tag:theconversation.com,2011:/es/topics/uk-coalition-10788/articlesUK coalition – The Conversation2019-04-03T11:44:55Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1138582019-04-03T11:44:55Z2019-04-03T11:44:55ZEnding austerity: stop councils selling off public assets<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/267301/original/file-20190403-177196-9zkn2r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The perverse outcomes of a decade of austerity in Britain are perhaps nowhere clearer to see than in relation to land ownership. Since austerity policies were introduced in the wake of the financial crisis, councils have sold off public land that is crucial to the public services they provide. But, at the same time, they are speculatively purchasing investment land and property – unconnected to public service delivery – in a bid to shore up their ailing budgets. </p>
<p>Public-sector bodies have been under pressure from central government to sell off land. Such pressure is not entirely new. It has existed to one degree or another <a href="https://www.versobooks.com/books/2871-the-new-enclosure">since the beginning of the 1980s</a>. </p>
<p>What’s new is the intensity of this pressure and the emphasis on a hitherto marginal rationale. Land is being sold off to raise income specifically to reduce the budget deficit. This is the perverse logic of austerity.</p>
<p>Pressure has been especially intense on local authorities, who have sold <a href="https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2019-03-04/sold-from-under-you">more than 12,000 sites just since 2014-15</a>. And, as they have disposed of their landholdings, councils have struggled to satisfactorily provide a number of services that have historically been at the core of their operations. This includes youth centres, leisure facilities, allotments, farm tenancies and, last but not least, social housing – all of which need land.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/267306/original/file-20190403-177193-opnq8f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/267306/original/file-20190403-177193-opnq8f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/267306/original/file-20190403-177193-opnq8f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/267306/original/file-20190403-177193-opnq8f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/267306/original/file-20190403-177193-opnq8f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/267306/original/file-20190403-177193-opnq8f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/267306/original/file-20190403-177193-opnq8f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Lots of social housing has been sold off.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/just1page/16364344776/in/photolist-qW4xzs-qYgXkU-qJaivh-qJjgB8-qYmEaz-qFNcaY-7KDFcV-7MmEP4-qW4ybh-q4JEvs-5m2UF1-q2yXfa-CYvGfa-qJhBuv-kvUgGz-q2yWci-d4nQZ3-qJagmC-awYksT-duKuxu-kwKM81-r1A26v-d4nRzs-kv24gq-r1K7jH-kwJMS8-kvTDyK-qFM39w-2ykZxH-kDTJ2d-mxnTUM-kuYKgT-kxH9T5-2ymgY4-njfydm-9Lh6pg-5kXDyM-kvUk1Z-nkwegM-9LgYee-mC6zpT-kr1FUF-nkJcer-mwLH8r-5m2UtJ-ks17AS-6TodJo-nkwvba-5XAHdw-awYk84">flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Manchester City Council sold off 673 public properties <a href="https://www.themeteor.org/2019/03/04/manchester-tops-local-authority-league-selling-673-public-properties-in-five-years-while-only-buying-165/">between April 2014 and July 2018</a>. This included a large amount of social housing, as well as community centres, care homes and schools. While this is the most extreme example of sell-offs, it’s a similar story for many councils around the country.</p>
<h2>The madness of austerity</h2>
<p>Meanwhile, local authorities have increasingly been buying other types of land. Not the same kinds of property they can use to provide important services for the community. But rather <a href="https://ftalphaville.ft.com/2018/11/23/1542975908000/The-local-government-gamble-on-commercial-property/">commercial investment property</a> – most notably, shopping centres. This is all about austerity, too – and in two key respects.</p>
<p>First, austerity explains why councils have been doing this: to raise (rental) income in order to continue to be able to fund the provision of local services that have been imperilled by savage cuts in grants from central government as the latter has <a href="https://www.lrb.co.uk/v38/n24/tom-crewe/the-strange-death-of-municipal-england">devolved austerity to the local level</a>.</p>
<p>Second, austerity explains how councils have been doing this. As is now widely recognised, austerity in Britain has ushered in a <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-sh/The_lost_decade">lost decade</a> of stunted growth. The Bank of England has accordingly maintained interest rates at historically low levels and local authorities have benefited from the availability of unprecedentedly cheap debt. They have borrowed prodigiously to finance their commercial property investment spree, with annual borrowing <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/5dcd8fa6-d1e7-11e8-a9f2-7574db66bcd5">rocketing</a> to £10 billion in 2017-18 from £4.4 billion four years earlier. </p>
<p>You don’t have to be particularly radical to believe that this state of affairs – councils selling land crucial to what they should be doing (such as providing social housing) while pursuing a land acquisition strategy well beyond their central remit (speculative investment in commercial property) – is absurd.</p>
<p>In 2016 alone, local councils spent more than £1 billion <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/f5224ae4-947d-11e6-a1dc-bdf38d484582">on business parks and shopping centres</a>. Spelthorne Borough Council in Surrey, for example, spent £360m buying an office complex from BP, while Canterbury City Council in Kent made the first of two payments towards the £155m acquisition of <a href="https://www.kentonline.co.uk/canterbury/news/popular-shopping-centre-bought-by-160104/">a shopping centre</a>. </p>
<p>This may be the new normal but these are bizarre decisions for local authorities. As FT journalist John Plender <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/84892c56-1a17-11e7-bcac-6d03d067f81f">writes</a>, it makes Spelthorne council more of “a property company with a sideline in providing local government services”. To paraphrase academic and author <a href="https://profilebooks.com/marx-capital-and-the-madness-of-economic-reason.html">David Harvey</a>, who has written of the madness that underpins a lot of mainstream economic reasoning, we might say that this is the madness of austerity reason writ large.</p>
<h2>Reintroducing sanity</h2>
<p>As a first step to reintroducing some sanity, the government should halt the austerity-augmented privatisation of public land. Not only is the income generated by disposal a one-off, non-recurring source of income. But it often removes a source of recurring public-sector income, as was the case with the <a href="https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-network-rail-m-a/network-rail-divests-commercial-property-portfolio-for-1-9-billion-idUKKCN1LQ1XD">privatisation of Network Rail’s commercial property portfolio</a>.</p>
<p>Furthermore, there is growing evidence that public land acquired by the private sector is frequently <a href="https://ftalphaville.ft.com/2018/11/08/1541675709000/The-collapse-in-public-ownership-of-land/">hoarded rather than being used in a productive way</a> – such as for the construction of truly affordable housing. And even where such land is put to use, there is zero evidence that this use leads to economic growth.</p>
<p>If Britain is to chart a navigable and fair route out of austerity, plotting a better path for the ownership and allocation of the ground beneath the nation’s feet is quite simply a political and strategic necessity.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>This article is part of <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/ending-austerity-series-59776?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement&utm_content=EndingAusterity">a series</a> published in conjunction with the <a href="https://progressiveeconomyforum.com/2018/09/10/100-policies-end-austerity/">Progressive Economy Forum</a>, in which economists put forward viable alternatives to austerity.</em></p>
<ul>
<li><p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/ending-austerity-why-public-spending-is-key-to-building-a-stable-and-fair-economy-102145?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement&utm_content=EndingAusterity">Why public spending is key to building a stable and fair economy</a></em></p></li>
<li><p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/ending-austerity-stop-the-uks-dependence-on-private-debt-103395?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement&utm_content=EndingAusterity">How to stop the UK’s dependence on private debt</a></em></p></li>
<li><p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/ending-austerity-create-a-national-investment-bank-103559?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement&utm_content=EndingAusterity">Why it’s time to create a national investment bank</a></em></p></li>
<li><p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/ending-austerity-give-everyone-a-pay-rise-103576?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement&utm_content=EndingAusterity">Give everyone a pay rise</a></em></p></li>
</ul>
<p><em>For more evidence-based articles by academics, subscribe to our <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement&utm_content=EndingAusterity">newsletter</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/113858/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Brett Christophers does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Councils have sold off vast amounts of land since 2014 – land that was previously used for important public services.Brett Christophers, Professor at Department of Social and Economic Geography, Uppsala UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/649722016-09-09T10:26:46Z2016-09-09T10:26:46ZDrugs fatalities overtake car fatalities for the first time<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137080/original/image-20160908-25249-1ct7wc5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-276472910/stock-photo-man-injecting-himself-with-a-small-hypodermic-needle-possibly-administering-medication-for-a-disease-such-as-diabetes.html?src=NLK3gv9RXwwEBCFGAW-lgA-1-0">NAS CREATIVES/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Seven years ago, <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2011/sep/17/local/la-me-drugs-epidemic-20110918">fatalities from opiates</a> overtook fatalities due to road accidents in the US. Sadly, the same phenomenon is now playing out in England. The latest figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), show that last year, 1,732 people died in <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/reported-road-casualties-in-great-britain-main-results-2015">traffic accidents in the UK</a> compared with <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/deathsrelatedtodrugpoisoninginenglandandwales/2015registrations">1,989</a> who died due to opiates in England alone.</p>
<p>New psychoactive substances, referred to as “legal highs”, have <a href="https://theconversation.com/stories-about-legal-high-deaths-are-bound-up-in-media-hysteria-24360">received significant media attention</a>, and deaths due to these drugs have risen by 40%, but opiate deaths now outnumber legal-high deaths by 19 to 1, despite a <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/drug-misuse-findings-from-the-2015-to-2016-csew">steady decline</a> in opiate use in England and Wales over the last decade.</p>
<p>Of course, opiates are not the only problem – deaths due to cocaine have reached the highest on record at 320, increasing by nearly 30% since last year – but opiates are what we should really be focusing on. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137200/original/image-20160909-13363-1uib24s.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137200/original/image-20160909-13363-1uib24s.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137200/original/image-20160909-13363-1uib24s.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137200/original/image-20160909-13363-1uib24s.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137200/original/image-20160909-13363-1uib24s.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137200/original/image-20160909-13363-1uib24s.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137200/original/image-20160909-13363-1uib24s.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Drug deaths.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Office for National Statistics</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Premature and preventable</h2>
<p>Drug-related deaths of males outnumber those of females by three to one and 60% of deaths occur in 30- to 49-year-olds – compared with an <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/lifeexpectancies/bulletins/lifeexpectancyatbirthandatage65bylocalareasinenglandandwales/2015-11-04">average life expectancy</a> for the rest of the population of 80. </p>
<p>Health complications resulting from drug use do not entirely explain this inequality in life span. A range of factors are likely to be involved. Purity and quality of heroin are not as critical, borne out by <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/add.13516/full">decades of research</a>. Rather it is the risk of accidental overdose by more experienced and tolerant heroin users. Equally, combining heroin with alcohol and or a benzodiazapine such as diazepam <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0376871612002785">increases the risk of death</a>. In 1993, one in four deaths were attributed to combining alcohol with opiates; this has now reached one in two. </p>
