Libertarians and the Con-Dem alliance

Clegg's really found a voice, hasn't he?

We will oversee the radical dispersal of power away from Westminster and Whitehall to councils, communities and homes across the nation. So that, wherever possible, people make the call over the decisions that affect their lives. And, crucially, the relentless incursions of the state into the lives of individuals that has characterised the last 13 years ends here. From rolling back excessive surveillance, to ending the criminalisation of innocent people, we will restore and protect our hard-won civil liberties.

I call that agenda liberalism. Others may have other names for it, but whatever terms you prefer, this is our best guarantee of a fair society. That is the case I have argued my whole political life. Yes, as the coalition moves ahead there will be bumps and scrapes along the way; there has already been significant compromise from both sides and there will of course need to be more. And, no, we do not yet have all of the answers to the inevitable questions that lie ahead. While we will be open about our differences, we also know that our strength – the strength now needed to deliver the change needed in Britain – depends on being the sum of our parts. And from our different traditions we can pursue one simple, shared aim: this will be the government that re-empowers the British people.

Which sounds wonderful, really. All that's missing is the "how" - how is the Con-Dem Coalition going to achieve those wonderful aims? Because, given the parties involved in the alliance governing this country, we could be forgiven for being a little cynical about whether their government will actually follow through with Clegg's splendid rhetoric.

See, the Liberal Democrats are generally quite strong on civil liberties, but when it comes to economics and taxation, spurious talk of "fairness" seems to overcome any tendency towards actual economic freedom. Witness the Mansion Tax. And their anti-banker rhetoric (that Clegg hints at in his article). And while the Tories might be better when it comes to economics, they remain deeply socially conservative. They are the party of tax breaks to stigmatise those who aren't married and spawning, they are the party of the idiotic voluntary national service scheme. Oh, and they are the party of Philippa Stroud. You can be free in Tory Britain, as long as you resemble and agree with the views of the blue rinse brigade who provide much of that party's core support.

Sure, the Con-Dem coalition have made a good start in some of their actions, but these are not so much a ringing endorsement of the new governing alliance as an indication of just how far the last Labour government got at shitting all over civil liberties in this country. The first actions of the coalition are not bold steps towards freedom, but rather dragging us back to normality after the draconian actions of the utterly illiberal Labour party. But moving forward, the best we can probably hope for is that each party balances the illiberal tendencies of the other.

For Libertarians everywhere in this country, there's no real reason to think that this coalition will be genuinely committed to freedom, and every reason to suspect that they might not be. Despite the truculent, triumphalist assertions of some, there is no reason for Libertarians to suddenly rush and embrace either the Tories or the Liberal Democrats. Neither of those parties remains fundamentally Libertarian (or even that Liberal). Being better than the Labour party does not make either entity actually committed to freedom. Any true Libertarian in the United Kingdom can raise a glass to toast the demise of Labour and, with it, the end of godawful ideas such as the ID card scheme. But they should also know that the best the Con-Dem coalition can offer is a step in the right direction - it certainly isn't the end game in the battle to roll back the state in this country. At best, this coalition will less awful that Labour - nothing more.

Gordon Brown: A Failure.

Ordinarily, I'd try to avoid kicking a man when he's down. But when that man happens to be Gordon Brown, I'm afraid I'll have to make an exception.

There's no nice way to say this, but it needs to be said nonetheless. Gordon Brown was a failure as Prime Minister. Every single test he met, he failed at. His departure from Number 10 yesterday wasn't some tragic curtailment of an otherwise flourishing career - it was the inevitable end of a premiership that, in retrospect, should never have happened.

Furthermore, Brown's legacy of abysmal failure began long before he set foot in Downing Street. He set himself up for a fall while still Chancellor, with his talk of ending "boom and bust" that turned out to be nothing but hot air. It is true that he was perhaps the most effective opposition to the odious Tony Blair within the Labour party, but that was not out of ideological difference or political conviction, but rather about naked lust for power. Gordon hated Tony because Tony had the job Gordon felt he deserved. Brown's time as Chancellor does not show a principled conviction politician at work, but rather a calculating power-seeking oaf desperately plotting to bring down the man who - rightly or wrong - was placed in Downing Street by the electorate.

