How To Hang A Parliament

With my emphasis added, Peter Hitchens writes:

Assume that the polls correctly predict the outcome, which would then be Labour with the third largest vote and the largest number of MPs, the Liberal Democrats with the largest vote and the third largest number of MPs, and the Tories roughly where they ought to be, that is, second biggest vote, second biggest number of seats. No majority. The Queen would then be pretty much obliged to ask Gordon Brown to try to form a government. I don't find this specially outrageous myself. All voting systems have quirks and disadvantages, and we have to ask ourselves if they're justifiable in the light of the countervailing benefits.

For me, an adversarial parliament, plus the possibility of a strong government (made up of a coalition formed *before* the election and honestly presented to the people), plus the ability to dismiss an unwanted government outright, all offer unanswerable arguments for our existing system - together with the direct personal link between MP and constituency which weakens the power of the centre over individual members. If the Tories want to get all hoity-toity about unfair outcomes, they must ask themselves why in that case they didn't decline the offer to form a government in 1951, when they won a majority of seats on a minority of votes. I'm sure there are other precedents of this kind.

In this case, it seems to me that the voters would be saying that they don't wish to sack Labour outright, nor do they wish to give the Tories a working majority. Voters in recent years have learned how to get what they want from our system, especially since tactical voting became common. And while I don't necessarily think they all agree with me about the Tories, or many other things, I do suspect that the voters agree with me that the old parties are finished and discredited, and that a Cameron government offers nothing specially attractive. They're also worried about the economic abyss which will open up after the election. They don't like the look of George Osborne, and they are reassured by Vince Cable's mixture of business experience and lived-in blokeishness. They also like the fact that he is out of his teens.

As for Cleggomania, the Tories and their media and blogosphere groupies can't really complain about this either. They have fervently embraced the cults of youth and novelty. They have also joined enthusiastically in the attempt to wipe out Labour by making direct and highly vituperative personal attacks on Gordon Brown. These attacks are essentially non-political. They have to be, because they are intended to hide the awkward fact that the Tories agree with Gordon Brown about almost every major political issue.

They also obscure the other fact, that David Cameron doesn't actually have all that much positive charisma, and hopes to get to office thanks to Mr Brown's pungent negative charisma, which is considerable and possibly unique. There is no special reason why this Brownophobia should only benefit the Tories, and no great injustice in the fact that it seems mainly to have benefited Nicholas Clegg. If you unleash personal spite as a weapon, don't be surprised if it comes whizzing back to clonk you on the head. In the world of 'Britain's Got No Talent' and 'Big Bruvver', a new face can't be expected to stay new for four long years. No doubt Tory high command are rushing from pram to pram, and from cradle to cradle, searching for someone even younger than Mr Cameron to take over after the Cameron project fails. Time for one of those leftish young women they keep picking as candidates, I suspect. How about Louise Bagshawe for next Tory leader?

Right, so Her Majesty calls Mr Brown in. And he accepts her commission to try to form a government. Lord Mandelson (let us say, since the Lib Dems quite like him) is despatched to Clegg HQ to do the diplomacy. Back comes the word: ‘We'll make a deal, but not with Gordon. Or Ed Balls’. Here's a difficulty. Much hinges on whether it could be overcome.

Labour's terrifyingly cumbersome and unpredictable electoral college has only been used twice for a contested election (in the ritual Hattersley-Kinnock contest, long ago, and the wholly unequal match between John Smith and Bryan Gould). Nobody has risked it when there was a chance of a close fight. Dangerous or divisive challengers have been persuaded not to stand, as they were when Michael Howard was 'elected unopposed' as Tory leader. When both Blair and Brown took over, the succession was carefully stitched up in advance. But my suspicion is that David Miliband has already done the work and made the deals (could Lord Mandelson have been involved in this?) and that if Gordon Brown stepped down, the major unions would immediately declare in favour of the Banana Man, as would a large chunk of the remaining Labour MPs. If this is done quickly and convincingly enough, there'll be no contest (Ed Balls might even have lost his seat, though this is a long shot). And then there could be talks about a coalition.

Labour has already talked about introducing the Alternative Vote system (whose effects seem to me to be hard to predict but which might in fact squeeze third parties rather hard). They would - I suspect - offer a referendum on it to the Lib Dems (this would not look too unprincipled given their attempt to get such an idea through Parliament before the election was called). Or we might see a revival of the 1997 Roy Jenkins proposal of AV+ (look it up). Would they accept? I have no idea. They would also, I expect, be offered Cabinet positions, and policy concessions. Mr Clegg would not, I imagine, be very keen to attempt a deal with the Tories, as his own MPs would not like it, and the Tories are publicly wedded to keeping the existing system. Also, I suspect David Cameron might risk splitting his party if he made a deal with the Liberal Democrats.

All of this would take place in conditions of some urgency, as the pressure from the Bond Markets, to get on with economic emergency measures, will be irresistible whoever wins or whoever comes first.

What happens to the Tories then? Assuming they are excluded from the new government, the Cameron project will be seen to have failed, and I doubt if Mr Cameron would wait around for long. The actual conservatives in the party, who have long stayed silent, would be entitled to point out that Cameronism has failed and that by becoming Liberal, they have only managed to persuade the voters to become Liberal too. But as long as they remain wedded to the Tory party as such, they will have nothing original to say. The Tory left will continue to claim that conservative policies have failed too (when the truth is that it is their association with the Tory Party that has doomed them to failure, combined with the half-hearted way in which the Tory Party has embraced them). I won't be encouraged by anything short of a large-scale breakaway from the Tory Party by conservatives who are prepared to say that it is time for something new. It would also be encouraging if the Tories' traditional supporters in the media began to look in this direction. If anything of the kind is to happen, I'd expect it towards the end of the summer, in time for the Tory conference.

If the putative Lib-Lab coalition goes for and wins a referendum on AV or AV+, I would say that all was by no means lost. Both systems could still create decisive results and sustain the adversarial system. But if actual Proportional Representation results, then a wholly different prospect opens up. I am reluctant to say that it would be entirely hopeless, as I can imagine the creation of two socially conservative, anti-EU parties, one with Labour roots and one with Tory roots, which might be able to combine to form an effective majority government against the pro-EU social liberals. But it would certainly make everything much more difficult, and would threaten the traditional adversarial shape of the Commons in a worrying way.

I may be accused of having helped to bring this unintended (for me) consequence about. Maybe I will have played a small part. I wouldn't want either to boast of any greater influence than I actually have, or to be burdened with too much blame either. But the real blame lies with those, in politics and the media, who threw themselves behind the Michael Howard takeover of the Tories on behalf of the establishment after the IDS collapse (detailed in my book 'The Cameron Delusion'), and the Cameron project which machine-gunned Gordon Brown with personal venom, while refusing to develop or offer a political alternative, because they preferred to adopt the policies of the Left. The venom was highly effective. Labour is more or less in ruins as a result of it. But that did not and could not guarantee that the Tories would accede to power or office. If we now face a new age of PR and continental-style politics, it is the Cameroon method of attacking New Labour which is largely to blame - as I argue above - for the current popularity of Nicholas Clegg. From my point of view, an uncomplicated mass desertion by Tories would be better, giving nobody anything that really amounted to a mandate and dealing a blow to all the major parties. But I think a lot of the Cleggomania vote actually comes from young non-Tories who had previously been planning to stay at home. I doubt if many of them would listen to pleas from me.