<p>In 2010, the newly elected Conservative government introduced a <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/drug-strategy-2010">new treatment strategy</a>. The policy emphasised the importance of achieving abstinence from drugs rather than merely reducing the harm they can cause. This recovery agenda may have inadvertently contributed to the rise in drug deaths. Unfortunately, even if abstinence is achieved, the <a href="http://bit.ly/2cbURiS">odds of relapsing</a> are high. Abstinence <a href="http://www.bjmp.org/files/2013-6-1/bjmp-2013-6-1-a601.pdf">reduces the ability</a> to tolerate previously manageable doses of heroin, resulting in an overdose for some. </p>
<h2>Treatment risk</h2>
<p>Treatment does reduce mortality. A <a href="http://www.nta.nhs.uk/uploads/trendsdrugmisusedeaths1999to2014.pdf">recent report</a> showed that most opiate deaths were of people not in treatment. Treatment usually involves providing a substitute drug with the aim of weaning the individual off heroin. Methadone and buprenorphine are commonly used to do this. But there are two critical factors, retaining people in treatment and what happens when treatment finishes. The month following treatment is particularly important as a person’s tolerance to opiates will have reduced, increasing the risk of overdose <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/add.13087/full">if the person relapses</a>. Following up people at this critical stage could help reduce the risk of fatality. </p>
<p>But the challenge is how to engage those who are not in treatment. Attracting this group requires a more radical approach. <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-australia-needs-drug-consumption-rooms-53215">Drug consumption rooms</a> provide a safe place for people to use their drugs, providing clean syringes for those who inject heroin. These facilities have an impressive record of reducing fatalities due to drug use. And, just as important, they are the first step towards engaging a marginalised group into health and social care. We don’t need any more evidence as to their value – we need what politicians crave: <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.3109/14659891.2016.1143049">public support</a>.</p>
<p>Naloxone can also temporarily reverse the effects of an opiate overdose. Making this drug available to opiate users and their families offers the potential to reduce fatalities. Scotland has pioneered this by implementing a <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/add.13265/pdf">national naloxone policy</a> and new regulations in England have <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/widening-the-availability-of-naloxone/widening-the-availability-of-naloxone">allowed this approach to be mirrored</a>. This development gives workers and heroin users access and permission to administer naloxone when an overdose occurs.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137083/original/image-20160908-25260-hhapzw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137083/original/image-20160908-25260-hhapzw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137083/original/image-20160908-25260-hhapzw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137083/original/image-20160908-25260-hhapzw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137083/original/image-20160908-25260-hhapzw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137083/original/image-20160908-25260-hhapzw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137083/original/image-20160908-25260-hhapzw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Naloxone can reverse the effects of an opiate overdose.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-418417357/stock-photo-layton-utah-march-11-2016-vial-of-naloxone-drug-which-is-used-for-opiate-drug-overdose-it-is-now-available-to-patients-without-a-prescription-or-over-the-counter.html?src=HeShWLVmobUTJtghilzrNw-1-0">PureRadiancePhoto/Shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A glimpse into the future?</h2>
<p>The US has witnessed a 200% rise in prescription-opiate deaths since the millennium, driven by <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ajt.13776/full">increasing availability and lower costs</a>. The regulatory and marketing environments differ in the US and the UK. In the UK, open marketing of opiates is prohibited and there are stricter controls and monitoring of prescribing. But current drug control measures are outdated and <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.3109/14659891.2014.980861">easily circumvented by the internet</a>.</p>
<p>So we need to carefully monitor the use and misuse of a range of prescription drugs such as tramadol. Tramadol is an analgesic used for moderate to severe pain. Prescriptions for tramadol rose dramatically over the <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/deathsrelatedtodrugpoisoninginenglandandwales/2015registrations">last decade</a>, as did deaths thought to be the result of misusing the drug. This prompted new regulations which came into force last year with the aim of curbing tramadol-related deaths. This year’s ONS data shows that one year after the introduction of these regulations deaths have reduced, but we will need to see if this trend continues.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137202/original/image-20160909-13345-2cdpp9.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137202/original/image-20160909-13345-2cdpp9.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137202/original/image-20160909-13345-2cdpp9.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=366&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137202/original/image-20160909-13345-2cdpp9.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=366&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137202/original/image-20160909-13345-2cdpp9.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=366&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137202/original/image-20160909-13345-2cdpp9.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=460&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137202/original/image-20160909-13345-2cdpp9.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=460&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137202/original/image-20160909-13345-2cdpp9.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=460&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Tramadol deaths.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Office for National Statistics</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A clear measure of the UK government’s ambition to reduce inequality is <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/clare-bambra/theresa-may-health-inequalities_b_11716312.html">halting the rise in drug overdoses</a>. Avoidable fatalities due to drugs serve as a barometer of how equal our society is and how we respond to individual vulnerability. We all lose out when an individual dies this way.</p>
<p>Public Health England has responded to the trend in drug fatalities, publishing <a href="http://www.nta.nhs.uk/uploads/phe-understanding-preventing-drds.pdf">several recommendations</a>. There are some welcome aims but they could be bolder. The time has come to introduce drug consumption rooms – it’s a life or death decision.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/64972/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ian Hamilton is affiliated with Alcohol Research UK.. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mark Monaghan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Opiates have emerged as a significant threat to public health in the UK.Ian Hamilton, Lecturer in Mental Health, University of YorkMark Monaghan, Lecturer in Crimimology and Social Policy, Loughborough UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/533222016-01-18T17:47:57Z2016-01-18T17:47:57ZEnsuring the lowest paid don’t lose out under welfare reform will take more than just positive thinking<p>Two long-term trends in society call into question the traditional tax-and-spend welfare policies of the left. Globalisation has reduced the number of secure, well-paid jobs in manufacturing industries and helped accelerate the growing inequality between those at the bottom and those at the top, whether in or out of work. And social and political shifts have fragmented community solidarity, <a href="http://www.bsa.natcen.ac.uk/latest-report/british-social-attitudes-32/welfare.aspx">eating away at public support</a> for decent welfare benefits for the unemployed, even among Labour voters. </p>
<p>Welfare policy faces an uphill struggle, where even as poverty grows worse most people seem quite unconcerned about it. So a new report from the think-tank Civitas, launched by veteran Labour MP Frank Field and parliamentary researcher Andrew Forsey, should be given credit for positive thinking. The report, <a href="http://www.civitas.org.uk/publications/fixing-broken-britain-an-audit-of-working-age-welfare-reform-since-2010/">Fixing Broken Britain?</a>, puts forward a programme of welfare reform based on what they see as the successes of the policies of the 2010 coalition and 2015 Conservative governments.</p>
<p>These are assessed on three criteria: helping claimants into work, delivering savings to the taxpayer, and making those households struggling to survive on a low income better off than they were previously. By this measure, the report awards the 2010-2015 Liberal Democrat/Conservative coalition a score of two out of three, arguing that “the government has delivered a drastic reduction in unemployment” and “gained success many times over with its policy of making life on benefit that much more difficult.” But on the third measure the authors argue that while employment increased under the coalition, the government failed to generate secure, lasting jobs that <a href="http://www.jrf.org.uk/data/work-poverty-levels">paid enough to keep working families out of poverty</a>. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/108452/original/image-20160118-31831-1pwfdzl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/108452/original/image-20160118-31831-1pwfdzl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/108452/original/image-20160118-31831-1pwfdzl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/108452/original/image-20160118-31831-1pwfdzl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/108452/original/image-20160118-31831-1pwfdzl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/108452/original/image-20160118-31831-1pwfdzl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/108452/original/image-20160118-31831-1pwfdzl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/108452/original/image-20160118-31831-1pwfdzl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Frank Field MP.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/policyexchange/7158658196">policyexchange</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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<p>The authors list several other failures. Numerous cuts and constraints on departments and local government have exacerbated poverty among workless families. Universal Credit, if it is finally rolled out, seems certain to reduce living standards further for low-waged and workless families <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/437246/households-below-average-income-1994-95-to-2013-14.pdf">according to official DWP statistics</a>. Cuts to housing benefit in a situation where there is little expansion of affordable housing will also reduce living standards.</p>
<p>The report also identifies areas where policies could be improved, not least by addressing the effects of sanctions on tens of thousands of benefits claimants each year.</p>
<h2>Boost productivity to boost income</h2>
<p>The authors argue powerfully for a national productivity strategy in order to create more stable and well-paid jobs, pointing to the new National Living Wage due to be introduced in April as a way to a “lower tax, lower welfare, higher wage society”. But the National Living Wage <a href="https://theconversation.com/national-living-wage-mirage-is-a-disaster-for-the-low-paid-44478">offers very little extra to most low-paid workers</a>. </p>
<p>They propose a number of concrete reforms, chiefly designed to focus Tax Credits solely on families with children, help vulnerable groups in very low-paid jobs, such as those with mental or physical health problems, and revamp Job Centres to help claimants plan their return to work over a period of time – <a href="https://theconversation.com/fact-check-do-job-centres-have-a-target-for-benefit-sanctions-41212">rather than focusing on targets</a> to remove benefit claimants from the rolls.</p>
<p>Most commentators agree that Britain has <a href="https://theconversation.com/to-solve-britains-productivity-puzzle-try-asking-the-workers-43028">failed to achieve the levels of productivity needed to pay decent wages</a> to substantial parts of the workforce, and that this should be remedied. Data <a href="http://stats.oecd.org/">from the OECD</a> show that in the 2000s UK productivity exceeded that of France, Germany and the eurozone average. But since 2007 it has dropped, falling behind that of Germany to a level comparable to France and the eurozone average.</p>
<p>Unfortunately solving this problem will require much more than modifying the tax credit and benefit system: it must at the least include investment in human capital, raising education standards, expanding training opportunities and making paid work more family friendly. The report praises the coalition for “strengthening the family”, for example, but doesn’t mention that childcare costs in the UK are <a href="http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201415/ldselect/ldaffchild/117/11715.htm">among the highest in the developed world</a> – a powerful disincentive for parents to go back to work.</p>
<p>Nor does it point out that the coalition withdrew considerable state sector investment, while at the same time failing to encourage the private sector to make up the difference. Private sector investment in the UK as a percentage of GDP <a href="http://www.oecd.org/unitedkingdom/economic-survey-united-kingdom.htm#chart">collapsed in 2007 and has failed to recover</a>. It now stands at about three-quarters of the G7 average.</p>
