.   he was on air for the best part of 17 hours none stop and held the whole process together with great style and aplomb.  I know it is somewhat in delicate to mention a person’s age but I just hope I have his energy when I am 71.  Well done David.
 

Simon Marchini LRPS

Web: http://WWW.simonmarchini.co.uk

Twitter: http://twitter.com/@simonmarchini

Now what indeed.  I stayed up until gone 5am this morning to watch the election unfold and the first thing to say is that the exit polls were far more accurate than anyone, other than the polling companies, believed.  It appeared that there was far more Lib Dem support than there actually was – a chastening experience for all concerned.  The second thing is clear is that this is one of the worst performances performance by a Labour party in a generation.  The final thing is that the Tories couldn’t do it, they might have the most votes and seats in parliament but given all their advantages they just couldn’t pull off what would have been one of the greatest achievements in modern politics.   They don’t have anything like a majority, let alone a working majority.

So now what?   Well the first thing that will happen is that all the parties will start to implode under their own internal contradictions.  Already the right wing are taking large swings at David Cameroon under what can only be seen as a very strange perspective.  A moderate Tory platform was not able to win then they must make sure that any deal strongly disadvantages any other party they may want to make a deal with and then no doubt go to the country in the autumn.  This may well happen and god help the Tories if this is the way it is played out.

The Lib Dems have similar voices but from the other end of the political spectrum.   No deal with Cameron will be their battle cry forgetting that they actually didn’t do that well in this election.  Purity rather putting the country first.  Is this really the change that the country wants?

Finally the Labour party are making some very strange noises in a desperate attempt to hold onto power.  I have just seen Jack Dromey argue that the big losers last night were the Conservatives – even though they won the largest share of the vote and seats.  This sort of mindset beggars belief.   

The one scenario that hasn’t been mentioned at the moment is a Labour/Conservative pact.  Crazy?   Never say never in politics but it would take a Greek style implosion of the financial position to force such a thing to come about and I don’t believe that things are as bad as some in the media would like you to believe.  So not a likely outcome.

So now what?    I hope there will be a lot of deep breaths and time for some sleep.  The media will want to make a big fuss to try and make a story when there isn’t one – not yet anyway.    The full results won’t be known until the end of today, in fact not until the end of the month due to late death of a candidate.   All the leaders will make every effort not to commit themselves too much as they try and feel their way through this whole process.   It probably won’t be until the mid part of next week when some form of government may start to really coalesce.  There will be a huge amount of macho posturing over the next few days but much of the hot air is coming from people who claim to speck on behalf of the ordinary party members/voters forgetting that the voters have just spoken and basically told the politicians to grow up and move on from clear majority politics. Even if there is another election in the autumn I doubt that the result will be much different than it is now.   However, what the hell do I know?
 

Simon Marchini LRPS

Web: http://WWW.simonmarchini.co.uk

Twitter: http://twitter.com/@simonmarchini

I am not sure what, if anything, you can read into this but there was a bit of a queue when I went to vote this morning.  I say queue there were three people in front of my wife and me.   However, if this is a trend then it means that there will be a high turn out which is almost as important as the proportion of the vote.   Whatever arrangement there is for governing the country after the election it must reflect the voters wishes – the larger the turn out the better.
 

Simon Marchini LRPS

Web: http://WWW.simonmarchini.co.uk

Twitter: http://twitter.com/@simonmarchini