The British Coalition Government, 2010-2015

A Marriage of Inconvenience

Peter Dorey, Mark Garnett

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9781137023759
• eBook ISBN: 9781137023773
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: European Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book examines the formation and operation of the Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition government from May 2010 to May 2015. The authors outline the factors that enabled the union, including economic circumstances, parliamentary politics, the initially amicable relationship established between David Cameron and Nick Clegg, and the apparent ideological closeness of Conservative modernisers and Orange Book Liberal Democrats. The authors then analyse how these factors shaped the policy agenda pursued over the five years, including the issues of deficit reduction, public sector reform, and welfare reduction, before discussing the tensions that developed as a result of these decisions. Ultimately, relations between the coalition partners steadily became less amicable and more acrimonious, as mutual respect gave way to mutual recrimination.

© The Author(s) 2016

Peter Dorey and Mark GarnettThe British Coalition Government, 2010-201510.1057/978-1-137-02377-3_1

Begin Abstract

1. Introduction

Peter Dorey¹  and Mark Garnett²

(1)

Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK

(2)

Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK

 

End Abstract

At 10 p.m. on 9 April 1992, the BBC announced that the British public had just voted in a way which seemed certain to plunge their country into unfamiliar political territory. An exit poll, conducted for the BBC as Britons participated in that day’s general election, predicted a ‘hung’ parliament, making it impossible for a single party to form a majority government. If the poll’s predicted outcome was exactly right, the Conservatives would be the largest party but short of an overall majority by 25 seats. Allowing for a margin of error, the best the Conservatives could expect was to fall below the necessary winning tally by 10 seats; if the poll had underestimated Labour’s support, that party would be the largest, but would be 13 seats short.

As it turned out it was the exit poll itself which had ‘fallen short’; and the Conservatives, having secured a record number of votes, had reason to feel short-changed by an electoral system which gave them an overall majority of just 21. Labour, having fought a campaign on a tide of optimism, which approached premature euphoria at times, resolved to take whatever steps proved necessary to avoid a repetition of the subsequent sinking feeling. But the result was almost as demoralising for the polling organisations, who were left to refine their methodology in order to ensure that ‘Shy Tories’, who had apparently concealed their intentions, could not escape detection in future.

Although those who hungered after a continuation of single-party government—and, for that reason, cherished Britain’s ‘first-past-the-post’ electoral system—could breathe again once the ‘real’ results had begun to discredit the 1992 exit poll, they could not relax completely. The fall in overall support for the two main parties, and the apparent volatility of the voters in an era of ‘dealignment’, suggested that at some time in the near future, the ‘only poll that really matters’—i.e. the actual counting of votes—would lead to a hung parliament in which the only chance of a stable government would lie in some combination of parties.

Thus while parties and pollsters worked to prevent a recurrence of 1992’s ‘nightmare’, other institutions and individuals prepared for the time when it would come true. No current civil servant, however senior, had been working in Whitehall when the last coalition government left office in 1945. The ‘near-miss’ of 1992 certainly gave Britain’s bureaucrats ample time to ‘war-game’ various scenarios before the unthinkable really happened.

Meanwhile, the 1992 election was a signal for academic observers—constitutional experts, political scientists and contemporary historians—to start their preparations for an eventuality in which they were likely to be unusually busy. The most eminent could even expect to be consulted by state officials on the appropriate course of events after a hung parliament. For others, there were bound to be conferences, journal articles—and book-length studies. A minority government would be well worthy of scholarly notice, but the formation of a coalition would constitute nothing short of a plea for academic attention.

After the 2010 general election, another BBC exit poll predicted a hung parliament; and this time it was almost uncannily accurate, thanks to the expertise of its compilers. It predicted that the Conservatives would win 306 seats—20 short of an overall majority, and only one short of the tally which the party actually secured. The civil service could now roll into action, emphasising the importance of a government which could promise a degree of political stability, thus helping to pour cold water on the option of a Conservative minority government (which some backbenchers preferred) and strengthening the position of those who argued that, in the light of the electoral arithmetic, only a Conservative–Liberal Democrat combination would meet the nation’s needs. Whatever the nature of the ensuing government, academic observers could start sharpening their pens—or, rather, booting up their laptops.

