With the next general election only 18 months away, their relationship is becoming more belligerent
When the Tories and the Lib Dems wrote their prenuptial contract, one of the most vital clauses was a "no surprises" rule. After taking advice from counterparts in Europe about how to ensure stability and build trust between coalition partners, the Lib Dems were particularly insistent on an agreement to prevent one side ambushing the other with pre-emptive announcements. The main guarantee of this has been a rule that any paper that goes before David Cameron has also to be seen by Nick Clegg.
The prime minister knows that his deputy will be looking over his shoulder, a constant reminder that the Tories cannot do just as they please. "It has been a life-saver," says one senior Lib Dem.
The rule has not entirely prevented the two parties from getting into rows, especially when one of them has wanted to do something against the wishes of the other. Nor can it stop what one minister calls "getting your leak in first" when one side or another thinks it will be to their advantage. To this day, Tories complain about how the Lib Dems leaked the reduction in the top rate of tax in advance of George Osborne's omnishambles budget to make sure that the charge that this was "a tax cut for millionaires" stuck to the Conservatives.
Yet that sort of clash has been more the exception than the rule. One of the striking things about the coalition is how few arguments between the senior figures in government have erupted in public. Less so, in fact, than in many single-party governments. The "no surprises" rule has given forewarning of potential flash points and thus helped to defuse them. When internal battles have gone public, they have generally done so in a controlled way. It has been one of the reasons that the coalition has endured as long as it has, in defiance of all those predictions in 2010 that it would not last the distance.
The value of the "no surprises" rule between the prime minister and his deputy can be seen by the consequences of its absence at a departmental level. Lib Dems regret that they did not insist that secretaries of state should be obliged to share all relevant plans with their junior ministers. Some say privately that failing to insist on this was one of their biggest mistakes when they negotiated the original coalition deal.
Take the case of Jeremy Browne when he was the Lib Dem minister of state at the Home Office. Some colleagues turned on him for not stopping Theresa May when the home secretary decided to send the notorious "go home" vans on to the streets this summer. It was understandable that Lib Dems were infuriated, but it was unfair of them to blame Mr Browne. Ms May has won plaudits from Tory MPs. It is now obligatory to include her name in any list of potential successors to David Cameron. Comparisons are sometimes made with Margaret Thatcher. This much is certainly true. A collegiate person, the home secretary is not. She is not a sharer even with Tory colleagues in her department. Ms May had simply not told her Lib Dem junior about the vans. The first he heard about it was from a text when he was changing planes in the far east.
One sign that the next election is looming ever larger in the minds of both sides is that this sort of behaviour is beginning to manifest itself more often. And at the most senior level. In the early phase of the coalition, David Cameron, George Osborne and Nick Clegg were elaborately careful to share and clear with one another speeches and interventions in sensitive areas of policy. That is no longer so much the case. When the chancellor used his platform at the Tory party conference to first announce that he wanted to carry on cutting spending beyond what was needed to remove the structural deficit, he was trying to lay a trap for the Labour party.
He was also springing a surprise on the Lib Dems. When Mr Osborne told the Tory gathering that it was his ambition to cut to a budget surplus, it was the first Nick Clegg had ever heard about it. Nor had the chancellor given advance warning to his Lib Dem number two at the Treasury, Danny Alexander. The Lib Dems were also taken aback when David Cameron used a recent speech to the City to suddenly argue for "a leaner state". The chancellor has since tried to bounce them into agreeing to sign up to what one Lib Dem cabinet minister calls "cuts for eternity".
When Nick Clegg decided to turn on Michael Gove over the management of free schools and the employment of unqualified teachers, the first Number 10 heard about that broadside was late on the Saturday night when the Observer's political editor, Toby Helm, broke the story. The education secretary was originally one of the greatest enthusiasts among the Tories for the coalition. Now it is more or less open warfare between him and the Lib Dem leader. It is very well known that David Cameron gave his deputy just 30 minutes warning before telling the Commons that the prime minister wanted to "roll back" the green component of energy bills.
The ambushes are getting more frequent. Aggressive statements of where the two parties differ are also becoming more explicit because both think it is to their electoral advantage to advertise where they disagree. David Cameron once extolled the virtues of working with another party. He now tells the Spectator that he "very passionately" wants to lead a single-party government and is keeping a "little black book" of Tory policies that have been thwarted by Nick Clegg. Though the prime minister makes it sound like this is some big, dirty secret, we can have a pretty good guess what is between the book's covers. Deeper cuts to welfare. Tougher controls on immigration. A further reduction in the top rate of tax. A more rightwing line on Europe and the European convention on human rights.