<p>Field and Forsey are remarkably positive in assessment of the coalition’s welfare strategy, although they agree that it has achieved cash savings by impoverishing those at the bottom. They may be right to point to better productivity as a way forward, but they tell us nothing about how we can get there.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/53322/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Taylor-Gooby receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council and NORFACE.</span></em></p>Getting jobseekers off benefits and into well-paid jobs should be a priority. So why has pace been glacial?Peter Taylor-Gooby, Professor of Social Policy, University of KentLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/414052015-05-06T16:44:07Z2015-05-06T16:44:07ZBritain’s broadcast media could be kingmakers after the election<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/80695/original/image-20150506-10919-z5u7mm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">With power comes responsibility.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/91454795@N06/14945595054/">Duane Jones Cheshire1963/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Depending on the electoral arithmetic, the next 48 hours could be a real test of how broadcast journalists interpret public perceptions towards any post-election coalition deals. If, as <a href="http://may2015.com/category/poll-of-polls/">polls</a> continue to suggest, a hung parliament is imminent, the debate will almost exclusively focus on which party can (or should) lead a coalition government over the next five years.</p>
<p>Already, the question of forming a coalition is not just about which political party can gain a working majority in parliament, and successfully pass a new programme of laws in the Queen’s speech. It’s also about whether the combination of parties seeking power will be viewed as “legitimate” by voters. </p>
<p>As it stands, an <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/apr/20/tories-still-ahead-labour-latest-guardian-icm-poll">ICM poll</a> shows the public favour in almost equal measure either a Conservative/Liberal Democrat or a Labour/SNP coalition. But crucially, a fifth of people surveyed indicated that they didn’t know which coalition to back.</p>
<h2>Where does legitimacy come from?</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/60641/cabinet-manual.pdf">Cabinet Manual</a> – written in 2010 after the last coalition negotiations – makes clear it is parliamentary legitimacy which is crucial in allowing a government to function. But whichever party leader attempts to form a government will also need to reflect on public support.</p>
<p>So how broadcast journalists interpret “public” legitimacy could be crucial in policing the boundaries of negotiations between parties, in the post-election period. Since most people have yet to cast their vote, at this point in time it is difficult to interpret where any “public” illegitimacy towards possible coalition deals is emanating from. </p>
<p>For example, it could be that broadcasters are responding to newspaper coverage of public perceptions, rather than relying on more reliable ways of assessing the public mood, such as opinion polls. </p>
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<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://twitter.com/hendopolis/status/595694942523121664">Twitter</a></span>
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<p>The right-wing press has already <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/may/06/sun-ed-miliband-labour-mail-telegraph-election">swung into action</a> and sought to delegitimise any prospect of the Labour party winning the second largest number of seats and governing with the support of the SNP. A Daily Telegraph headline this week read: “Nightmare on Downing Street”, with a picture of SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon prominently placed.</p>
<p>But the mood music of what constitutes an “acceptable” coalition government has been playing for some time among right wing papers. According to a search of the newspaper database Nexis, articles discussing “legitimacy” in the context of the general election have increased in recent weeks. Most of these encourage readers to think the largest seat-winning party should be the one entitled to govern.</p>
<h2>A heated debate</h2>
<p>Of course, the question of which parties will share power after the election is a legitimate point for debate. While partisan newspapers are free to pursue whatever editorial angle they please, broadcasters have strict impartiality requirements.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/may/07/tv-news-election-race-policy-cardiff-university">Our research</a> shows the major evening bulletins – including Channel 5 at 5pm, Channel 4 at 7pm, and at 10pm on BBC, ITV and Sky News – have increased the amount of airtime spent discussing post-election deals. In the first and second week of the official campaign, total election airtime covering coalition deals amounted to 4.3% and 1.1%, respectively. From April 13 to May 1, however, it increased substantially to between 13.4% and 14.3% per week.</p>
<p>Despite Ed Miliband’s regular insistence his party would not enter into a coalition alliance with the SNP – most memorably on the BBC leaders’ question time debate – the overwhelming focus in TV coverage has been about a possible Labour and SNP coalition deal. Other parties have made the prospect of an SNP minority government central to their election campaigns; especially the Conservatives.</p>
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<p>In more recent days, there has been some speculation about a possible deal between the Conservative party and the Liberal Democrats, UKIP or the DUP. But the role of the SNP as a potential kingmaker in the next government has clearly been the dominant coalition narrative over the election cycle in TV and print coverage, as well as being hotly debated on social media.</p>
<h2>Broadcasters, beware</h2>
<p>If the vote is as close as predicted, parties will inevitably squabble between themselves about who “won”. But the public will rely on journalists to mediate. And since TV news remains by far <a href="http://www.mediaweek.co.uk/article/1344407/election-2015-people-news#5dBEHkzkTDwcYsyE.02">the most widely used source</a> of news for general and detailed information about the election, the impartiality of broadcast journalists will be put under the spotlight.</p>
<p>This puts a huge amount of responsibility on broadcast journalists interpreting the results as they come in, during the early hours of Friday morning. Tired but full of adrenaline, broadcast journalists may well be influenced by the pace of the news cycle and the pressure to call out a “winner”. No doubt many of the partisan newspapers – most of whom have endorsed the Conservative party – will be seeking to sway readers in their Friday and Saturday editions.</p>
<p>As public attitudes are formed over the next 48 hours, broadcast journalists will therefore need to be careful in how they interpret the “public legitimacy” of the election results and any possible coalition deals, in light of their impartiality requirements.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/41405/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>It may all come down to how broadcasters interpret their impartiality requirements.Stephen Cushion, Senior Lecturer, School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies, Cardiff UniversityRichard Sambrook, Professor of Journalism, Cardiff UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/410512015-04-30T14:22:39Z2015-04-30T14:22:39ZDanny Alexander’s last-minute leak: poor form but good politics<p>With just a week until the election, the Liberal Democrats remain stuck at about 9% in the <a href="http://lordashcroftpolls.com/2015/04/ashcroft-national-poll-con-36-lab-30-lib-dem-9-ukip-11-green-7/">polls</a> and are on course to lose more than half their seats.</p>
<p>Left-leaning voters who supported the party in 2010 have <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/apr/05/after-election-lib-dems-turn-left-right">deserted</a> it as a consequence of its decision to go into coalition with the Conservatives. And that, at least in part, is why Danny Alexander, the Lib Dem chief secretary to the treasury, has decided to <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/apr/29/danny-alexander-tory-plans-welfare-cuts-child-benefits">leak old coalition proposals</a> for cutting benefits a week before the election. </p>
<p>The plans, which date from 2012, were part of a discussion paper on welfare reform circulated among senior cabinet ministers. The document set out £8 billion of savings and included proposals to limit child benefit and child tax credits to a family’s first two children, as well as means-testing child benefit.</p>
<p>Alexander says he resisted the proposals, claiming that he has battled for five years to stop the Tories “veering off to the right” by making “ideological cuts”. He sent the details to the Guardian to expose what has been going on behind closed Treasury doors.</p>
<p>While his actions may appear to be poor form, they are also good politics. The party has calculated that it could benefit from having a public row with the Conservatives on the cusp of the election.</p>
<p>Alexander has gambled, for sure. The Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats have co-habited in an increasingly discordant coalition for five years, but this full-frontal attack from Alexander calls into question the functionality of the two parties’ working relationship.</p>
<p>If the Lib Dems succeed in their aim of being the pivotal party and end up in coalition with the Conservatives for the second time, trust between the two parties will probably be damaged as a result of this leak. But by far the stronger force determining the composition of the next government will be parliamentary arithmetic.</p>
<p>And if the Lib Dems are the only party that could offer the Tories the chance to control a majority of seats, then the leak will be quickly forgotten – just as the Conservatives’ sharp tactics during the AV referendum and House of Lords reform will be, and indeed have been.</p>
<p>In the meantime Alexander is looking to win back lost votes for his party to help them get to the bargaining table.</p>
<h2>The play</h2>
<p>The immediate priority for the Liberal Democrats is to maximise the number of seats they will hold. Going into the election, they had 57 seats but most experts are predicting that to <a href="http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/blogs/peter-kellner-2/general-election-2015-how-many-seats-will-the-lib-dems-lose">fall to between 25 and 30</a>.</p>
<p>In two-thirds of the seats the Lib Dems won in 2010, the Conservatives finished in second place and will be the major challengers this time round. Many of those Lib Dem-Tory marginals were won thanks to <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2010/may/05/election-2010-tactical-voting-guide">tactical voting</a> by Labour supporters, who decided their party couldn’t win.</p>
<p>With the Liberal Democrats governing alongside the Conservatives, there is a genuine prospect that Labour supporters will no longer vote tactically in Lib Dem-Tory marginals, as the two parties are part of the same centre-right coalition. That could cause the loss of numerous Lib Dem seats.</p>
<p>By attacking the Conservatives on welfare, the Liberal Democrats are signalling to Labour voters that the coalition partners are not the same, and that things would have been worse had the Liberal Democrats not restrained the Tories. The same goes for the coming election: a tactical vote is still worthwhile, because, if there is to be a Conservative-led government, it would be better if it were held back by the Lib Dems.</p>
<p>This is the classic appeal of centrist liberal parties – they check the power of the major centre-left or centre-right party. The Liberal Democrats have also left open the possibility of a deal with Labour, with the implication that they would see eye-to-eye on welfare reform – another reason for Labour supporters to vote tactically for the third party.</p>
<p>The more seats the Lib Dems hold on May 7, the greater the chance they’ll have to play a role in forming a government in the event of a hung parliament. It will increase their relevance in the post-election negotiations, making it more likely that they, rather than another smaller party, will offer a major party the chance to form a majority coalition.</p>
<p>A recent <a href="https://yougov.co.uk/news/2015/04/17/voters-would-prefer-lib-dems-hold-balance-power/">YouGov poll</a> indicated that more voters (37%) would prefer the Liberal Democrats to UKIP (26%) or the SNP (17%) to hold the balance of power in a hung parliament. Now comes Alexander to show voters that he was the voice of decency and generosity, while his Tory colleagues sought to slash and burn. </p>
<p>His leak may mean that there is no repeat of the Downing Street garden love-in of five years ago, but after a fractious experience in government since, there was little chance of that anyway.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/41051/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tom Quinn does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Treasury minister does the dirty on coalition partners in 11th hour bid to win back votes.Tom Quinn, Senior Lecturer, Department of Government, University of EssexLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/409752015-04-30T13:15:18Z2015-04-30T13:15:18ZWho has achieved most out of the coalition – the Tories or Lib Dems?<p>In the title of its May 2010 General Election manifesto, the Conservative Party extended an <a href="https://www.conservatives.com/%7E/media/files/activist%20centre/press%20and%20policy/manifestos/manifesto2010">Invitation to Join The Government of Britain</a>.