Then Brown became Prime Minister. Basically - and as far as I am concerned unforgivably - he was handed the keys to Number 10 without any meaningful contest. Brown's unjustifiable sense of entitlement was so large that he didn't think anyone had a right to decide whether he should go into Number 10 - not the electorate, not his own party. No-one had a right to choose Brown as Prime Minister other than Brown himself. In most countries, that would be called a coup.

Like most Prime Ministers, Brown had a honeymoon period with the press and with the public. But the supposed "successes" of this period were actually anything but. The terrorist bombs didn't go off because of the failure of the terrorists, not because of any intervention by Brown. The only reason why the foot and mouth outbreak was handled relatively well is because the state had worked out how to handle the disease better after the nightmarish fiasco of 2001 - a fiasco that was mismanaged by the government of which Brown was the Chancellor. And the response to the flooding couldn't quite hide the fact that Brown, as Chancellor, did not authorise sufficient funding on flood prevention. But as we shall see, Brown's record as Chancellor would come to haunt him in a much more pronounced way.

Brown really screwed up by not calling an election in the autumn of 2007. He'd have won - possibly with an increased majority - and in doing so given himself the legitimacy that was ultimately never present throughout his term as Prime Minister. Perhaps he might even have displaced Cameron as leader of the Conservative party in the process of winning. Who can tell? The coward in Brown - that side to his personality that we now know oh so well - came to the fore, and he bottled it. From then on, he was Brown the bottler - the illegitimate Prime Minister who was afraid of the public. And as the economy went into freefall, so that public - who did give Brown a chance to begin with - turned resolutely against the Prime Minister.

Brown's attempts to manage the public perception of himself during the financial crisis was a masterpiece of failed spin. He attempted to wash his hands of responsibility for the crisis, despite having been Chancellor for the decade leading up to it. And his pathetic attempts to paint himself as a leader bent on saving the world was critically undermined by his inability to effectively manage the crisis in this country. Gordon Brown's economic policies stand as a rebuke to those that state that government spending gets you out of recession. Government spending can help in a financial downturn, but throwing money at the problem doesn't make it go away, and actually creates another problem - a massive government deficit that will force cuts in future government spending. Some argued that Brown knew he was going to lose the next General Election, and so he was involved in a scorched earth policy to screw his replacement in Number 10. His economic policy was so bad that this idea actually seems credible.

There were other scandals that dragged Brown into them, like the loss of the personal details of millions of people in the country by a bloated and incompetent bureaucracy, and the expenses scandal that chewed up and spat out so many MPs. Brown stood at the edge of scandals like these, desperate not to get involved but missing the point that, as Prime Minister, the buck stopped with him. He ended up involved in the scandals, and came across as utterly impotent given he could do little about them.

Then we had the constant plotting and coup attempts against Brown. This was partly down to his policy and electoral failures, but also down to the question of legitimacy. Brown was never really elected by his own party, and he certainly wasn't chosen by the people. The coups failed but were constant reminders that not even his own party had faith in Gordon Brown.

Brown eventually faced the electorate, but only when he had to. And an election campaign where the Prime Minister appeared frightened of talking to an old lady even though he found her views "bigoted" could only have one outcome. The once invincible Labour election machine crashed into humiliating defeat, leaving Gordon Brown as the man who bottled an election contest for Labour leadership not just once but twice (once in 2007, when he effectively refused to allow any opponent into the competition, and once in 1994 when he handed the leadership to Blair) and lost the only General Election he was forced to fight. Brown was the cowardly, unelected Prime Minister who when he did face an election, was soundly rejected by the people he purported to represent. And even then he didn't go. No, he tried to stay on, and when that was no longer possible, he went on scheming to keep himself in Number 10 for as long as possible and his party in power despite the verdict of the electorate. The arrogance and the unthinking sense of entitlement was with Brown to the very end of his time as a political leader.

