Matthew Jenkins' BlogA blog about Worcester, politics and the environment

A week after the coalition between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats formed, I wrote about the possibilities of a new politics, where the two parties would work together for the good of the country and, if successful, then this more cooperative approach would herald a new style of politics.

How wrong I was. The Liberal Democrats seem to have been subsumed into the Conservatives, losing their identity. Consequently, they were punished at the local elections and the AV referendum. Rather than acting as a brake on the more right-wing aspects of the Conservative Party in power, the Liberal Democrats have allowed the Conservatives to propose reforms to the NHS and other areas that ideologically beyond anything stated in their manifesto.

The Conservatives have used the coalition claim that they came together for the good of the country, to push forward their own ideological programme. Meanwhile, the Liberal Democrats have not felt able to criticise anything that the Conservatives have proposed.

The official opposition, the Labour Party, have their own problems, under a new leader still finding his feet. Plus, they are struggling to criticise many of the coalition’s proposals, such as university tuition fees, because ideologically they agree with many of them, e.g., tuition fees, internal market in the NHS, etc.

Thank goodness there is Caroline Lucas making a stand, plus campaigning groups such as 38 Degrees.

The coalition government has been accused of being ideologically obsessed with shrinking the size of the state, at whatever the social costs. Whilst they maintain that the current and future cuts are unavoidable; there is no alternative, they say. Who is right?

According to Charles Moore, writing in The Telegraph (18/09/10), the cuts planned to welfare, schools, health and police are far more drastic than those by Margaret Thatcher in 1979. According to Cabinet ministers that he has spoken to in private, “they are full of zeal both for cuts and for reform, but they don’t like to say so in public.”

This seems to confirm the belief many have that the speed and size of the cuts is politically driven. Hence, it is a matter for political debate.

We need to be challenging the government to prove that the damage these cuts will inevitably do to society are justified, whilst offering viable alternatives.

A clear alternative is to cut the deficit much more slowly. Another is to alter the balance of deficit reduction, away from cuts and towards raising more money through a fairer tax system and reducing tax avoidance. Currently the split is 20% tax, 80% cuts. Another is through investing in areas that badly need it and that create jobs, such as the Green New Deal that would move us towards a low carbon economy, by investing in renewables, insulating homes, etc.

Rather than a zeal for cuts, we need a zeal for fairness and a better way of coping with the current economic situation.

With the coalition government nearly a week old, the question many people are asking is if this is the start of a new politics. A full coalition between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats took most commentators by surprise, including myself. The key to the coalition forming was the agreement to have a referendum on the alternative vote. Both parties moved away from their chosen positions to compromise on this. It will upset a large number of their own members, as has been seen by those leaving the Liberal Democrats to join the Green Party or the Labour Party.

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The Liberal Democrats have a difficult choice to make over this weekend. Do they:

1. Form a coalition with the Conservatives
2. Form an agreement with the Conservatives to work together in some areas, but stop short of forming a coalition
3. Form a coalition with the Labour Party

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