In the event, when only 36.1% of voters accepted that invitation, it was the 57 Liberal Democrat MPs who joined forces with the Conservatives in coalition to, in <a href="https://www.conservatives.com/%7E/media/files/activist%20centre/press%20and%20policy/manifestos/manifesto2010">David Cameron’s words</a>, “form a new kind of government for Britain”.</p>
<p>In a recent interview on the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05rj6rk">BBC Daily Politics</a>, Liberal Democrat schools minister David Laws claimed: “If you look at our what was in our manifesto last time, I think that we’ve probably delivered more of our manifesto in this government than even the Conservative party.” </p>
<p>However, the coalition has not governed on the basis of a conflation of the two manifestos, but on the foundation of its 2010 <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/78977/coalition_programme_for_government.pdf">Programme for Government</a>.</p>
<p>In their foreword to that programme, David Cameron and Nick Clegg claimed boldly that: “this coalition has the potential for era-changing, convention-challenging, radical reform.” They <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/78977/coalition_programme_for_government.pdf">claimed</a> to have found “a combination of our parties’ best ideas and attitudes has produced a programme for government that is more radical and comprehensive than our individual manifestos.”</p>
<p>In short, the Conservative-Lib Dem coalition would be greater than the sum of its parts, an ideological coalition of the willing, <a href="http://www.palgrave.com/page/detail/the-cameronclegg-government-simon-lee/?K=">not a political marriage of convenience</a>.</p>
<h2>Who got what</h2>
<p>Befitting its status as the senior coalition partner, contributing 306 of the coalition’s original 363 MPs, and both the prime minister and chancellor of the exchequer, the Conservative Party provided the the primary inspiration for the programme for government that ensued from the negotiations between the two parties.</p>
<p>With its mantra, “We’re all in this together”, the <a href="https://www.conservatives.com/%7E/media/files/activist%20centre/press%20and%20policy/manifestos/manifesto2010">Conservative manifesto</a> had promised a “plan for economic recovery and growth”, “a strong society”, and “radical political reform”. It also set out eight “benchmarks for Britain”, against which the people of Britain could judge “the economic success or failure of the next government”. </p>
<p>But the coalition’s programme had also drawn substantially on the <a href="http://www.politicsresources.net/area/uk/ge10/man/parties/libdem_manifesto_2010.pdf">Liberal Democrat Manifesto’s</a> “four steps to a fairer Britain”. These had been “fair taxes that put money back in your pocket”; “a fair chance for every child”; “a fair future creating jobs by making Britain greener”; and “a fair deal by cleaning up politics”. </p>
<p>Upon the basis of the coalition’s record in office, the Liberal Democrats <a href="http://www.palgrave.com/page/detail/the-conservative-liberal-coalition-matt-beech/?K=9781137509895">can legitimately claim</a> to have delivered – at least in part – on the first three steps.</p>
<p>On fair taxes, the income tax threshold has been raised to £10,600, but, at £42,385, the threshold for 40% taxpayers is now £10,380 below where it would have been had it kept pace with inflation, according to the <a href="http://www.ifs.org.uk/uploads/publications/bns/BN167170315.pdf">Institute of Fiscal Studies</a>. VAT has also been increased from 17.5% to 20%. This does not necessarily seem fair, when the top rate of tax on incomes exceeding £150,000 has been cut from 50% to 45%.</p>
<p>A fair chance for every child is being delivered in England through the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/pupil-premium-information-for-schools-and-alternative-provision-settings">pupil premium policy</a> which now gives schools extra money for children eligible for free schools meals, but class sizes <a href="https://fullfact.org/factcheck/education/cap_infant_class_size_overcrowding-39293">have not been cut</a>. Neither have the banks been broken up to ensure “a fair future”.</p>
<p>Another failure for the Liberal Democrats has been in relation to their pledge to deliver “a fair deal by cleaning up politics”, following the 67.9% vote against the introduction of the alternative vote system in the May 2011 referendum and the absence of the promised elected House of Lords. </p>
<p>However, it was the Liberal Democrats’ failure to honour the manifesto pledge for England to “Scrap unfair university tuition fees for all students taking their first degree, including those studying part-time, saving them over £10,000 each” which has proven to be the <a href="https://theconversation.com/focusing-on-education-is-a-dangerous-strategy-for-the-liberal-democrats-40252">single most damaging</a> consequence of coalition. </p>
<p>The manifesto claimed “the change is affordable even in these difficult economic times”. In government, with the publication of the October 2010 spending review, the Liberal Democrats discovered their overriding commitment to fiscal austerity meant this change was deemed unaffordable. Although 21 Liberal Democrats voted against the increase, and a further eight abstained or did not vote, 27 MPs, including Clegg, voted for the increase. It was not until September 2012 that Clegg <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-19646731">formally apologised</a> in a party political broadcast.</p>
<h2>Neither party has delivered</h2>
<p>The <a href="http://cdn.budgetresponsibility.independent.gov.uk/March2015EFO_18-03-webv1.pdf">Conservatives have also failed</a> in their central economic policy objectives. These <a href="https://www.conservatives.com/%7E/media/files/activist%20centre/press%20and%20policy/manifestos/manifesto2010">were</a> “eliminating the bulk of the structural deficit”, creating “a more balanced economy”, and ensuring “the whole country shares in rising prosperity”.</p>
<p>The structural deficit <a href="http://www.ifs.org.uk/uploads/gb/gb2015/ch1_gb2015.pdf">has not been eliminated</a>, and <a href="https://theconversation.com/manifesto-check-conservatives-convince-on-cutting-the-deficit-but-the-price-may-be-growth-40255">reducing it</a> remains a key part of the Conservatives’ 2015 campaign. There has no been no re-balancing in terms of the <a href="http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/bop/balance-of-payments/q4-and-annual-2014/index.html">balance of payments</a>, <a href="http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/dcp171778_388340.pdf">nor a re-balance</a> between London and the south east. And the IFS points to <a href="http://www.ifs.org.uk/publications/7615">a slow recovery</a> in household incomes and that the poor have fared worse. </p>
<p>That failure is probably the principal reason why the electorate has remained as reluctant, as it was in May 2010, to vote for the Conservative Party in sufficient numbers for it to secure an overall majority at Westminster.</p>
<p>With a coalition on the cards again for the next government, a capacity to compromise on, and in some cases jettison, manifesto and election pledges will play an important role in any negotiations. </p>
<p>The fact that all the major political parties have already made extensive and frequently conflicting promises on public spending, <a href="http://www.ifs.org.uk/uploads/publications/bns/BN172.pdf">taxes</a> and <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/apr/29/danny-alexander-tory-plans-welfare-cuts-child-benefits">benefits</a> means that such negotiations are likely to be more complex and take much longer than the 22 days of May 2010.</p>
<p>What’s clear is that the Conservative-Lib Dem coalition failed to deliver “era-changing, convention-challenging, radical reform.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/40975/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Simon Lee does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Some small victories aside, neither party comes out shining.Simon Lee, Senior Lecturer in Politics, University of HullLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/395992015-03-31T14:30:55Z2015-03-31T14:30:55ZChannel 4 Coalition drama was far too polished to really shine<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/76585/original/image-20150331-1245-1klwxxq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A real missed opportunity.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Rory Mulvey/Channel 4</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Reviews of <a href="http://www.channel4.com/programmes/coalition">Coalition</a>, Channel 4’s drama-documentary which recounted the coalition negotiations that followed the 2010 election “based on extensive research”, have generally been good. Radio Times <a href="http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2015-03-28/channel-4s-coalition-funny-absorbing-and-moving-its-like-the-thick-of-it-on-valium">called it</a> “funny, absorbing and moving”. Writing for the Guardian, Lucy Mangan <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2015/mar/28/coalition-review-the-bloodless-freaks-began-to-swell-with-life-and-humanity">described it as</a> “gripping and moving”, despite being very sceptical at the start. In The Conversation, Steven Fielding produced <a href="https://theconversation.com/nick-clegg-a-hero-watch-this-tv-drama-and-you-may-think-so-39443">a broadly positive review</a>. </p>
<p>I’m afraid my own view was rather less enthusiastic. Coalition was watchable and contained some insights into the May 2010 process which were valuable – notably the recognition that none of the players fully understood the value of the bargaining chips they held or the kinds of deals that might be possible with skillful negotiation. But overall I found it to be an unsatisfying reconstruction for several substantial reasons.</p>
<h2>Not credible</h2>
<p>An initial impression, which never really departed, was the leading actors’ lack of resemblance to the well-known characters they were playing. Of course, the bar has been set high by Michael Sheen’s remarkable Blair in <a href="http://www.channel4.com/programmes/the-deal">The Deal</a> and <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0436697/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_42">The Queen</a>, but several comparable political docudramas have been much more successful than Coalition in producing such credible resemblances. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/76588/original/image-20150331-1266-z26d5g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/76588/original/image-20150331-1266-z26d5g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/76588/original/image-20150331-1266-z26d5g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=901&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76588/original/image-20150331-1266-z26d5g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=901&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76588/original/image-20150331-1266-z26d5g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=901&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76588/original/image-20150331-1266-z26d5g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1133&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76588/original/image-20150331-1266-z26d5g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1133&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76588/original/image-20150331-1266-z26d5g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1133&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Nick who?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Rory Mulvey/Channel 4</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This is by no means merely a matter of physical appearance. The acting must also feel right. The best examples in other political docudramas inhabit the character, their voice and mannerisms, and this can overcome physical differences. As long ago as 1991, <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0381648/">Thatcher: The Final Days</a> achieved this not only with Sylvia Sims’s Thatcher but with much of her cabinet. </p>
<p>I scarcely ever felt this in watching Coalition – Mark Dexter’s Cameron and Mark Gatiss’s remarkable Mandelson probably came closest. But it was particularly difficult to believe in Bertie Carvel’s Clegg, and having to ask myself “who is that supposed to be again?” throughout became aggravating.</p>
<h2>Polished beyond recognition</h2>
<p>Another reason for dissatisfaction was the approach taken in dramatising these events. Alvin Lee once said that “the news of today will be the movies of tomorrow”. So it proved here. The acting styles were too mannered and the lighting too perfect to generate any sense that we were watching a representation of real life, however “real” the events on which Coalition was based may prove to have been. </p>
<p>This was political negotiation recast as melodrama and, consequently, it was difficult to suspend one’s disbelief. If <a href="https://theconversation.com/nick-clegg-a-hero-watch-this-tv-drama-and-you-may-think-so-39443">Clegg emerged as the “hero”</a> (despite giving away most of his party’s principles), it was because the imposed narrative demanded one. Better, surely, to acknowledge that the real narratives of politics are nowhere near as tidy, just as their actual appearance is nowhere near as slick as was suggested here. </p>
<p>Indeed there were moments which recalled, for me, the Comic Strip’s <a href="http://www.channel4.com/programmes/comic-strip-presents/on-demand/7184-001">Strike!</a>, in which the 1984-85 miners’ strike is retold as if the story had been rewritten to suit the needs of Hollywood. Coalition is far worthier in intent and much more accurate, of course, but its look and acting styles brought the comparison to mind nonetheless.</p>
<h2>The great game</h2>
<p>My final, rather dispiriting, concern was the sealed-off nature of the world depicted in Coalition. In creating a hung parliament, we’re told, “the people have spoken”. But we never saw nor heard from them; they appear to have been written out of this narrative altogether. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/76587/original/image-20150331-1274-1rlnpcf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/76587/original/image-20150331-1274-1rlnpcf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/76587/original/image-20150331-1274-1rlnpcf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=902&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76587/original/image-20150331-1274-1rlnpcf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=902&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76587/original/image-20150331-1274-1rlnpcf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=902&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76587/original/image-20150331-1274-1rlnpcf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1133&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76587/original/image-20150331-1274-1rlnpcf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1133&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76587/original/image-20150331-1274-1rlnpcf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1133&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Mark Gatiss stealing the show.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Rory Mulvey/Channel 4</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Instead, we were given what appeared to be a great game with no greater consequence for its players than that their team should win or lose. Perhaps this is how many of the <em>dramatis personae</em> viewed it at the time, but the consequences of this parlour game have been played out in the lives of many of the nation’s citizens, sometimes to devastating effect. </p>