This was a government whose formation was bound to excite at least as much interest as its subsequent career. Several books and chapters in edited volumes, produced by a range of observers, including some who were actually present at the creation, appeared at the first viable opportunity (e.g. Boulton and Jones 2010; Dorey et al. 2011; Fox 2010; Kavanagh and Cowley 2010, 204–39; Laws 2010; Wilson 2010). These were followed by books which attempted, from a variety of perspectives, to assess the Coalition once it had bedded down (D’Ancona 2013; Gerard 2011; Hazell and Jong 2012; Heppell and Seawright 2012).

Finally—in a by-product of the Coalition’s Fixed-Term Parliaments Act, which was probably far from the minds of the politicians who agreed to pass that legislation—publishers and authors had good reason to regard 2015 as a crucial year for the government. As such, edited volumes on various aspects of the Coalition’s record had been readied for publication before the Coalition partners submitted their (very different) interpretations of the government’s record to the judgement of voters in May 2015 (Beech and Lee 2015; Seldon and Finn 2015).

While the existing literature on the Coalition government is impressive both in its scale and its diversity, the present contribution is distinctive in at least three respects. First, while the academic studies published to date (October 2015) have been the products of multi-party coalitions—edited volumes, featuring contributions from many well-qualified authors—this book, like the Conservative–Liberal Democrat Coalition itself, arises from a collaboration between just two parties. Whether the authors agree as well as Cameron and Clegg may be judged by our readers, but the chances of critical coincidence are certainly increased if the number of participants is reduced.

Second, whatever our views on the Coalition, our analysis has been informed by a shared framework of interpretation, which promotes an understanding of British politics at the elite level as an interplay between individuals, institutions and ideas. As we always anticipated, the case-study of the 2010–2015 Coalition government strongly reinforces our view that these elements deserve equal consideration in any study of British government in action. Sometimes one factor will prevail over another in a plausible explanation of policy outcomes, but all will be present to a significant extent at all times.

Finally, the writing of this book began before the 2015 election, but it was completed nearly six months after the vote which brought the Coalition to an end. This has allowed us to conduct a small-scale experiment on the influence of hindsight over political analysis; we fully expected that some of the things we wrote in advance of the election of May 2015 would have to be revised before the manuscript was completed. In fact, hardly any of our early reflections have changed. This hardly entitles us to a reputation for remarkable gifts of political prophecy; in particular, David Cameron’s considerable advantage over Ed Miliband in polls relating to relevant leadership qualities would have encouraged even the casual observer to suppose that the former would still be Prime Minister after the general election of May 2015. Rather, it justifies our original view that the 2010–2015 Coalition could be examined as a one-off, rather than a kind of government which would be inevitable for the foreseeable future. Whatever its future fortunes, the majority Conservative government which emerged from the 2015 general election proves that the 2010 contest did not usher an unbroken procession of coalition governments.

The overall structure of our analysis is chronological, in that it starts with the formation of the Coalition (Chap. 2) and ends with its more acrimonious latter stages. The intervening chapters, however, are thematic. Chapter 3 covers economic policy, which was the dominant consideration during the government’s existence. Chapters 4 and 5 deal with public sector and welfare reform—subjects which were inextricably linked to the Coalition’s economic strategy, and which shed light on its ideological preferences. In Chapter 6, we discuss the Coalition’s constitutional record, which highlights the importance of institutions to a full understanding of this (and any other) government. Chapter 7, on foreign policy and the EU, underlines the importance of all three of our themes, since individuals, institutions and ideas all need to be examined if one is to explain the Coalition’s record in these areas. Chapter 8, then examines the trajectory of the Coalition in terms of the phases it proceeded through, as the initial honeymoon period rapidly gave way to increasing tensions and disagreements, not just between the two parties, but within them; between their respective backbenchers and parliamentary leaders.

