Birthday greetings for the coalition

Oh looky, there's a bandwagon passing me by. Hold up while I jump aboard.

So yes, happy first birthday to the coalition. Good to see that this auspicious occasion is being celebrated in style - through pointless carping between the two leaders in the coalition. Very classy.

Of course, this coalition was always going to be fragile, and the longer it goes on for the more fraught the relationship between the two parties will become. After all, if they agreed on everything, or even most things, then they would be, well, the same party.

But there are a couple of things worth pointing out at this juncture. Firstly, amid all the curious praise for the activist nature of the coalition, I'd like to point out that there is a lot more that still need to be done. To compare the coalition's activity level with that of the first Blair administration (as some people insist on doing) is hardly meaningful; Blair did fuck all in this first term, and his unfathomably successful campaign for re-election was largely built on a promise to acutally do something if re-elected. Yeah, the coalition have been more activist that an administration that was completely inactive. Whoop-de-doo. There's still a lot that needs doing.

Mainly, for me, around the issue of civil liberties. When the coaltion first assumed power, they talked a good game on civil liberties. I even remember talk of a comprehensive Freedom Bill. Well, a year later and I'm still waiting. With increasing impatience. Ending the ID card scheme was just the tip of a massive iceberg. There is much more that needs to be done. And it needs to be done now.

Furthermore, if the coalition really wants to meet its initial rhetoric and usher in a new style of politics, it can start (and help Dave's Big Society) by matching spending cuts with tax cuts. Seriously, we're being expected to give the same (if not more) to the state for less. That is crap measured against any yardstick. So, even if you have to slash spending further, cut taxes, Mr and Mrs Coalition. Go with the ground-breaking idea that the tax-payer should give the state less. You never know, it might prove to be very popular...

But anyway, happy birthday to the coalition. No idea whether they will get to celebrate a second birthday, but if they do, then I would like to have rather more achievements to celebrate than we have seen in this first year.