<p>It would have been reassuring to see at least one of the characters step beyond the focus on party advantage and reflect on the potentially life-changing issues that are at stake for the rest of the country – the very audience for whom the docudrama was made. Perhaps it was simply safer to avoid actual politics in the name of maintaining a sense of political balance. </p>
<p>Disappointing though it was as a document of those heady post-election days, Coalition was worth watching as a drama, offering plenty of intrigue and careful pacing and, above all, a marvellous performance by Gatiss as Mandelson. Blessed with many of the best lines, he inhabited his character with a credibility which most of the other players lacked, stealing every scene he was in. </p>
<p>But overall, I found Coalition to be one hell of a missed opportunity. It could have offered real insight into politicians and the political process, which would have been invaluable so close to another election. But for a docudrama, it was simply too slickly theatrical to offer much documentary value.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/39599/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Goddard is a rather inactive member of the Green Party.</span></em></p>The political docudrama missed a huge opportunity to offer real insight so close to another election.Peter Goddard, Senior Lecturer in the Department of Communication and Media, University of LiverpoolLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/394432015-03-28T09:50:12Z2015-03-28T09:50:12ZNick Clegg a hero? Watch this TV drama and you may think so<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/76287/original/image-20150327-16130-nnxok3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Guess who!</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Rory Mulvey/Channel 4</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>James Graham is that precious thing: a dramatist who takes politics seriously. Unlike his peers he does not use politics as the excuse for cheap jokes that exploit Britons’ ill-informed cynicism about those we elect to govern in our name. </p>
<p>His 2012 play <a href="http://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/shows/this-house">This House</a> looked at how Labour and Conservative whips were forced to work together during the minority Wilson and Callaghan governments of the 1970s. It was a great success – at least with National Theatre audiences, an overwhelmingly middle class and mature group.</p>
<p>As in This House, so in his first television drama, <a href="http://www.channel4.com/programmes/coalition">Coalition</a>, broadcast on Channel 4 on Saturday March 28. Here Graham shows how essentially decent men (and a woman) struggle with an almost impossible situation to make representative democracy work. In the case of Coalition he focuses on the five frenetic days between the 2010 election result and the formation of Britain’s first post-war coalition government, the beginning of what was sold as a new kind of politics. </p>
<p>Unusually for a television political drama, there are no villains. Even Mark Gatiss’s portrayal of Peter Mandelson, while archly camp, never degenerates into a pantomime villain – although he does first appear amidst a puff of smoke. The three party leaders are all presented in their best possible light, at times humourous and humble, exhibiting little hubris. Gordon Brown’s infamous temper is never shown: at worst he is no more than a little impetuous. Graham wants the audience to empathise with the political class during a uniquely difficult period, showing them to be just like us: why, some are even shown smoking and swearing. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/76301/original/image-20150327-16090-8mz82p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/76301/original/image-20150327-16090-8mz82p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76301/original/image-20150327-16090-8mz82p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76301/original/image-20150327-16090-8mz82p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76301/original/image-20150327-16090-8mz82p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76301/original/image-20150327-16090-8mz82p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76301/original/image-20150327-16090-8mz82p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Unsung hero.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Rory Mulvey/Channel 4</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Noble Nick</h2>
<p>Graham’s central protagonist is Nick Clegg: “You’re a good man Nick,” Brown repeatedly says at one point. He certainly emerges from Coalition as an admirable character. The drama starts with the Liberal Democrat leader shooting to prominence thanks to the first television debates. But he’s quickly cast into despair when a twisted electoral system gives his party fewer seats than in 2005, until he realises that Cameron’s failure to win a Commons majority has presented his party with a great opportunity to finally exercise power. </p>
<p>The drama generally takes Clegg’s avowed desire to achieve “real reform” in office on trust. “It’s for the greater good” he tells his sceptical party while trying to convince them of the need to enter into what many feel is an unholy alliance with the Tories. We’re meant to think that that is what he actually believes. </p>
<p>As a kind of <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1526318/?ref_=nv_sr_1">Borgen</a> made real and British, Coalition rehearses the argument also made in the 2012 movie <a href="http://example.com/">Lincoln</a>: that in politics good things can come from compromise, from deals and dark business. And while Clegg did not exactly free the slaves in 2010, Graham seems to believe that he did the right thing by entering office. For in so doing, it is claimed at the end of the drama, he made multi-party politics possible, that being – we are induced to think – a vast improvement on the two-party duopoly rejected by the electorate in 2010. </p>
<p>Graham’s positive view of the coalition is highlighted by those he shows opposing the two young men at the centre of its making. There will be few Tory backbenchers happy at being depicted as a bunch of angry old men. When one announces that Margaret Thatcher didn’t like coalitions, I suspect audiences are meant to take it as a point in favour of coalitions. And, if Paddy Ashdown finally supports Clegg, he is throughout most of the drama a wistful oppositional voice from the past, one not in tune with the needs of 2010.</p>
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<h2>Too sympathetic?</h2>
<p>But in his almost revolutionary desire to empathise with our political leaders has Graham gone too far? Certainly, Clegg’s willingness to ditch much of his party’s 2010 manifesto, most infamously the pledge to abolish tuition fees, is dispatched in the blink of an eye. The audience is presumably meant to accept Clegg’s assertion that “there is no money”, a contentious claim then put about by the Conservatives. For, if Graham is right to show our politicians as human beings – and encourages us to feel sorry for Gordon, to sympathise with Nick and to share David’s frustration, he does push their politics to the background. Politicians are human; but they are also politicians. </p>
<p>As in <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0381131/">The Deal</a>, Channel 4’s 2003 dramatisation of the troubled Blair-Brown relationship, at the end of Coalition the actors are replaced by those they portray, cutting to footage of the real Cameron and Clegg in the Downing Street Rose Garden. As with The Deal there will be some viewers who will accept Graham’s account – we know that such drama-documentaries have a special power to convince.</p>
<p>I don’t know how many will watch Coalition but it will be surprising if given the competitive nature of Saturday night schedules many more than a million do. This is of course many times more than saw This House in the National Theatre but very probably such viewers will be already confirmed in their interest in and knowledge of the workings of representative democracy. Those millions glued to Casualty or still chuckling after Ant and Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway, many of whom consider “politician” a term of abuse, will not have seen Graham’s optimistic interpretation of our recent political past. </p>
<p>This is a pity, because, whatever questions there might be over its take on events, Coalition brings out the emotion, excitement and humour of those few days in May 2010, ones which punctures many of the populist stereotypes about our political class, ones which explain why the nation is currently yawning its way to another general election.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/39443/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Steven Fielding is a member of the Labour party.</span></em></p>Channel 4’s dramatisation of the five days in May 2010 when the Coalition was formed is almost revolutionarily empathetic with our political leaders.Steven Fielding, Professor of Political History, University of NottinghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/383122015-03-04T04:33:53Z2015-03-04T04:33:53ZWith two months until the election, the Liberal Democrat story is already written<p>By the measure of current polling, the Liberal Democrats are set for a terrible night on May 7, securing only around <a href="http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/uk-polling-report-average-2">8% of the vote</a>. Their grand gamble with the Conservatives in 2010 has simply not paid off.</p>
<p>When the Liberal Democrats entered into coalition with the Tories, they were digesting a strangely disappointing moment, after faring much worse than predicted in a promising campaign. Nevertheless, Nick Clegg’s party held the balance of power and took the opportunity to enter government. </p>
<p>This, it was argued, was the moment to demonstrate that coalition government could work, that the two-party system was no longer fit for purpose, and that politics could be done in a different way – ideas at the core of the party’s ethos.</p>
<p>Those early days of the coalition indeed held great promise, and at first it seemed that the Liberal Democrats had done well out of the post-election negotiations. The <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/78977/coalition_programme_for_government.pdf">coalition agreement</a>, for example, seemed to reflect the Liberal Democrats’ ideological position <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17457289.2011.562610#.VPV8345uLXQ">at least as much as it did the Conservatives’</a>. The party secured agreement on key manifesto pledges around tax cuts, a pupil premium, political reform and a sustainable economy. </p>
<p>In addition, the party was <a href="http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/power-in-the-coalition-cabinet-a-reappraisal/">well-represented in government</a> – securing five out of 22 ministerial posts, 12 junior ministerial posts and about 30% of cabinet committee places.</p>
<p>But in practice, the Liberal Democrats’ taste of power has been somewhat bitter. </p>
<h2>The only way is down</h2>
<p>Within months of assuming office, the Conservatives had taken full control of the agenda, rolling out ambitious reform programmes in health, education and welfare. In comparison, Liberal Democrat victories on <a href="http://www.libdems.org.uk/700_tax_cut_promised_800_tax_cut_delivered">taxation</a> and the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/teacher-network/teacher-blog/2014/jul/22/how-schools-spend-pupil-premium">pupil premium</a> seemed marginal gains, and many key pledges were not successfully implemented. </p>
<p>In the case of electoral reform, they were <a href="http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-13297573">humiliated at the ballot box</a>, as the alternative vote system was rejected by 67.9% to 32.1%.</p>
<p>The party’s reputation also took a battering. For signing up to the Conservative’s austerity agenda and reneging on its pledge to scrap university tuition fees, the party saw its poll ratings plummet, routinely struggling to hit 10% – this after the halcyon days of the 2010 campaign, during which some polls even had them <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/election-2010/7605260/General-Election-2010-Lib-Dems-take-lead-in-new-poll.html">in the lead</a>.</p>
<p>In material terms, since 2010, the Liberal Democrats have also lost hundreds of council seats, and they now have fewer than 3,000 councillors for the first time in their history. At the 2014 European elections, they lost seats in every region apart from the South East of England, attracting just 6.9% of the vote compared to 13.7% in 2009. The party’s membership also fell by 35% between 2010 and 2012. </p>
<p>This story already appears to have been written: the Liberal Democrats took a gamble that being in power would pay off, and aside from some small consolation prizes, they appear to have lost. </p>
<p>The true extent of this miscalculation will only be apparent at the polls on May 7, and after any negotiations that ensue in the event of a hung parliament. As the heady campaign of 2010 showed, there’s no predicting what can happen once the campaign proper gets underway.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/38312/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
Polling at 8% two months before polling day hardly bodes well – can the Lib Dems stop the bleeding?Katharine Dommett, Research Fellow in British Governance and Politics, University of SheffieldLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/371882015-02-18T14:39:00Z2015-02-18T14:39:00ZHow to have influence in a coalition: dos and don’ts for the Liberal Democrats<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/72363/original/image-20150218-20802-d0n0nc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">I'll take this one Nick. Back in your box.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">PA</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>As it becomes clear that a hung parliament is the most likely outcome of the May 7 UK general election, Liberal Democrat MPs are going into preparation mode. The party may end up with the worst electoral results in a generation, but it may once again find itself in the position of kingmaker thanks to the vagaries of the electoral system and of coalition politics.</p>
<p>This scenario is the stuff of nightmares for many backbenchers who would prefer to spend the next five years licking their wounds in the opposition benches. Some are so bruised by the experience of coalition government with the Conservatives that they <a href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/9d0423d0-1894-11e4-a51a-00144feabdc0.html#axzz3S1T0owSp">claim</a> to get down on their knees every night “and pray that the next election doesn’t produce a hung parliament”.</p>
<p>But the leadership thinks differently. Despite the many humiliations, Nick Clegg believes his is a party of government. For that reason he has been preparing a strategy for negotiating a new coalition with whichever party holds the greatest number of seats on May 8. But if he wants to ensure that the voice of his party matters, he needs to learn these four lessons.</p>
<h2>1. Remember your voters</h2>
<p>The first lesson is about the party’s relation with its voters. The Liberal Democrats’ main challenge is to convince enough voters to elect a sufficient number of MPs so the party is considered to be a plausible coalition partner. In order to do so, it is vital not to make promises that can’t be kept. </p>