It is now more than two decades since the present authors (along with everyone else who watched the BBC’s coverage of the 1992 general election) assumed that the individual choices of British voters had produced a hung parliament from which a coalition government was likely to emerge. Opinions on the record of the 2010–2015 Coalition government will continue to be divided. But it is reasonable to suppose that few people who thought in 1992 that a coalition would be dangerous in itself will continue to hold that view. If the Coalition led by David Cameron was guilty of political misjudgements and deliberate decisions which were certain to have an adverse effect on the interests and prospects of some British citizens, this was not because Cameron was the Prime Minister of a government which consisted of more than one party. In 2015, Britain did not ‘love’ coalitions in themselves; but it had shown that it was prepared to suspend judgement until the coalition in question began to implement its policies.

References

Beech, M., & Lee, S. (Eds.). (2015). The Conservative-Liberal Democrat Coalition: Examining the Cameron-Clegg Government. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Boulton, A., & Jones, J. (2010). Hung Together: The 2010 Election and the Coalition Government. London: Simon and Schuster.

D’Ancona, M. (2013). In It Together: The Inside Story of the Coalition Government. London: Viking/Penguin.

Dorey, P., Garnett, M., & Denham, A. (2011). From Crisis to Coalition: The Conservative Party, 1997–2010. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRef

Fox, R. (2010). Five Days in May: A New Political Order Emerges. In A. Geddes & J. Tonge (Eds.), Britain Votes 2010. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Gerard, J. (2011). The Clegg Coup: Britain’s First Coalition Government since Lloyd George. London: Gibson Square.

Hazell, R., & Yong, B. (2012b). Inside Story: How the Coalition Really Works. In H. Kassim, C. Clarke, & C. Haddon (Eds.), The Coalition: Voters, Parties and Institutions. Norwich/London: University of East Anglia/Institute for Government.

Heppell, T., & Seawright, D. (Eds.). (2012). Cameron and the Conservatives: The Transition to Coalition Government. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Kavanagh, D., & Cowley, P. (2010). The British General Election of 2010. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Laws, D. (2010). 22 Days in May: The Birth of the Lib Dem-Conservative Coalition. London: Biteback.

Seldon, A., & Finn, M. (Eds.). (2015). The Coalition Effect 2010–2015. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Wilson, R. (2010). 5 Days to Power: The Journey to Coalition Britain. London: Biteback.

© The Author(s) 2016

Peter Dorey and Mark GarnettThe British Coalition Government, 2010-201510.1057/978-1-137-02377-3_2

Begin Abstract

2. The Making and Modus Operandi of the Coalition Government

Peter Dorey¹ and Mark Garnett²

(1)

Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK

(2)

Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK

End Abstract

The events which led to the formation of the Conservative–Liberal Democrat Coalition after the inconclusive general election of May 2010 have attracted considerable and understandable interest, and several detailed accounts by participants and well-informed observers have been published (see BBC2 2010; Boulton and Jones 2010: 111–250; Fox 2010; Laws 2010; Mandelson 2010: 542–54; Wilson 2010; Yong 2012a; Adonis 2013; and D’Ancona 2013). Rather than seeking to add another detailed, day-by-day account of the negotiations, the present chapter has two specific objectives. First, it provides a brief recap of the reasons why the inconclusive May 2010 gene...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Frontmatter
• 1. Introduction
• 2. The Making and Modus Operandi of the Coalition Government
• 3. The Blame Game: The Coalition’s Economic Policy
• 4. Public Sector Reform
• 5. Welfare Reform
• 6. Constitutional Developments
• 7. Foreign Policy and the EU
• 8. From Roses to Rancour
• 9. Conclusion
• Backmatter