Brown was a cancer on the Labour party; a malign disease that eventually overtook the party and turned it into an arrogant organisation disrespectful of the people it was supposed to represent. Gordon Brown represented everything that was wrong with the Nu Labour project, but without the supposed charm of Blair. The cancer has been painfully removed from the Labour party, but it now falls to them to find their way again. The scars will be deep, and difficult to heal - particularly given the party's atrocious behaviour after it was defeated at the polls. It needs to see Gordon Brown not as the brave and courageous leader that unthinking acolytes and lazy hacks are now trying to make him out to be: instead, he must be seen as he actually was - an arrogant, cowardly, bullying failure.

There'll be occasions moving forward, when the next Labour leader falters or when the coalition struggles, when people might be tempted to look back on Brown favourably, through those rose-tinted glasses that always seem to make leaders more popular once they are out of power and no longer a threat. Those people should remind themselves that Gordon Brown was the worst Prime Minister we've had since World War Two - unable to govern, unable to get the legitimacy to govern, and without even the most basic charm to aid him.

Brown's greatest gift is actually to Cameron, for in a sense Brown has made Cameron like Obama, since both Obama's and Cameron's predecessors in their respective jobs were so appalling that they can only but look good by comparison. The bar has been set very low for Cameron by Brown - in order to do better, he just has to best the worst Prime Minister in generations.

Gordon Brown: a failure.

Now it's all over...

Some observations of the past five days now that we seem to be on the way to having a government again:

• Labour's desperate attempt to cling to power was utterly appalling, undemocratic and completely reprehensible. I praise the few Labour MPs who broke ranks and pointed out that their party had lost the election, but at the same time hope that the party as a whole is punished severally by the electorate for their attempts to turn their clear defeat into an excuse to stay in power. The sight and sound of numerous Labour supporters demanding that their party stay in power despite the electoral defeat made me despair more than ever of the stupidity of those who make up that party, and helped me to understand just why their leaders are so jarringly crass. No party deserves to be in power in perpetuity, particularly not a party in democracy that has just lost an election. Labour lost with no grace whatsoever, and in such a way that was painful and disgusting to watch.

• The Liberal Democrats made the best of a near impossible choice. Whatever happens now, Clegg can be sure that he will lose support from some sectors of his party and from some parts of the electorate. But there was no way in which he could have avoided this, regardless of the choice he made. At least this way he can defend his choice as a fair one, since he backed the party with the greatest support from the electorate, and is also aided by the apparent refusal of the Labour party to properly engage in negotiations with him. Plus, I'd imagine Clegg is now heading for Cabinet in a relatively stable government - something he would never have achieved without joining forces with the Tories.

• The Tories actually behaved well here. They opened up negotiations with the Lib Dems, and appeared to conduct them in a constructive manner. They focussed on coming up with a stable government, rather than scoring points off Labour. They appeared both as a party hungry for power but willing to compromise for power. Crucially, they also came across as if they had the nation's best interest at heart. No doubt time will change this perception, but for now I think Cameron and his colleagues behaved with a certain dignity - something I definitely wasn't expecting.

• This country has survived five days with no meaningful government - and with remarkably few ill effects. It has certainly cost us a lot less than what has passed for politics for the last 13 years. A government not constantly trying to pass programmes and spend money is actually no problem for the nation - the incoming coalition government should heed this as it begins to govern.

Time will tell who really won from the deal-making and politicking of the past few days; instinctively, I'd say that we have a fair outcome in that the party promising change is backing the former opposition party that did best in the election, while the outgoing government is finally surrendering what has been a desperate, and difficult to shift, grip on power.

Ed Balls, Negotiator? Really?!

Things seem to be moving in Westminster towards some sort of coalition - and it appears that talks between Labour and the Liberal Democrats are over. No doubt there's more to follow... but I just wanted to comment on something I heard earlier in the BBC coverage of the Hung Parliament. Apparently the talks between Labour and the Liberal Democrats suffered because Ed Balls was too hard on the Lib Dems. So can I just ask this question - who in hell thought it would be a good idea to have Ed Balls as a negotiator?