<p>As <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/11/27/nick-clegg-losing-seat-poll_n_6231382.html">opinion polls</a> and results from local and European Parliament elections showed, promising to abolish tuition fees at the last election proved to be a colossal error.</p>
<h2>2. Think bigger</h2>
<p>Liberal Democrat unpopularity is not only a result of reneging on manifesto promises though. The party’s influence over coalition policies is practically invisible, though it is undeniable that it has <a href="https://theconversation.com/2014-the-year-the-old-guard-woke-up-to-multi-party-politics-35775">restrained</a> the Conservatives in areas such as welfare cuts and repatriating powers from Brussels.</p>
<p>In 2010, the party invested all its chips in electoral reform and in a few other token policies. As we now know, this was another big mistake. The Liberal Democrats lost the referendum on the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-13297573">alternative vote electoral system</a> and proposals for House of Lords reform were defeated in the House of Commons. Policy achievements – such as the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/pupil-premium-information-for-schools-and-alternative-provision-settings">pupil premium</a>, <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/nick-clegg-announces-funding-details-for-free-school-meals">free school meals</a>, the increase in the <a href="http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/protect/2014/12/personal-tax-allowance-to-rise-autumn-statement-2014">tax allowance</a> and so on – tend to be in micro areas of public policy that are invisible to most voters.</p>
<p>The Liberal Democrats should therefore approach 2015 negotiations with a longer list of policy priorities. This list should go beyond the party’s favourite areas of constitutional reform and environmental protection and include areas of high public interest. For instance, they could develop a red line stance on the public deficit, or on the referendum on EU membership.</p>
<h2>3. Push for portfolios</h2>
<p>To ensure influence, the Liberal Democrats will need to adopt a different approach to the distribution of ministerial portfolios too. This time MPs need to go for depth over breadth.</p>
<p>After five years in government, the Liberal Democrats are acutely aware that spreading ministers across as many departments as possible did not deliver influence. The few departments it controlled were not the big spenders and, when they were, the Liberal Democrat cabinet minister did not have autonomy or sufficient resources. Danny Alexander, for example, may have made it to the Treasury but he has had only modest policy autonomy. </p>
<p>The Liberal Democrats should therefore seek to obtain fewer government posts but insist on controlling high-spending and visible government departments such as the Department for Education, the Department for International Development, the Home Office or even the Foreign Office. </p>
<h2>4. Find strength in numbers</h2>
<p>With rare exceptions, Liberal Democrat junior ministers either “<a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/liberaldemocrats/10749902/Jeremy-Browne-Under-Nick-Clegg-weve-turned-timid.html">went native</a>” in their departments, like Jeremy Browne or felt, like Norman Baker, they were the “<a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/norman-baker-i-resign--and-its-theresa-mays-fault.9837189.html#">the cuckoo in the nest</a>”.</p>
<p>To avoid the Baker scenario, the Liberal Democrats should deploy more than one junior minister in key departments that are led by the senior party of the coalition.</p>
<p>Of course, applying these lessons does not guarantee influence for the junior party in a coalition government; many other factors are at play once votes have been cast. But they can create the conditions for more equal relations between the parties than the Liberal Democrats have experienced for the past five years.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/37188/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
As it becomes clear that a hung parliament is the most likely outcome of the May 7 UK general election, Liberal Democrat MPs are going into preparation mode. The party may end up with the worst electoral…Eunice Goes, Associate Professor of Communications, Richmond American International UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/350062014-12-03T19:37:00Z2014-12-03T19:37:00ZHow George Osborne fell into the deficit gap<p>The Autumn Statement was supposed to be a celebratory moment for the coalition government – with its deficit-reduction strategy nearing completion and the 2015 election on the horizon, pre-election giveaways could begin. But, in his last update on the state of the UK economy, we find George Osborne in a highly defensive posture. And influential think-tanks such as <a href="http://www.resolutionfoundation.org/publications/in-the-balance-public-finances-in-the-next-parliament/">the Resolution Foundation</a> and the <a href="http://www.smf.co.uk/publications/smf-briefing-a-deficit-of-growth-spending-choices-after-2015/">Social Market Foundation</a> are now giving credence to the idea that the Liberal Democrats and the Labour Party may have more credible post-2015 deficit reduction strategies than a majority Conservative government.</p>
<p>The question of how we got here, despite the resumption of steady growth, seems to be genuinely puzzling Osborne and his <a href="http://www.democraticaudit.com/?p=1278">hand-picked forecasters</a>, based at the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR). Our work at <a href="http://speri.dept.shef.ac.uk/speri-briefs/">the Sheffield Political Economy Research Institute</a> examining OBR fiscal and economic forecasts since 2010, however, shows that the Conservative Party’s support for a services-led, low-wage recovery failed to make any meaningful progress on deficit reduction.</p>
<p>And the economic implications of the government’s recovery strategy were almost entirely missed by the government’s forecasters. This oversight has afforded Osborne a relatively easy ride until now, but today’s Autumn Statement surely represents crunch time for the coalition’s approach to reducing the deficit.</p>
<h2>Why the targets are being missed</h2>
<p>The headline is that the deficit-reduction targets will not be met. This failure will rightly form the basis of evaluations of the coalition’s record in office. And a look beyond the headlines reveals that targets are being missed as a result of the low-wage economy the present government’s policies have created. A failure to recognise this transformation has resulted in some seriously faulty economic forecasts.</p>
<p>The main, direct reason why the coalition’s deficit reduction agenda has failed so comprehensively is that tax revenues are significantly lower than expected. In 2013-2014, income tax revenue was £155 billion. Yet, at the 2010 Autumn Statement, the OBR forecast that income tax revenue (in cash terms) would be £178 billion (an over-forecast of 15%). The figure published today for 2013/14 revenue was actually slightly higher than predicted a year ago, but revenue has been significantly revised down, as usual, for every subsequent year.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/66231/original/image-20141203-3651-1jrianf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/66231/original/image-20141203-3651-1jrianf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/66231/original/image-20141203-3651-1jrianf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=283&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/66231/original/image-20141203-3651-1jrianf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=283&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/66231/original/image-20141203-3651-1jrianf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=283&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/66231/original/image-20141203-3651-1jrianf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=356&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/66231/original/image-20141203-3651-1jrianf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=356&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/66231/original/image-20141203-3651-1jrianf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=356&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Income tax revenue forecasts since 2009.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">OBR</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Why, when unemployment has been falling so steadily, have income tax receipts been so sluggish? The answer to this question is fairly straightforward: more people are in work but earnings growth has essentially been stagnant for several years. This suggests a rise of a low-wage economy, where despite increasing employment opportunities, jobs are concentrated in <a href="http://www.renewal.org.uk/articles/the-political-economy-of-the-service-transition/">low-wage and insecure services-sector industries</a>. </p>
<h2>Faulty forecasting</h2>
<p>As late as his <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/topical-events/autumn-statement-2013">2013 Autumn Statement</a>, Osborne predicted average earnings growth of 3.3% in 2015, 3.5% in 2016, 3.7% in 2017 and 3.8% in 2018. Again, the majority of these figures have been downgraded significantly. For instance, next year earnings growth is now expected to be only 2%. We are witnessing a profound failure by political elites to acknowledge the transformation in the UK economy which has accelerated since the financial crisis.</p>
<p>The services sector has increased rapidly from three-quarters to four-fifths of the UK economy. This is a long-term meta-trend that the forecasters simply cannot compute. Much new employment is also in phony self-employment, with the self-employed now <a href="http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Documents/SEI2013.pdf">earning significantly less</a> than they were before the crisis. </p>
<p>Much of the government’s rhetoric and austerity agenda, therefore, has been based upon notions that private sector employment will drive economic growth. But this is far harder when the economy is dominated by labour-intense industries which offer little scope for increases in productivity. Productivity forecasts have been consistently and significantly downgraded. This over-forecasting is more than merely unfortunate or embarrassing. It has convinced the government that a market-led recovery will (eventually) bear fruit, undermining the case for greater public investment to incentivise private investment.</p>
<p>The foreword to the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/78977/coalition_programme_for_government.pdf">coalition agreement</a> in 2010 stated that “the deficit reduction programme takes precedence over any of the other measures in this agreement”. Eliminating the deficit, so we were told, was the key target to judge the government on. </p>
<p>Not only has the current government failed through its own definitions of economic priorities, but it has further generated a low-wage economy which has fatally undermined any possibility that meaningful progress on reducing the deficit might have been made. The emphasis it placed upon a private sector-led recovery diminishes with every downward revision made by Osborne and co, and consistent over-forecasting has both compounded and helped to obscure the problem.</p>
<figure>
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</figure><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/35006/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Autumn Statement was supposed to be a celebratory moment for the coalition government – with its deficit-reduction strategy nearing completion and the 2015 election on the horizon, pre-election giveaways…Craig Berry, Research Associate, Sheffield Political Economy Research Institute (SPERI), University of SheffieldChristopher Kirkland, PhD candidate in politics, University of SheffieldLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/338062014-11-05T11:18:02Z2014-11-05T11:18:02ZNorman Baker is one in a million, not a sign of the coalition’s troubles<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/63624/original/m6yftw79-1415112384.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Baker has caused many a bun fight in his time.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/policyexchange/9308839460/in/photolist-daUEhz-asYEWA-asYEWJ-fbAeE5-aVJVrp">Policy Exchange</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Norman Baker’s resignation from the Home Office can tell us a lot about Norman Baker, the maverick’s maverick, the hippy at the Iron Maiden concert. It can tell us something about Theresa May, and show us in unusually revealing detail what it’s like behind the scenes in one of the great offices of state. What it probably can’t do is tell us a great deal about the state of the coalition – however much commentators wish it would. </p>
<p>Critics of the Liberal Democrats accuse Baker of trying to save his skin ahead of next year’s election by distancing himself from May and her policies. But that’s not why he resigned. In Baker’s <a href="http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/2015guide/lewes/">Lewes constituency</a>, the Conservatives are the main threat. He has nothing to gain there by criticising them.</p>
<p>There’s far more to his move than simple party politics. The fact that Baker is a Liberal Democrat and May a Conservative is one of the least important issues in this story. If it were that simple, coalitions would never exist. The individuals that hold office, and the office they hold, is where the important detail lies. Understanding this case hinges on two principle factors: the nature of Norman Baker and the nature of the Home Office.</p>
<h2>Odd one in</h2>
<p>I first met Baker in 1990 when we worked together as parliamentary researchers. We were, and still are, firm friends, but he cut a strange figure among the Lib Dem parliamentary researchers. He was ten years older than the rest of us and had spent those ten years running record shops, teaching English and working as a railway station master. We were cheerful amateurs, but Baker took himself and his job quite seriously. He was there to do good. He was rather different.</p>
<p>Typically he made the move from parliamentary researcher to MP, but less typically he did so via every layer of local government including parish, district and county, all of which he thoroughly enjoyed. He’s always been a bit of a hippy, adhering to a strictly vegetarian diet, championing the cause of Tibet, animal rights, insisting on a ministerial bike instead of ministerial car. This isn’t something he does for effect – he believes in things. He’s someone who practises what he preaches. </p>
<p>These things all sound rather good and rare qualities in a politician, and indeed they are, but being different from the others isn’t necessarily going to help in a game requiring team players and tribal instincts. What happened in the Home Office is, as such, not necessarily a reflection on the wider coalition.</p>
<p>Baker did, after all, enjoy a happy and successful stint at the Department for Transport. As a self-confessed train enthusiast, he was able to see through a number of pragmatic projects that he, the civil service and his Conservative counterpart could agree on.</p>
<p>But at the Home Office, political philosophy, rather than pragmatism or charm, rule the roost. Baker is an old fashioned liberal, drawn to the Liberals by the rousing words of Jo Grimond, well-read, well-versed and adored by his party. May is all these things equally to traditional Conservatives. The two appeared to bump along just fine on a number of big issues, like FGM and child abuse, but questions of personal liberty – such as drugs – were bound to cause trouble. Baker <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/oct/30/government-drug-laws-survey-suppressed-lib-dem-minister-norman-baker">produced evidence</a> to show that stricter drug laws would do nothing to affect drug use. It highlighted the limitations of a classic liberal and a classic conservative working together, and had no place in May’s uncompromising Home Office. </p>
