Liberal Democrats

Tom Griffin (London, OK): It seems that Tom Nairn, Peter Oborne and our own Anthony Barnett were on to something with their suspicions that Gordon Brown would seek to shore up his authority with some kind of cross-party pact.

The Fabian Society's Sunder Katwala offers just such a proposal in this week's New Statesman:

A Lab-Lib deal is possible - but only if a pre-emptive progressive coalition is formed soon. By the time Barack Obama leaves these shores in April, Gordon Brown should invite Nick Clegg to be deputy prime minister with Vince Cable as chancellor. The coalition would govern for a year - announcing the date of the next election, and legislating for fixed-election dates, too. This year it would focus on the response to the recession, while agreeing on core progressive priorities for the next four-year parliament in both party manifestos.

Tom Griffin (London, OK): Today's Daily Mail brings us Peter Oborne's take on the emerging theme of a government of national unity:

Of course, the Prime Minister does not envisage an alliance with David Cameron's Tories. However, he is seriously toying with the idea of bringing the Liberal Democrats into a possible coalition. Private discussions  -  all, of course, totally deniable  -  are taking place secretly.

Against this fascinating background, I can reveal that special favours are being offered to the Liberal Democrats. First, there are signs of a deal being thrashed out between Downing Street and the LibDems over the appointment of the next Commons Speaker.

Trevor Smith (York, House of Lords): The formal re-uniting of the Ulster Unionist Party and Conservatives is major blunder by David Cameron: it will further polarise politics in Northern Ireland. It will invite a response not only from the other legitimate political parties in Ulster but, worse, is likely to provoke further violence from the dissident Republican para-military groups.

His assertion at the UUP's annual conference that this new merger signals his Unionist credentials is foolish and dangerous posturing. The UUP is now a small rump of a party with only one MP at Westminster and she, Lady Hermon, is rightly sceptical of the new arrangement. It will do nothing for the Tories and precious little for the UUP.

However, Cameron's Unionism is not spread equally thickly throughout the UK. In Scotland he tactically hopes that the SNP will be successful enough to limit the number of Labour MPs at Westminster to secure him a majority at the next General Election. Cynical tactics for a party leader who proclaims transparency and integrity in policy formation.

Trevor Smith is the Liberal Democrat spokesperson on Northern Ireland in the House of Lords

Tom Griffin (London, OK): John Osmond brings us news of the debate in the Senedd that launched the Institute of Welsh Affairs' new book, Politics in 21st Century Wales. He suggests that, given some of the players involved, the event may turn out to be a preview of the coalition negotiations that follow the next Assembly election:

Of course, First Minister Rhodri Morgan won’t be among them after 2011, since he has announced his impending retirement from politics – “he has indicated a wish to stand down as First Minister well before the elections” (according to his biographical note in Politics in 21st Century Wales). However, he prompted the speculation by suggesting in his contribution to the book that Labour should countenance proportional representation in local elections in order to allow a coalition deal to be negotiated with the Liberal Democrats.

It was Plaid Cymru’s Adam Price who suggested somewhat mischievously that this was tantamount to Rhodri revealing ‘a bit of ankle’ to the Lib Dems.

Anthony Barnett (London, OK):  Fascinating post by occasional OK contributor James Graham over on his Quaequam blog about his growing ennui and disengagement from the Lib-Dems. Even the party conference has not boosted his steroids and he might leave the Party - well, the thought is there. It's an almost poetic description of how people get fed up with the routines of party political life, its lack of imagination and inspiration. Can this be the rest of his life? If I was Nick Clegg I'd be worried, but it is about more than just the Liberal Democrats losing the mood of one of their bloggers of the year. It's also a tale of the fate of how politica activism - including blogging NB - just not giving food for the soul and the heart and the brain not to speak of other parts. (hat tip Iain Dale)

Anthony Barnett (London, OK): Tom Griffin spent a long time finding Stephen Glenn to write a post about the Lib Dem leadership contest. I'm afraid Tom didn't get as much warm support from me in his search as he should have. Eventually, he found Stephen and we ran this story by him on the battle to lead Lib Dem Scotland. It seemed to me that Tavish Scott was the least interesting of the three candidates, if he is indeed standing for continuity of a forlorn strategy. Today they have announced the outcome of the ballot: it seems that Scottish Lib Dems have voted for the hole into which they are digging. Could this be true?

Stephen Glenn (Linlithgow, Lib Dems): What next for the Liberal Democrats in Scotland? They're no longer in a coalition administration but just part of the opposition to an SNP minority government. It's a dangerous position with the Tories strengthening and Labour weakening.

Three candidates have stepped forward to fill the void left by Nicol Stephen's resignation as leader, by the end of next week one of them will be leader. Tavish Scott, a close ally of Stephen, is seen by many as the continuity candidate. Ross Finnie, served eight years in the cabinet when the party was in coalition with Labour after the Scottish Parliament was created. He says the party needs to find its 'narrative' again. Mike Rumbles, who chaired the Holyrood's Standard's Committee for four years, sees a radical path ahead.

Tom Griffin (London, OK): The Scotsman brings us news that the SNP is preparing to do a deal with the Liberal Democrats to abolish the council tax in Scotland.

As the SNP is running the Scottish Government as a minority administration, it needs the support of one of the other main parties to get its plans through. The Lib Dems support the principle of a local income tax, but are adamant that it must be set locally, by individual councils, rather than by the Scottish Government at 3p in the pound.

