Posts tagged with ‘ Coalition Government ’

The 2015 general election is going to be very different from 2010. The unexpected events of the ‘five days in May’ leading to the formation of the first Coalition government for 65 years have provided many lessons – and pointers to problems which can be avoided next time. The existence of the coalition –...

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg is in the process of appointing around half a dozen additional special advisers (SpAds). This will apparently take the overall number of SpAds across Whitehall to around 80, above the level at the end of the Labour administration (and not counting other political appointees within the civil service, let...

At a joint Constitution Unit/Institute for Government seminar on 11 July I developed three propositions: The Conservatives are just as much a party of constitutional reform as the Lib Dems, but this has never been acknowledged, not least by themselves. Nick Clegg in taking the lead on the whole of the government’s constitutional reform...

The aftermath of last year’s general election proved something of a shock to the Westminster village.

Almost everyone who took part has had their say (apart from Gordon Brown) and there has been growing debate on the lessons to be learnt. The Cabinet Office has produced its own view of the implications as part of the draft Cabinet Manual, whilst the Commons’ Political and Constitutional Reform Committee is the first...

The electoral arithmetic of the election result – with the Tories as big gainers and Labour as big losers – always tipped the odds against a Labour / Lib Dem coalition. This is not least since it would have depended on the support of smaller groups on a day-to-day basis to win Commons votes.

Yes, Prime Minister is one of those rare television programmes that shaped the way we look at the world. For many people, the experience of governing is still defined by Sir Humphrey’s scheming and Jim Hacker’s spluttering. And it was superbly, wickedly, funny.

The coalition has, so far, worked much better than anyone could have predicted before May — thanks obviously to the harmonious lead of David Cameron and Nick Clegg but also to the initial work by the Conservative and Liberal Democrat negotiators and by Sir Gus O’Donnell and his team in the Cabinet Office.

Since 5 May pundits have had a field day arguing about whether coalition government can work and the life chances of the current coalition. Reading some commentators, it is almost as though we are now in a brave new world with little precedent.

According to Nick Clegg, the historic formation of a Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government signals “a permanent move to greater pluralism, diversity, and fluidity in politics” and a new era in which coalitions become the norm.