<h2>Full life</h2>
<p>But the end of his Home Office career is not likely to break Baker. He has made political enemies along the way, hounding Peter Mandleson out over the <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/1137974.stm">Hinduja Brothers passport scandal</a>, repeatedly raising the spectre of MP’s expenses and refusing to the let the <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/conspiracy_files/6380231.stm">death of David Kelly</a> pass without close scrutiny, and yet none of his political enemies have managed to trip him up. </p>
<p>He is a romantic, an appropriate representative for the rolling hills of his Lewes constituency. He seems happy to see his life in politics as genuinely just one part of his life. This may be precisely why the local baptist church calls him “Norman B the fab MP”. Because he refuses to be needy. He has his family, he has his music, he has his home above a former ice-cream parlour, where he plays pinball and listens to 78s (arranged in catalogue order number, naturally), prepares for his weekly local radio show and writes songs. </p>
<p>The resignation of this unusual politician tells us most about him, not about the state of politics. It may reveal which issues will rumble on in future coalitions in the Home Office, but Baker is unlikely to be the first of many, or his resignation a crack that becomes a cavern in the coalition.</p>
<p>Baker’s story may show us that while coalition requires compromise and pragmatism, for some politicians, there are limits. His came when an evidence-based drugs policy was thrown out but it would have come sooner or later on another issue where a clear philosophical difference existed between traditional liberals and traditional Conservatives. The point is that those issues are rare, and politicians like Baker are rarer still. He’s not like the others, who are likely to hold firm until May 2015, and probably beyond.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/33806/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Emma Sanderson-Nash has been employed by Norman Baker MP as a Parliamentary Researcher in 2001 and 2003 and worked briefly for him as a volunteer in 2014. </span></em></p>Norman Baker’s resignation from the Home Office can tell us a lot about Norman Baker, the maverick’s maverick, the hippy at the Iron Maiden concert. It can tell us something about Theresa May, and show…Emma Sanderson-Nash, Practitioner in Politics, Queen Mary University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/292362014-07-16T11:27:32Z2014-07-16T11:27:32ZWhy exit of Gove and Willetts is unlikely to change the direction of Tory education policy<p>David Cameron’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/voter-friendly-reshuffle-from-the-pr-prime-minister-is-more-spin-than-substance-29246">cabinet reshuffle</a> has been substantial. Nowhere more so than in education, where both the secretary of state for education, Michael Gove, and the minister responsible for universities and science, David Willetts, have been replaced. Two newcomers are now in charge of young people’s futures – Nicky Morgan has replaced Gove at the department for education and Greg Clark takes on the university portfolio. </p>
<p>Willetts’s removal could have been anticipated but <a href="https://theconversation.com/goves-revolution-leaves-behind-a-fast-food-education-system-29190">Gove’s demotion (for that is what it is) to chief whip</a> took many by surprise and arguably provided the biggest headline of the whole reshuffle. The changes are significant – not least because both ministers have been in post since the coalition government came to power in 2010. By modern ministerial standards, they have had considerable time to stamp their mark on their respective areas of the education system.</p>
<p>Both men exemplified the coalition government’s commitment to radically restructure education in ways that repudiate traditional public service and welfare state values. Instead, they sought to reconfigure schools and universities as “business-like” organisations operating in <a href="https://theconversation.com/its-hard-to-market-a-university-and-make-it-accessible-to-all-28686">market-driven environments</a>. As such they have illustrated one of the great paradoxes of the current government – that a coalition administration based on centre party support from the Liberal Democrats has presided over the most radical, and right wing, restructuring of welfare services since the welfare state emerged from post-war reconstruction. </p>
<h2>Academies – Gove’s biggest legacy</h2>
<p>Gove’s time in office has seen <a href="https://theconversation.com/goves-revolution-leaves-behind-a-fast-food-education-system-29190">change on an extraordinary scale</a>, with almost no aspect of the school system left untouched, including wide-reaching curriculum and assessment reforms. </p>
<p>But there can be little doubt that the most significant feature of the Gove era has been a relentless drive to <a href="https://theconversation.com/failing-academy-chains-highlight-hole-at-heart-of-education-policy-23954">wrest schools away from local authority control</a> and to establish a school system based on “state-funded independent” schools in the form of academies and free schools. This breaking up of the school system marks a significant staging post in the move towards a privatised, for-profit model of provision supported by public money, and topped up with private contributions. </p>
<p>For some time, it has looked as though Gove was intent on achieving a single-term revolution in which reform (in the form of academisation) was pressed so far, and so fast, that it would not be considered possible for a future government to reverse it. Only time will tell if he has been successful.</p>
<h2>Willetts cemented the market</h2>
<p>For universities, Willetts has proven to be a less controversial figure than his counterpart in the schools sector. But his term in office will be similarly characterised by the drive to turn public services into commercial organisations, and to accelerate the trend to a more aggressive market-based higher education system. </p>
<p>In their highly regarded 1999 book <a href="http://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Academic_Capitalism.html?id=A-7bFoyY8wcC">Academic Capitalism: Politics, Policies and the Entrepreneurial University</a> Sheila Slaughter and Larry Leslie argued that England’s universities represented the most developed examples of the commercially driven higher education institution. This process has accelerated many times over during the period of the current government. </p>
<p>The most important example of this was the introduction of up to £9,000 fees for students. But the changes must also be seen as part of a much wider <a href="https://theconversation.com/universities-more-concerned-with-student-numbers-than-government-grants-23102">re-casting of the relationship</a> between students and academics, with students encouraged to behave as demanding consumers in an exchange relationship.</p>
<h2>Feeding the economy</h2>
<p>The English education system, in schools, further education colleges and universities has never been so subservient to the needs of the wider economy than it is now. The global economy is becoming faster, greedier and more unequal – and it is increasingly the role of educational institutions to prepare their pupils and students to take their place in this world. </p>
<p>In order to prepare young people for the market then it has become increasingly important for education institutions to mimic the market. Students learn quickly that they must learn to sink or swim. As one of Gove’s aides once said: “If we don’t work like the Chinese, we will work for the Chinese.” </p>
<p>Such developments have never gone unchallenged, even though there is increasing evidence that a culture of fear in schools and universities is suppressing dissent and resistance. Student fees continue to attract controversy, opposition, and <a href="https://theconversation.com/universities-need-more-than-a-pledge-to-reduce-student-fees-25186">political attention</a> while both the school and university sectors have experienced industrial unrest in the last 12 months. There can be little doubt that <a href="https://theconversation.com/are-the-tables-turning-in-michael-goves-war-on-teacher-unions-25417">Gove’s deteriorating relationship</a> with teachers, including on-going strike action, was a significant contributory factor (amongst several others) in his departure.</p>
<h2>Much of the same?</h2>
<p>In their new roles, Nicky Morgan and Greg Clark are more than likely to seek to consolidate in the run up to next year’s general election with little dramatic, or controversial, change. Business as usual (in more ways than one) is the most likely scenario. As the new secretary of state for education, Morgan looks like an attempt to place a more media-friendly personality into a politically high-profile role, rather than face a general election campaign with Gove as the public face of the Tories’ schools policy.</p>
<p>But the change of personnel does offer the possibility of changes in direction. Both ministers might do well to start by building bridges with those who work in, and understand, the services they provide. Conservatives need to stop presenting educators as “enemies of promise”, and instead recognise the huge energy for change and development that can be generated when you work with people, and not against them.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/29236/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Howard Stevenson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>David Cameron’s cabinet reshuffle has been substantial. Nowhere more so than in education, where both the secretary of state for education, Michael Gove, and the minister responsible for universities and…Howard Stevenson, Director of Research and Professor of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies, School of Education, University of NottinghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/284702014-06-26T13:33:12Z2014-06-26T13:33:12ZThe little Orange Book that put the Lib Dems in the big leagues<p>On June 24, a group of Liberal Democrats <a href="http://www.centreforum.org/index.php/mainforthcoming/630-the-orange-book-conference-details">gathered in central London</a> to mark the tenth anniversary of the publication of a book that very few voters have probably even heard of – but whose effect on British politics has been profound.</p>
<p><a href="http://books.google.co.uk/books/about/The_Orange_Book.html?id=ftSQGwAACAAJ">The Orange Book</a> was <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3621340.stm">hugely controversial</a> in the party at the time of its original publication, so much so that the launch party had to be cancelled. But the publication of The Orange Book marked a major shift in the Liberal Democrats’ ideology, one that would decisively move the centre of British politics. </p>
<p>Under the leadership of Charles Kennedy, the party had staked out a commitment to higher taxation and investment in public services, a strategy that many thought placed them to the left of Labour at the <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/vote_2005/issues/4485029.stm">2005 general election</a>.</p>
<p>It was this strategy that provoked the ire of the The Orange Book’s editors, Paul Marshall and David Laws. In a provocative opening essay, Laws argued that the Liberal Democrats had neglected their party’s pro-market economic liberal tradition, and had instead lapsed into a policy mindset little better than “soggy socialism”; they had placed too much faith in the power of the state to improve people’s lives, and too little faith in the power of choice and competition. The Orange Book, Laws wrote, was an attempt to reassert these economically liberal traditions.</p>
<p>In truth, the Orange Book was rather less radical and rather more pluralistic than its editors claimed at the time. But its call for a return to economic liberalism did have an impact on Lib Dem policy in the years after 2005. </p>
<h2>Fight for your right</h2>
<p>In 2007, the party abandoned its longstanding pledge to introduce a new 50p tax rate on the highest earners, and the following year called for a reduction in the overall burden of taxation. This was a far cry from the Lib Dem manifestos of previous elections, which had all revolved around a high tax-high spend model of service provision.</p>
<p>Around the same time, many senior Liberal Democrats began to display a greater enthusiasm for diversity of provision within the welfare state. In January 2008 Nick Clegg used <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7187852.stm">his first speech as leader of the party</a> to call for the introduction of “free schools”, and urged the “vast monster of Whitehall” to withdraw from the day-to-day running of public services. </p>
<p>Others began to call for similar policies, with both Laws and Cable using their contributions to <a href="http://www.ippr.org/publications/beyond-liberty-is-the-future-of-liberalism-progressive">a collection of essays for the IPPR</a> to call for experiments with the extension of consumer choice and quasi-market mechanisms into health and education. This was another big break with the party’s 2005 line, when <a href="http://ucrel.lancs.ac.uk/wmatrix/tutorial/libdem%20manifesto%202005.pdf">the manifesto had struck a sceptical tone</a> about the potential for choice in public services.</p>
<h2>Growing up</h2>
<p>This shift towards economic liberalism had a major impact on the subsequent coalition with the Conservative Party. While the coalition itself might have been the product of pure parliamentary arithmetic, the changing policy profile of the Party after 2006 meant that by 2010 a Liberal-Conservative coalition was substantially more viable than it had been for decades. </p>
<p>If the Orange Book’s “economic realism” persuaded many Conservatives to take the Liberal Democrats seriously, it also cleared common policy ground for the two parties to share.</p>
<p>While the 2010 coalition agreement was hardly a sure thing before the election returns forced the parties to forge it, their convergence had begun years earlier. <a href="http://www.centreforum.org/assets/pubs/libcon.pdf">A 2008 paper from CentreForum</a> noted a “significant congruence of opinion” between the two parties, driven in large part by a shared critique of an over-mighty state and shared instincts on the potential for reform of public services. For the first time in recent history, there was shared ground between Liberals and Conservatives.</p>
<p>Of course, not all the policies mooted in the Orange Book have matured into political reality. Vince Cable, for example, might have made good on his promise to privatise the Royal Mail, but he’s made little progress with his plan to abolish the Department for Business, Innovation, and Skills, which he now runs.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, the Orange Book liberals have left their mark with Coalitions policies such as free schools and the pupil premium. And seven of the nine original contributors to the book serve or have served in ministerial roles; an eighth (Marshall) serves as a non-executive board member at the department for education.</p>