Seriously, the man has the diplomatic manner of a broken bottle in the face. He is someone who has studiously built up his dubious reputation as a political thug, as the acolyte of the now discredited and on-the-way out Brown. Why on earth would someone make this boorish oaf a negotiator with the Liberal Democrats? You may as well send a rabid pitbull in to supervise a room full in kindergarten children.

It is almost like Labour wanted the negotiations to collapse...

Is David Cameron about to become the British Al Gore?

Remember the outcry when Al Gore was cheated of the US Presidency in 2000 by Bush? Remember how, throughout Bush's terrible presidency, Gore was presented as the innocent victim of an act of political theft? Well, if Labour and the Liberal Democrats do a deal and force yet another unelected Prime Minister on the country, then David Cameron will become the British equivalent of Al Gore.

Think about it. Cameron won the most votes in the election of any party, and it is only a quirk of the electoral system that prevents him from being named as Prime Minister - just as the electoral college system prevented President Gore in 2000. Sure, had the recount not been stopped, then Gore might have won - but what stopped the recount? A combination of politicians hostile to the election's biggest vote-winner making deals behind closed doors - just as Labour and the Liberal Democrats are doing at the moment. If Cameron is prevented from forming a government, he and his supporters will be an excellent and credible position to play the martyr. And if a deal is struck between the Liberal Democrats and Labour, then the ensuing government will be forever compromised, just as the first Bush administration was. The Lib-Lab coalition will be handing both the opposition and democrats throughout the country a massive stick with which to whack them.

Gordon Goes!

Oh yes, oh yes! It took long enough, but it is finally happening:

Gordon Brown 'stepping down as Labour leader'

Of course, he's not quite gone yet - his replacement as Labour leader obviously isn't in place, and the ghoulish monster is still- farcically - in Number 10. But this is a positive sign that, sooner rather than later, we'll be rid of him.

I won't be the first to say it, but I'll say it anyway: good fucking riddance, you arrogant, incompetent, cunt.

I'll write more when I've had the chance. And after I've finished doing my "fuck you Gordon" victory dance.

UPDATE:

Labour MP Fiona Mactaggart nails it:

"It is a recognition that Labour lost the election, which I think has not been made clear until this point.

"I understand that the constitutional position is that he remains prime minister and that's an issue so he needed to stay on in that role.

"I don't know why it took him until today to say that he felt that there should be a new future leader of the Labour Party."

All I'd add is that we probably need to look at the constitutional position that allows a failed party leader of a rejected government to stay on as PM after an election...

UPDATE 2:

Damian Thompson:

Gordon Brown may have announced his impending resignation as Leader of the Labour Party, but make no mistake about it: this was a thoroughly opportunistic statement, issued with the clear intention of carving out Gordon a place in history as the Prime Minister who founded a “progressive coalition”. In fact, such a coalition would be nothing of the sort. It would be an alliance of losing parties that imposed yet another unelected Prime Minster on this country – and all thanks to the bitter Left-wing prejudice of the Liberal Democrats. If the Lib Dems go down this route – and I can’t believe they would be so stupid as to do so – they will be the most despised political party in Britain. And rightly so.

I find it difficult to argue with any of that.

UPDATE 3:

And now I'm agreeing with John Reid:

2055: The Tories came out of the election in a "far better fashion" than Labour and this should be acknowledged, former Home Secretary John Reid says. The major party should be allowed to form a government, he tells the BBC.

He's spot on. Which is beyond surreal. John Reid, being fair and talking sense. If only he'd tried that when he was Home Secretary!

Alistair Darling:

"I don't think it would do any good to let this process drag on. I understand that the Liberals and the Conservatives are engaged in talks today, I hope by the end of today they will decide whether they can do a deal or not."

So do I, Darling. And I really hope that they do a deal that shafts you and your party utterly.

