Governing made harder by the election campaign

This is partly because of what has been said, and not said, about the main policy challenges facing the UK in what has, at times, appeared to be a competition in gimmicky vacuity. But, at root, the system is now dysfunctional with a mismatch between what many politicians say, the expectations produced and the likely outcome. The UK remains stuck in a majoritarian political culture of single party winner-takes-all governments when that is not what the electoral system is likely to produce, for the second general election in a row. It is no good the two main party leaders saying they reject deals as if they commanded majorities in the Commons when they are unlikely to do so. And this problem has been aggravated by the leaders’ tendency to put down policy ‘red lines’. Whether another coalition or a minority government emerges in the next few days and weeks, the party or parties in office will not be able to get their own way and will have to compromise, however much they may dislike it. There are many examples – see the report by Akash Paun – of how other countries, both in the rest of Europe and in Commonwealth with similar parliamentary systems like Canada and New Zealand adapt their practices and behaviour to governing without a majority. The failure, for the second time, to produce a clear-cut result and majority, will no doubt produce calls for a review of the electoral system, but, so soon after the decisive rejection of the Alternative Vote in the 2011 referendum, that is unlikely. Further, similar results will probably be required before one of the two main parties changes its position and the debate is re-opened. More important in the immediate future is whether the attitudes and behaviour of leading politicians adapts to the changed party balance. The recent debate about legitimacy largely misses this point. The sole democratic test for any government in a parliamentary system is whether it can command the confidence of the Commons. This can be done in all kinds of ways, via a formal coalition, support on confidence and supply or even, as in 1974 or in Scotland between 2007 and 2011, by calling the bluff of some or all of the other parties. Votes can, and often are, won by other parties abstaining. And sometimes that means, as the Liberals did after the 1910 elections, accepting, tacitly or explicitly, the support of nationalist or separatist parties. There is, of course, a big distinction between constitutional legitimacy and political acceptability. The two are not the same. We could have a legally and constitutionally legitimate government which was seen as politically unacceptable by much of the nation. And much though the parties might dream of an early second election (assuming the conditions of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act were met), there might not necessarily be a very different result. What voters want is for them to concentrate on governing. There are deeper, long-term questions about shifting from a power hoarding to a power sharing system, not just at Westminster but within the UK as a whole as more power is taken by Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and within England, to a limited extent, by city regions and counties. The election debate has focused narrowly on the issue of Scotland, and to a lesser extent Wales, but there has been little discussion of the wider picture in the UK. That is, of course, not the only subject pushed to the sidelines during the campaign. There has been surprisingly little discussion about Britain’s place in the world or Europe, apart from some foreign policy and defence specialists, and a side debate over Trident. Similarly, tricky commitments on how to improve productivity performance by, for example, expanding housing supply, increasing airport capacity in the south-east and building new power stations have largely been evaded, underlining the problems of taking long-term infrastructure decisions. Even worse has the mutually defensive behaviour of both the main parties in ruling out changes to the main taxes, and in making uncosted spending pledges, which will inevitably narrow their room for manoeuvre in office faced with the need for continued deficit reduction. This matters because the public is already tried of politicians making unrealistic promises that they are unable to deliver on. (For example, the Populus polling for the Institute’s Programme for Effective Government showed that 85 per cent of the public thought politicians should not make promises in the campaign if they are not sure they will be able to afford them in government). And it also matters because the poll shows that public wants politicians to run the country professionally and to concentrate on fulfilling promises, not just making them. It is unrealistic to expect politicians to talk about issues of implementation during campaigns but the battles of the past six week have done little to help politicians refine, or voters understand, questions about the practical challenges facing any government — in managing Whitehall and taking forward the efficiency and reform programme, relations with arm’s-length bodies/quangos, handling outsourcing and public sector markets. (See our pre-election briefing papers for more details). But the main risk from the way the campaign has been conducted is that expectations have been created that will be hard, if not impossible, to fulfil in government.