<p>For a book that couldn’t even sustain a launch party, the Orange Book’s legacy is very momentous indeed.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/28470/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matthew Francis does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>On June 24, a group of Liberal Democrats gathered in central London to mark the tenth anniversary of the publication of a book that very few voters have probably even heard of – but whose effect on British…Matthew Francis, Teaching Fellow in Twentieth Century British History, University of BirminghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/276502014-06-05T15:24:44Z2014-06-05T15:24:44ZBirmingham has most to lose from Gove-May extremism row<p>Allegations of an “Islamist” plot to infiltrate and take over schools in Birmingham at the centre of <a href="https://theconversation.com/operation-trojan-horse-examining-the-islamic-takeover-of-birmingham-schools-25764">Operation Trojan Horse</a> are looking increasingly thin. But they have caused a very public row between education secretary Michael Gove and home secretary Theresa May over how to deal with extremism in schools. </p>
<p>From informal conversations I’ve had over the past few weeks with people from across Birmingham about Trojan Horse – including teachers at some of the schools, local journalists, fellow academics and researchers, and also ordinary people from within the city’s Muslim population – it is striking that hardly anyone has anything bad to say about the schools under investigation. Even fewer believe there was ever a takeover plot.</p>
<p>While speculation continues about what will eventually emerge from the Ofsted inspections undertaken in 21 Birmingham schools in response to the claims, it would seem highly unlikely that any concrete evidence of a wider “plot” will be found. </p>
<p>What is more likely to emerge when the Ofsted reports are released next week are a number of specific issues that will be applicable to specific schools as with any typical Ofsted inspection. This is what seems to be emerging from the drip-feed of leaks that continues to ensure the story remains in the public eye. </p>
<p>The most recent suggestions that <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-27676759">Golden Hillock School will be placed into special measures</a>. While a constant stream of information is good for journalists, it also raises a number of serious concerns that go beyond questioning the motivations of those behind the leaks.</p>
<p>One of these relates to the issue of tackling extremism in schools. This was <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-27706675">forced into the public domain</a> by the publication of a letter from May to Gove criticising him for failing to adequately deal with the situation. </p>
<p>She raised “<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/jun/04/theresa-may-letter-michael-gove-in-full">serious questions about the quality of school governance</a>”, over claims that the Department for Education was alerted to fears of a takeover plot back in 2008. Yet given there now appears to be little evidence of a “plot”, it appears somewhat bizarre that concerns are being raised about why this was not addressed in the past.</p>
<h2>Where responsibility lies</h2>
<p>Aside from a power play between two potential future Conservative party leaders, what seems to be at the heart of the May-Gove struggle is a disagreement about extremism and how to deal with it. </p>
<p>Reports have <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-27709008">claimed that sources within the home office</a> have accused the Department for Education of running a “parallel security policy”. <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/06/04/michael-gove-islam_n_5443576.html">Gove is thought to believe</a> that a general malaise exists within the Home Office where extremism is only confronted once it develops into terrorism.</p>
<p>Those close to Gove often talk of a “conveyor belt” that carries Muslims from the more conservative forms of Islam directly to Islamist extremism. Gove began to explore this in <a href="http://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Celsius_7_7.html?id=66TWAAAACAAJ">his 2006 book, Celsius 7/7</a> – for which the conspiracy theorists will focus on the chapter titled The Trojan Horse.</p>
<h2>Widening clampdown</h2>
<p>More recently, Gove has sought to extend the government’s definition of extremism. Not least, as <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/jun/04/theresa-may-letter-michael-gove-in-full">implied in May’s letter</a>, by seeking to include restrictions on Muslim girls wearing hijabs as part of a voluntary code of conduct aimed at combating extremism in schools as recommended in the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/tackling-extremism-in-the-uk-report-by-the-extremism-taskforce">report of the Extremism Task Force</a> published last year. Gove <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-27711245">has denied that such issues were being discussed in government</a>. </p>
<p>For some, there are concerns about Gove’s wider opinion of Muslims and Islam, not least because it is claimed <a href="http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2012/04/sayeeda-warsi-asian-voters">he tried to prevent the setting up of the Cross-Government Working Group on anti-Muslim Hatred</a> launched in 2012, something that was not widely known at the time.</p>
<p>It is ironic that at this week’s meeting of that same working group – of which I am an independent member – a number of attendees expressed real concern about “the message” being sent out to Muslims as a result of handling of the Trojan Horse allegations.</p>
<p>And this message will be felt most acutely in Birmingham. As <a href="http://theconversation.com/operation-trojan-horse-examining-the-islamic-takeover-of-birmingham-schools-25764">I wrote previously</a>, Operation Trojan Horse has the very real potential to feed into and further reinforce fears and anxieties about Muslims and Islam that already exist in wider society. </p>
<p>At the same time, it has an equal potential to further increase the scrutiny and interrogation of Muslim communities across the city that already feel “suspect”. Let’s not forget that Muslims in Birmingham are still getting over the stigma of being the unwilling victims of the unprecedented levels of surveillance that were introduced in 2008 through the now <a href="http://etn.sagepub.com/content/13/6/751.short">defunct Project Champion</a>.</p>
<h2>Ofsted’s role at stake</h2>
<p>There are also big concerns from the Trojan Horse investigation into the independence of the inspection process something that was voiced by a group of leading educationalists. Much of their unease focused on the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/may/30/ofsted-u-turn-trojan-horse-park-view-school-leak">Guardian story</a> claiming Ofsted’s first inspection of Park View Academy – the school at the centre of the allegations – had cleared the school and had retained its “outstanding” status. </p>
<p>The findings were overturned days later, requiring another inspection. This time a series of relatively minor recommendations were replaced with much more severe criticisms that are likely to see it placed in special measures when the findings are published next week. </p>
<p>Led by Tim Brighouse, a former chief education officer in Birmingham, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/jun/03/education-experts-ofsted-trojan-horse-birmingham-schools">education experts spoke out,</a> saying such behaviour ran the the very real risk of “tarnishing” all of the findings, in turn bringing into question the <a href="https://theconversation.com/ofsteds-future-at-stake-after-trojan-horse-scandal-25936">political independence of Ofsted</a> as an objective and professional body.</p>
<p>It will be interesting to see if opinions and attitudes in Birmingham change if the Ofsted reports and subsequent investigations do highlight that there was something a little more organised going on in at least some of the schools concerned. We can only speculate until then how that will play out against some of the more pressing concerns highlighted here – that the investigations were pre-determined and that an Islamophobic agenda is present within some political circles.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/27650/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chris Allen is currently an independent member of the cross-government working group on anti-Muslim hate. He receives no remuneration for this role.</span></em></p>Allegations of an “Islamist” plot to infiltrate and take over schools in Birmingham at the centre of Operation Trojan Horse are looking increasingly thin. But they have caused a very public row between…Chris Allen, Lecturer in Social Policy, University of BirminghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/275512014-06-04T05:04:14Z2014-06-04T05:04:14ZQueen’s speech: can David Cameron handle the most rebellious house since 1945?<p>The Queen’s Speech marks the start of the fourth and final session of the 2010 Parliament. Final sessions are usually relatively uncontroversial. An approaching general election has traditionally calmed things down in the Commons. Fewer MPs want to rock the boat. </p>
<p>There is usually less serious legislation to cause trouble, anyway. Why introduce controversial legislation knowing that an election called in the middle of the session will cause it to fall? Why cause unnecessary resentment among your own backbenchers? It all tended to combine to produce what Churchill once called the “<a href="http://archive.spectator.co.uk/article/3rd-november-1944/3/-odour-of-dissolution-">odour of dissolution</a>”.</p>
<p>The rules of the game have changed now, though. One consequence of the government’s <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-25445868">Fixed-Term Parliaments Act</a> is that – barring something unforeseen – this session should go the distance. With no need to curtail the session mid-way through, legislation announced today should in most cases be able to reach the statute book. This gives slightly less scope for inter-party game playing (it makes it riskier to introduce bills just to differentiate yourself from the opposition) and it raises the stakes for intra-party dissent (unhappy backbenchers can no longer keep quiet, knowing that dissolution will kill a bill with which they have concerns).</p>
<p>And rather than just one governing party binding together to face a forthcoming contest, we now have two parties, both keen to differentiate themselves from one another. The Lib Dem bit of the government will not mind doing things that infuriate Conservative backbenchers; the Conservative bit of the government will delight in doing things to wind up Lib Dem backbenchers.</p>
<h2>Rocky road ahead</h2>
<p>So this may be a rockier final session than many. And while many MPs will say they place a premium on unity as the general election approaches, their behaviour thus far in the parliament has not demonstrated any great ability to actually deliver that unity.</p>
<p>Together with my colleague Mark Stuart, I have just compiled a report on the Coalition’s backbench parties since 2010, entitled <a href="http://revolts.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/The-four-year-itch.pdf">The Four Year Itch</a>. The 2013-2014 session saw a Coalition backbench rebellion in 31% of divisions, topping the comparable figure for all but five post-war sessions. And the rate for the parliament as a whole (that is, 2010-14) now stands at a rebellion in 37% of divisions, meaning the parliament is on course to be (almost certainly) the most rebellious since 1945.</p>
<p>To give you some comparable examples, throughout the whole of the Thatcher and Major era backbench rebellion averaged a rebellion in 14% of divisions. During the Blair and Brown years, the figure was 19%. It is now 37%.</p>
<p>Most backbench rebels are Conservative – as are most of the very rebellious MPs – but then there are more Conservative MPs. But while numerically smaller, rebellion is much more widespread amongst the Lib Dems. Whereas just over half (52%) of Conservative MPs have rebelled, a total of 42 Lib Dems, or 72% of the parliamentary party, have now done so. </p>
<p>Indeed, once you exclude those Lib Dem MPs who are or were at some point members of the “<a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/david-cameron/10436078/Parliament-needs-to-rein-in-the-sinister-growth-of-the-payroll-government.html">payroll vote</a>”, either as ministers or parliamentary private secretaries – and thus expected to remain loyal to the government, there is now not a single Lib Dem MP who has been on the backbenches throughout the parliament and who has remained loyal to the party whip.</p>
<h2>Bolshy backbenchers abound</h2>
<p>And it is not just the quantity of rebelliousness that is remarkable, but its quality. The events of the last session are a reminder of the extent to which the ferocity of backbench independence has increased recently. The one outright Commons defeat was <a href="https://theconversation.com/commons-rejects-cameron-plea-for-syria-strikes-rewrites-special-relationship-17674">over Syria</a> (which saw the largest Coalition rebellion of the session) and which was historically unprecedented. But there were also several very high-profile retreats, over both <a href="https://theconversation.com/cameron-in-crisis-as-tories-glass-jaw-exposed-again-by-huge-commons-rebellion-13884">last year’s Queen’s Speech</a> and the <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/immigration/10607348/David-Cameron-backs-down-in-face-of-Tory-rebellion-over-human-rights-of-foreign-criminals.html">Immigration Bill</a>, in both cases seeing the Conservative part of the Coalition forced to allow backbenchers a free vote to avoid massive rebellions. </p>
<p>Both the latter issues were driven by the muscular Euroscepticism that is now dominant on the Conservative backbenches. Rebellions by Conservative MPs in the last session over non-European issues had a median average size of just five MPs. Those over Europe had a median average of 23.</p>
<p>An often unremarked aspect of both these latter votes – as with the votes in the preceding parliament on boundary changes – was that there was no coherent government position. The Conservative frontbench abstained, the Liberal Democrats were whipped to vote down the amendments and joined Labour in doing so on both occasions. What was the position of Her Majesty’s government on the Queen’s speech or the Immigration Bill amendment? Answer: it depended which bit of Her Majesty’s government you talk to.</p>
<p>Still, if you think it’s rough now, just imagine what it might be like after the next election if the Conservatives manage to stay in government. If the Conservatives manage to get an overall majority, it is – putting it politely – difficult to imagine it will be a large majority. Ditto if they are propped up by the DUP. The only real prospect of a decent-sized majority for a Conservative prime minister after the next election would appear to be some <a href="https://theconversation.com/reports-of-the-lib-dems-demise-are-premature-27470">fresh arrangement with the Liberal Democrats</a>, however many of them are left. None of this looks like a recipe for harmony.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/27551/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Philip Cowley has received funding from the ESRC, the Leverhulme Trust and the Nuffield Foundation.</span></em></p>The Queen’s Speech marks the start of the fourth and final session of the 2010 Parliament. Final sessions are usually relatively uncontroversial. An approaching general election has traditionally calmed…Philip Cowley, Professor, School of Politics and International Relations, University of NottinghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.