Yet it turns out that the Liberal Democrats have also met with Labour in secret. The plot thickens. I only hope that the plot isn't thickening into a tragic farce where Nick "Change" Clegg ends up backing the party of no change, in the form of this vile and utterly discredited Labour administration...

The Election's Losers: the Labour Party

We've heard a lot about how no-one won the election, and this is largely true. Somehow Cameron managed to not win a majority despite facing a Prime Minister who is beyond unpopular. But that's irrelevant, because he still did better than anyone else. And while Clegg managed to lose seats, he did manage to raise the profile of his party for the first time in his leadership. Neither of those won, but they didn't properly lose either. So, while there were no clear winners in this election, there was a clear loser. The Labour party.

Labour lost this election. They lost 91 seats, while their main rival won 97 seats. They did so badly that they cannot form a majority government even if they manage to get a coalition with the Liberal Democrats. And the Lib Dems are currently ignoring them. Labour got 10% fewer votes and a 27% fewer seats in the House of Commons than last time out. In most other elections, this sort of performance would see a landslide for the opposition.

Yet Labour don't seem to get that they lost. They seem to think that because the Tories haven't been able to form a government quite yet that all the parties are in the same position. They also seem to think that the fact that their man still being Prime Minister gives them some form of legitimacy, rather than realising the reality - that Gordon Brown's ongoing Premiership is down to a quirk of an unwritten constitution. They seem to be hoping against hope that something will happen to save them, rather than realising it is pretty much all over bar the leadership contest.

So the message to the Labour Party is that you lost. You lost badly. And the sooner you get that clear in your heads, the sooner you can move on. Because if anything, you are one step behind where the Tories were when they lost in 1997. They were in shock, you're still in denial. And you need to get over your defeat, and move on.

Clegg's Choice

So, the Liberal Democrats are mulling Cameron's offer.

I can't be alone in thinking that the Liberal Democrats would be really, really dumb not to take Cameron up on his offer. After all, they are emerging from an election campaign where they lost seats and they cannot afford to fight another election campaign if a stable government can't be formed. Furthermore, Cameron is offering them a lot - a lot - for a small party with only two (Clegg and Cable) truly visible public figures. With actual Liberal Democrats being placed in the Cabinet on offer, Clegg has the chance to make his party actually politically influential for the first time in decades.

Sure, the Tories aren't dropping their pants and begging for electoral reform - unlike Labour. But Labour's sudden conversion to the cause of electoral reform when they've been kicked in the knackers by the electorate and when they want to woo the Liberal Democrats is a little bit like suddenly gaining an interest in a hobby you've never noticed before because someone you'd like to bone is also interested in that hobby. I don't think either party will actually give the Liberal Democrats their much vaunted electoral reform; Clegg's choice is whether he accepts the muted dismissal of the Tories or the outright lies of Labour.

And then there's the small matter of whether Nick "Call Me Change" Clegg wants to actually follow through on the concept of change, or whether he wants to prop up a failed and deeply unpopular government. Furthermore, in propping up the execrable Labour government, Clegg still wouldn't be giving Labour a workable majority, so he wouldn't even be giving Britain a stable government. He can only do that with the Tories.

Ultimately, the people have spoken. Well, mumbled a bit. But their vague and slightly pained mumblings have said that they don't want Brown and they don't want Labour in power anymore. Clegg's best bet is to heed those mumblings, and push Cameron into power. It will piss off a lot of his supporters, and rile a good many people, but it will be far better for him and for his party if he supporters the disputed winner of this election, not the undisputed loser.

Election 2010: The Lib Dem Performance

Nick Clegg:

This has obviously been a disappointing night for the Liberal Democrats. We simply haven't achieved what we had hoped.

Many will be asking why the Liberal Democrats haven't done as well as they hoped. Probable answers will be the relentlessly shrill campaigning by the other two main parties against the idea of a hung parliament, and that the recent bout of Cleggmania was mania for an individual, not his party.