James Graham (Quaequam Blog): I'm probably one of the most pro-Labour Lib Dems you are ever likely to meet. A Georgist and an electoral reformer, I'm very conscious of the fact that I am likely to meet more fellow travellers within Labour than the Conservatives (although not as many as I'd like). Despite spending the day knocking up voters in a hopeless (for us) Lib Dem-Labour marginal, in the evening on 1 May 1997 I cheered as loudly as anyone when it became apparent that the Tories were finally on their way out.

What, then, should I make of the prospect of a Miliband Premiership, given his stated aim of uniting the traditions of social democracy and radical liberalism "into a single narrative"? - an approach that like other matters appears in a transparently clear but nonetheless coded form in his Guardian article.

 Rosemary Bechler (London, openDemocracy): responds to Anthony Barnett's coverage of the campaign against 42 days:

Thanks for the cogent reading of this important moment in the decline of the Westminster hall of mirrors. Doesn’t one need to include in a third episode in this drama? – the refusal of the two main political parties challenged in this bye-election to participate in debating the issues. For all the commenting and blogging, as in the case of the Iraq war and an ever-lengthening list of crucial decisions for the UK, we still have not been told why 42 days is deemed to be necessary to our national interest. All the talk simply obscures this ominous silence.

Guy Aitchison (London, OK):Remember Labour's "big idea" for elected mayors across the country? It was quietly shelved in 2002 after a dissapointing uptake by the small number of local authorities that held a referendum on the issue, but many still believe they are the key to returning real power and accountability to local government.

Now Dorothy Thornhill, the Lib Dem elected Mayor for Watford, has a thoughtful post on Lib Dem Voice on why the party should drop its opposition to elected mayors. Lib Dems have traditionally been wary of the idea of concentrating power in the hands of a single leader but she thinks elected mayors could help the party reach its goal of a more decentralised political system. Well worth a read.

Guy Aitchison (London, OK): Nick Clegg has a devastating op-ed piece in today’s Independent on Britain’s political and constitutional “crisis” (what we in OK have been calling our “good crisis”). Better than any serving politician I know of, Clegg diagnoses the rot at the heart of the system, making a powerful and intelligent case for radical democratic reform.

He begins by describing the pompous and degrading ceremony that still surrounds our democratic institutions. This isn’t merely harmless, tourist-friendly fun he says. It masks a “crisis in which the public feel ever more alienated from, and angry towards, the political class. And a crisis in which Parliament itself is neutered by the all encompassing power of the centralised Whitehall state.”

Stuart Weir (Cambridge, Democratic Audit): Richard Holme, or Lord Holme of Cheltenham (being a peer suited him), who has just died, deserves a place in the pitifully meagre pantheon of modern British democrats. Trevor Smith’s fine obituary in today’s Guardian has already set out the important role he played in establishing the Cook-Maclennan pact in 1997 as well as assisting the agreement between the Liberal Party and the Social Democrats and his work in various bodies committed to democratic politics and constitutional reform, not least his own Centre for Constitutional Reform.

Tom Griffin (London, The Green Ribbon): Scottish Labour leader Wendy Alexander made a bold bid to take back the Scottish constitutional agenda on Sunday with the launch of her policy document, Change is What We Do:

Jon Bright (London, OK): Nick Clegg will call for around 150 parliamentary seats to be dissolved this evening in a speech in Sheffield. I'll be interested to hear his exact reasoning - so far, it seems to revolve around cutting the price of politics significantl. He will apparently also call for a £3 voluntary donation option to be added to each ballot paper at the general election, with people giving the money to the party of their choice (or not at all) - which I think is very similar to a proposal made by the Power Inquiry. Getting any party funding reform will be hard - and getting MPs to vote for a drastic thinning of their own ranks should be next to impossible. Nevertheless, it's interesting and relatively radical stuff.

Jon Bright (London, OK): Nick Clegg is repeating his previous call for a reform of Britain's political system today, and will apparently describe Labour as "gutless, heartless and incompetent" for how they paid for their inheritance tax cut. He will call for a convention of 100 or so people to debate a reform of Britain' political structure - and wants to propose a £25,000 maximum donation limit. Probably also worth reiterating that at the moment the latest polling still shows a hung parliament. Would Gordon Brown accept the convention in return for a coalition government with Clegg?

Anthony Barnett (London, OK): Political Betting has a good short summary of,

The big political news in the UK this morning...[is] the future of the Speaker of the House of Commons, Michael Martin, following the resignation yesterday of the £2000 a day consultant whose job it is to deal with the media on his behalf.

Jon Bright (London, OK): Anyone who has worked in a busy office will know how quickly the first draft can turn into the final copy, how an off the cuff suggestion can turn quickly into a policy, how a quick fix can become a permanent feature. No-one must be more aware of this than Lord Barnett, whose political mission it seems to be to destroy his own formula - which was developed as a temporary solution for distributing money round the UK in the 1970s - and has since become a feature of our much maligned constitutional landscape.

Jon Bright reviews: Does Britain need a population policy? by Alasdair Murray of CentreForum.

Alasdair Murray dissects and demystifies the immigration debate, and shows why we need a policy of decentralisation to fix the problems of immigration.

Jon Bright (London, OK): Nick "Radical within Reason" Clegg was up in Holyrood yesterday to visit the MSPs who had unswervingly backed Huhne throughout the leadership campaign, and lay out what his plans would be for a Scottish Assembly. He endorsed, apparently, both wholesale reform of Westminster and increased power for the devolved assembly, and accused those who were holding back on granting these powers of "feeding the beast" of separatism.