[This post is the original version of a text that first appeared in issue 370 of Liberator magazine (February 2015), under the title “Sustained by useful idiots”]
As we approach the last few weeks of this Parliament it is almost inevitable that our thoughts turn to evaluating the Coalition Government as a whole, the role of the Liberal Democrats within it, and the implications for the party of participating in a Westminster government for the first time in many decades. But this is by no means a trivial task. Not least because the answers depend on the angle from which the issue is viewed.
If we focus on the politics of the Coalition then one common criticism has undoubtedly been put to bed – coalition governments are not by definition weak because at their heart sits horse-trading and compromise. This government has pursued a radical agenda renegotiating the role of the state. It has set in train structural changes in a whole range of policy areas that have yet to fully work themselves through the system. This was possible in large part because for much of the Parliament the Liberal Democrats were willing to put aside dissent, in public at least, and support a wide range of Conservative projects. Only in the last year of the Parliament has the party made any real effort to differentiate from the Conservatives. [Read more…]
Most recent comments