Lib Dem ministers say they have their own "big yellow book" of Tory ideas they have vetoed. Nick Clegg pleased his party when, in his most recent conference speech, he listed 16 Tory policies he had blocked. Says one senior Lib Dem: "There are few headlines enjoyed more by Liberal Democrats than Cameron saying there are all these things we have stopped him doing." It will be at the heart of their case for coalition government and their pitch to centrist voters that they have kept a yellow leash on the blue dog.
That the relationship between the two sides is turning more belligerent is not terribly surprising. There is now just under 18 months to go before they do battle with each other at the next election. Both sides are preparing for the time when they cease to be coalition partners and return to full-blooded competition for seats. The Tory election plan envisages a route to a parliamentary majority by decapitating 20 Lib Dem MPs. It will be critical to their survival as a significant force in parliament that the Lib Dems defeat that Tory strategy.
The Institute for Government recently organised a fascinating discussion about the endgames of coalitions, drawing on insights from European countries that have had a lot more experience of them than Britain. Five recent coalition governments in Holland have fallen apart. Stan Kaatee, a senior adviser to the Dutch prime minister, identified three symptoms of an ailing coalition: a growing volume of leaks to the media, open quarrels between members of the government, and bad opinion poll ratings for one or more of the parties: all conditions that now more or less apply to the Con-Lib coalition. He remarked that all those involved in a coalition usually suffer damage when there is an "acrimonious break-up". There was a similar warning from Magnus Wallerå, state secretary in the office of the prime minister of Sweden. Towards the end of a coalition's life, he said: "The train may slow down, but don't jump off."
Noel Dempsey, a minister from 1997 to 2007 in successive coalitions in Ireland, argued that anxiety about electoral prospects is the biggest challenge of managing the final phase of a coalition. As the next contest comes over the horizon, parties become more tribal, with a result that can lead to the total disintegration of trust between the coalition partners. "Electoral nerves becomes electoral paranoia. That paranoia intensifies in a coalition government. Parties in coalitions don't want to give each other any advantages in the next election campaign."
They will quarrel over who was most to blame for the stuff that went wrong and who deserves the most credit for the things that are popular. The Tories and the Lib Dems are already publicly scrapping over which of them owns the credit for the increases in the personal tax allowance.
I still expect the coalition to make it to May 2015. It is also true that both parties stand to lose if there is an embittered ending. But it is going to be a tight, tough, gloves-off election. As it gets closer, they will find it increasingly hard to fight by Queensberry rules. Reported by guardian.co.uk 11 hours ago.
When the Tories and the Lib Dems wrote their prenuptial contract, one of the most vital clauses was a "no surprises" rule. After taking advice from counterparts in Europe about how to ensure stability and build trust between coalition partners, the Lib Dems were particularly insistent on an agreement to prevent one side ambushing the other with pre-emptive announcements. The main guarantee of this has been a rule that any paper that goes before David Cameron has also to be seen by Nick Clegg.
The prime minister knows that his deputy will be looking over his shoulder, a constant reminder that the Tories cannot do just as they please. "It has been a life-saver," says one senior Lib Dem.
The rule has not entirely prevented the two parties from getting into rows, especially when one of them has wanted to do something against the wishes of the other. Nor can it stop what one minister calls "getting your leak in first" when one side or another thinks it will be to their advantage. To this day, Tories complain about how the Lib Dems leaked the reduction in the top rate of tax in advance of George Osborne's omnishambles budget to make sure that the charge that this was "a tax cut for millionaires" stuck to the Conservatives.
Yet that sort of clash has been more the exception than the rule. One of the striking things about the coalition is how few arguments between the senior figures in government have erupted in public. Less so, in fact, than in many single-party governments. The "no surprises" rule has given forewarning of potential flash points and thus helped to defuse them. When internal battles have gone public, they have generally done so in a controlled way. It has been one of the reasons that the coalition has endured as long as it has, in defiance of all those predictions in 2010 that it would not last the distance.
The value of the "no surprises" rule between the prime minister and his deputy can be seen by the consequences of its absence at a departmental level. Lib Dems regret that they did not insist that secretaries of state should be obliged to share all relevant plans with their junior ministers. Some say privately that failing to insist on this was one of their biggest mistakes when they negotiated the original coalition deal.
Take the case of Jeremy Browne when he was the Lib Dem minister of state at the Home Office. Some colleagues turned on him for not stopping Theresa May when the home secretary decided to send the notorious "go home" vans on to the streets this summer. It was understandable that Lib Dems were infuriated, but it was unfair of them to blame Mr Browne. Ms May has won plaudits from Tory MPs. It is now obligatory to include her name in any list of potential successors to David Cameron. Comparisons are sometimes made with Margaret Thatcher. This much is certainly true. A collegiate person, the home secretary is not. She is not a sharer even with Tory colleagues in her department. Ms May had simply not told her Lib Dem junior about the vans. The first he heard about it was from a text when he was changing planes in the far east.
