Question         

What’s the only thing on any political party’s mind after winning an election?

 

Answer           

The next election

 

Why?

 

What else do political parties think about?

 

Having won an election because their policies and style had the most appeal, the winners think only about how best to sustain that appeal next time round. Everything they do from the moment of victory is now part of their record they must defend down the road.

 

Implementing their promises is a significant part of that, but only part. They know that unexpected events will happen to create public dismay and annoyance; that their control over the sprawling bureaucracy is less than they think, so getting new/better things done will be fiendishly difficult; and that for the coming period their defeated political rivals will now have the luxury of having only to attack, not to defend.

 

In short, democracy is tough. Conveying Authority as all these squalls and more come along is all-important.

 

Coalition politics make that difficult job far harder. It is hard enough to trust one’s own people to be loyal and sensible. How to trust someone else’s?

 

Take the Conservatives right now. Just say they strike a political deal with the Lib Dems involving the Lib Dems getting several respectable Ministerial jobs in government.

 

Both coalition parties will know that at the next election (which might come quite soon) they will be fighting once again for market share.

 

David Cameron will have a particularly tough job keeping his backbenchers happy.

Most newly elected Conservative MPs will not have formal government positions. They will have not that much to do in Parliament, other than vote when told to do so. Taking up their constituents’ moanings about the local drains or the planned waste incinerator is unlikely to satisfy their ambitions for long.

 

Those backbenchers could turn nasty if the coalition looks to be holding back key Conservative policies – the more so if among their ranks are serious people bitter at being moved aside after all their hard work to win the election, just to make way for scurvy Socialist-Lite rivals.

 

Yet somehow a coalition is formed. Hurrah. A nation rejoices. Shares shoot up.

 

The new Ministers from the two parties arrive at their new Ministries. Unctuous officials show them their offices and give them instructions on how to claim their allowances. [Thinks: “Crikey – not bad! I never knew that we got all that!”]

 

Then the first bundles of papers arrive, with Recommendations. How to play it?

 

Should the few Lib Dem Ministers work flat out to show what they can do? Or will they fear that the more numerous and better placed Conservative Ministers will somehow grab the credit for anything which they do well, while being quick to paint the Lib Dems as incompetent when problems arise?

 

How should awkward facts be handled across Whitehall? Would the Conservative Ministers want to share embarrassing (for them) information with Lib Dem Ministers? Or would they hold back, fearing that such information might mysteriously leak to Conservative disadvantage?

 

Civil servants are meant to be loyal to the ‘government of the day’ and scrupulously neutral in political terms. Uncharted new professional dilemmas for senior British civil servants throughout the system will emerge.

 

How to handle papers within a Lib Dem Ministry which show that the Minister plans policy initiatives which in some run counter to Conservative policies or positions?

 

How to handle papers in a Conservative-led Ministry on an issue where you know a Lib Dem Minister elsewhere will be unhappy or might try to block? This could happen on much EU business, where the Lib Dems might be expected to be more ‘flexible’.

 

In principle Lib Dem Ministers should see all intelligence reports with relevance to their policy areas. Would that happen? How to check if things are being held back?

 

In a typical Continental proportional system with party lists, it is very difficult for voters to get rid of senior politicians. These people get used to managing the machinations of coalitions. They in effect comprise one united ‘establishment elite’ who take it in turns to have leading jobs.

 

The convoluted unhappy 2005-2007 coalition in Poland between the Kaczynski twins’ Law and Justice party and the populist parties Self Defence and Polish Families showed another way to approach these problems. Law and Justice slyly discredited those parties’ leaders even though they were part of the government, then collapsed the coalition and called new elections. In effect Law and Justice greedily sucked the electoral juice from their coalition partner parties – and threw aside the husks. In the new elections Self Defence and Polish Families were all but obliterated. Law and Justice lost that contest to their main rival Citizens Platform, but emerged as the unchallenged main Polish opposition party. Not bad.

 

For David Cameron the ideal outcome of the next election will be that the coalition prospers but the Conservatives get the credit, winning over enough Lib Dem voters to enable a Conservative government to be formed without Lib Dem politicians.

 

For Nick Clegg the ideal result will be that the coalition is seen as a success because the Lib Dems are in it. Thus the Lib Dems need to use their limited presence in government to score some policy hits and establish sufficient credibility to win over Conservative (and Labour) voters next time round. Preferably through a better (for Lib Dems) new voting system.

 

The inevitable divisions and crises are yet to come. If a coalition or some lesser form of Parliamentary pact is formed. in the early days both sides will have an interest in being nice and pretending to make the arrangement work well. A heavy UK majority of voters should be satisfied with it.

 

Above all, in two respects Conservative and Lib Dem MPs en masse will be united.

 

It will be good fun for everyone making a hefty bonfire of ghastly Labour legislation and burning it. And jointly jeering at the much reduced Labour Party snarling in frustration on the Opposition benches as the bonfire smoke gets in their bloodshot eyes will have unmatchable aesthetic appeal.