But I'd like to question whether the Liberal Democrats have actually done that badly. Because, prior to the debates, I thought that the Liberal Democrats were heading for absolute disaster at this election. The fact that they haven't done as badly as they could have done is actually something to be celebrated. Because Nick Clegg has only come into his own over the past few weeks. Had he performed for the past few years as he had done recently, his party would have done far better. As it stands, the radical improvement in his performance is probably what stopped an electoral meltdown for his party.

And there is everything for the Liberal Democrats to play for. Clegg has found his voice; he needs to keep on using it. And the Liberal Democrats are now in a position, if they so wish, to play kingmaker. This is a massive opportunity, and a massive risk. Clegg needs to tread carefully. A deal with the Tories would be controversial; a deal with Labour would be an absolute disaster. If he wants to back a party, he should back the one with the strongest endorsement for the electorate. To back Labour would be a disaster, and it would undo all the good work Clegg has done recently.

Cleggmania hasn't given the Liberal Democrats the breakthrough they wanted, but it has prevented the massive step back that this election could have been for that party.

The Tories Should Form the Next Government

You're going to hear a lot of spin today. You're going to hear from the Tories that Labour have lost their mandate to govern. And you're going to hear from Labour that convention dictates that the sitting Prime Minister has first dibs on forming a government.

Of course, both of these things are true, but as always, what isn't being said is as interesting as what is being said. Yes, the Labour party have lost their mandate to govern. But the Tories haven't gained a clear mandate to govern either. They've done well in this election, but they haven't won it outright.

And convention does dictate that the sitting Prime Minister gets first dibs on forming a government. However, that doesn't mean that the convention in question is correct, and that it should be used to inform the actions taken today. We're going to hear February 1974 mentioned a lot today as a justification for the Labour party clinging to power. However, just a simple look at the results of that election shows that it is not relevant to what is happening today. In 02/74, Labour had four more seats than the Tories, but had not gained as many votes. In contrast, Labour has been hammered in this election, and trail the Tories both in the number of seats and the number of votes gained. Had Heath done as badly as Brown has, I think that there would have been little debate about Wilson being the one to attempt to form a government.

In short, I think the results speak for themselves - Labour have been rejected. Brown has been rejected. To try to cling to power despite losing the election would be an appalling thing for Labour to do (which, given Brown's appalling attitude, might not stop him and his party). In this instance, convention be damned. The Tories have the biggest claim to a mandate in this election; they should be the ones to try to form a government.

Labour have lost. They should now let the most popular party try to form a government.

Don't Panic.

Obviously there's going to be a lot to say about the election result, but I think the first thing is very simple: can we all calm down, please?

We're looking at (not facing, as some people delight in putting it) a hung Parliament. Not a descent into civil war, not the biblical end of days. Just a hung Parliament. It has happened before, and it will probably happen again. It will all be ok.

In fact, a hung Parliament is actually quite a good result, because it will restrict the ability of whichever party heads up this government to shit all over the people in the manner of Nu Labour when it had those massive majorities. The worst excesses of the governing party will be constrained and controlled by the need to get the support of other parties in order to get legislation through Parliament. Furthermore, this may act as a humbling experience for the political parties. They may question why they haven't achieved an overall majority, and work out more voter pleasing policies as a result. Or they might just blame the hung Parliament on the electoral system, and plough on regardless. We'll have to wait and see.

But seriously, let's not get hysterical about this. A hung Parliament is the result of democracy in action. Politicians paint it as a terrible thing, but the reality is it is only truly bad for them - because they have to compromise in order to get things done. Which might not actually be such a problem for the poor fuckers they govern...

On A Hung Parliament

Nick Robinson:

Already senior Labour and Tory figures are rehearsing what could turn out to be the major argument of tonight and tomorrow over who has the right to govern if there is a hung Parliament.

Well, if the exit polls are correct, and the Tories do as well as is being projected, then it would immensely self-destructive of the Labour party to claim they have the right to govern. It would be the very definition of self-defeating. The electorate would remember who won the most votes, who won the right to govern, and would judge Labour for claiming the right to govern when it was no longer their right to claim.

Voters never like a bad loser...