One sign that the next election is looming ever larger in the minds of both sides is that this sort of behaviour is beginning to manifest itself more often. And at the most senior level. In the early phase of the coalition, David Cameron, George Osborne and Nick Clegg were elaborately careful to share and clear with one another speeches and interventions in sensitive areas of policy. That is no longer so much the case. When the chancellor used his platform at the Tory party conference to first announce that he wanted to carry on cutting spending beyond what was needed to remove the structural deficit, he was trying to lay a trap for the Labour party.
He was also springing a surprise on the Lib Dems. When Mr Osborne told the Tory gathering that it was his ambition to cut to a budget surplus, it was the first Nick Clegg had ever heard about it. Nor had the chancellor given advance warning to his Lib Dem number two at the Treasury, Danny Alexander. The Lib Dems were also taken aback when David Cameron used a recent speech to the City to suddenly argue for "a leaner state". The chancellor has since tried to bounce them into agreeing to sign up to what one Lib Dem cabinet minister calls "cuts for eternity".
When Nick Clegg decided to turn on Michael Gove over the management of free schools and the employment of unqualified teachers, the first Number 10 heard about that broadside was late on the Saturday night when the Observer's political editor, Toby Helm, broke the story. The education secretary was originally one of the greatest enthusiasts among the Tories for the coalition. Now it is more or less open warfare between him and the Lib Dem leader. It is very well known that David Cameron gave his deputy just 30 minutes warning before telling the Commons that the prime minister wanted to "roll back" the green component of energy bills.
The ambushes are getting more frequent. Aggressive statements of where the two parties differ are also becoming more explicit because both think it is to their electoral advantage to advertise where they disagree. David Cameron once extolled the virtues of working with another party. He now tells the Spectator that he "very passionately" wants to lead a single-party government and is keeping a "little black book" of Tory policies that have been thwarted by Nick Clegg. Though the prime minister makes it sound like this is some big, dirty secret, we can have a pretty good guess what is between the book's covers. Deeper cuts to welfare. Tougher controls on immigration. A further reduction in the top rate of tax. A more rightwing line on Europe and the European convention on human rights.
Lib Dem ministers say they have their own "big yellow book" of Tory ideas they have vetoed. Nick Clegg pleased his party when, in his most recent conference speech, he listed 16 Tory policies he had blocked. Says one senior Lib Dem: "There are few headlines enjoyed more by Liberal Democrats than Cameron saying there are all these things we have stopped him doing." It will be at the heart of their case for coalition government and their pitch to centrist voters that they have kept a yellow leash on the blue dog.
That the relationship between the two sides is turning more belligerent is not terribly surprising. There is now just under 18 months to go before they do battle with each other at the next election. Both sides are preparing for the time when they cease to be coalition partners and return to full-blooded competition for seats. The Tory election plan envisages a route to a parliamentary majority by decapitating 20 Lib Dem MPs. It will be critical to their survival as a significant force in parliament that the Lib Dems defeat that Tory strategy.
The Institute for Government recently organised a fascinating discussion about the endgames of coalitions, drawing on insights from European countries that have had a lot more experience of them than Britain. Five recent coalition governments in Holland have fallen apart. Stan Kaatee, a senior adviser to the Dutch prime minister, identified three symptoms of an ailing coalition: a growing volume of leaks to the media, open quarrels between members of the government, and bad opinion poll ratings for one or more of the parties: all conditions that now more or less apply to the Con-Lib coalition. He remarked that all those involved in a coalition usually suffer damage when there is an "acrimonious break-up". There was a similar warning from Magnus Wallerå, state secretary in the office of the prime minister of Sweden. Towards the end of a coalition's life, he said: "The train may slow down, but don't jump off."
Noel Dempsey, a minister from 1997 to 2007 in successive coalitions in Ireland, argued that anxiety about electoral prospects is the biggest challenge of managing the final phase of a coalition. As the next contest comes over the horizon, parties become more tribal, with a result that can lead to the total disintegration of trust between the coalition partners. "Electoral nerves becomes electoral paranoia. That paranoia intensifies in a coalition government. Parties in coalitions don't want to give each other any advantages in the next election campaign."
They will quarrel over who was most to blame for the stuff that went wrong and who deserves the most credit for the things that are popular. The Tories and the Lib Dems are already publicly scrapping over which of them owns the credit for the increases in the personal tax allowance.
I still expect the coalition to make it to May 2015. It is also true that both parties stand to lose if there is an embittered ending. But it is going to be a tight, tough, gloves-off election. As it gets closer, they will find it increasingly hard to fight by Queensberry rules. Reported by guardian.co.uk 11 hours ago.