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	<title>Blog &#187; Coalition Government</title>
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	<link>http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog</link>
	<description>Institute for Government Blog</description>
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		<title>How 2015 will be very different from 2010</title>
		<link>http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/3782/how-2015-will-be-very-different-from-2010/?source=rss</link>
		<comments>http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/3782/how-2015-will-be-very-different-from-2010/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 10 Nov 2011 09:24:27 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Peter Riddell</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Parliament and the political process]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Coalition Government]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[general election]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[transition]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[transitions]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/?p=3782</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[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 &#8211; and pointers to problems which can be avoided next time. The existence of the coalition &#8211; and now a fixed term parliament  will radically change the background to the election, requiring changes in attitudes, behaviour and conventions &#8211; as discussed in the new Institute for Government report Transitions: Lessons Learned. The UK has a tradition of relatively smooth, and rapid, handovers of power after general elections.  This has, however, assumed a clearcut result producing alternations between single party Labour or Conservative majority governments. No one has bothered much about the third party. These assumptions were challenged by the hung parliament of May 2010.  The system coped well with five days of uncertainty, more than five times longer than usual, thanks to the good sense of all participants. But plenty of luck was involved, and senior politicians and officials admit that a lot could have gone wrong if the party balance after the election had been slightly different. The Civil Service’s determination to remain [...]]]></description>
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		<title>Special Treatment? Why the coalition is appointing more special advisers</title>
		<link>http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/3692/special-treatment-why-the-coalition-is-appointing-more-special-advisers/?source=rss</link>
		<comments>http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/3692/special-treatment-why-the-coalition-is-appointing-more-special-advisers/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 18 Oct 2011 09:40:34 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Akash Paun</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Parliament and the political process]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Coalition Government]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[No 10]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[SpAds]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[special advisers]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/?p=3692</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[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 alone unofficial advisers involved in certain aspects of ministerial business). This recent development – if confirmed – would provide the latest evidence that the government has come to regret its early commitment to slash the number of advisers. The Conservatives in particular had long espoused an antipathy to SpAds – simplistically associated in much public debate with dirty tricks (especially following the Damian McBride affair), politicisation of the civil service and “good days to bury bad news” – and came into power determined to cut their numbers. Having pledged to “put a limit on the number of Special Advisers” (a limit that was never subsequently quantified), the coalition initially appointed just 66 SpAds. But as previously discussed on the IfG Blog, the number of SpAds has been steadily rising since then, partly in response to the view that Number 10 was understaffed and unable to keep [...]]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/3692/special-treatment-why-the-coalition-is-appointing-more-special-advisers/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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		<title>Clegg comes through for the Conservatives on Constitutional Reform</title>
		<link>http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/3114/clegg-comes-through-for-the-conservatives-on-constitutional-reform-2/?source=rss</link>
		<comments>http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/3114/clegg-comes-through-for-the-conservatives-on-constitutional-reform-2/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 19 Jul 2011 17:19:56 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Professor Robert Hazell</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Parliament and the political process]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Coalition Government]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Conservatives]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Constitutional reform]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Lib Dem]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Nick Clegg]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/?p=3114</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[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 programme has taken responsibility for delivering the Conservatives’ reforms as well as the Lib Dem ones. At the end of the coalition government, Clegg will have delivered more of the Conservative package of constitutional reforms than his own. In particular, he will have failed on the AV referendum and on Lords reform, the Lib Dems’ two biggest priorities. For proof that the Conservatives are a party of constitutional reform, see the report which I wrote analysing all the Conservatives’ plans for constitutional change in February 2010. To my surprise it ran to 12 chapters, and can be found here: The Conservative Agenda for Constitutional Reform For proof that Clegg will have delivered more of the Conservative package than of his own reforms, see the table below. It shows on one page the main constitutional reform items in the coalition’s Programme for Government. It is not comprehensive, [...]]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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		<title>The real battle for power in Scotland and Wales</title>
		<link>http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/2373/the-real-battle-for-power-in-scotland-and-wales/?source=rss</link>
		<comments>http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/2373/the-real-battle-for-power-in-scotland-and-wales/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 12 Apr 2011 16:25:20 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>John Curtice</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Parliament and the political process]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Coalition Government]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Devolution]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/?p=2373</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The aftermath of last year’s general election proved something of a shock to the Westminster village. Although it had been apparent for some time that there might be a hung parliament, few had anticipated competing sets of talks between different pairs of parties or the advent of a full blown coalition between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats. A short-lived minority government  &#8211; as in February 1974  &#8211; seemed a more likely outcome than that. But since the advent of devolution, both coalitions and long-lived minority governments have become part of the fabric of politics in Scotland and Wales. The story so far Between 1999 and 2007 Scotland was governed by a coalition between Labour and the Liberal Democrats, while since 2007 the SNP has sustained a minority government despite having just 47 out of 129 seats. After an initial spell of Labour minority rule, Wales too enjoyed a Labour/Liberal Democrat coalition between 2000 and 2003, while since 2007 Labour has shared power with Plaid Cymru – after an initial agreement between Plaid, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats to form a ‘rainbow coalition’ collapsed after the Liberal Democrats got cold feet. The reason is simple. In both countries elections [...]]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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		<title>Forming the government: the lessons from May 2010</title>
		<link>http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/1784/forming-the-government-the-lessons-from-may-2010/?source=rss</link>
		<comments>http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/1784/forming-the-government-the-lessons-from-may-2010/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 28 Jan 2011 17:12:42 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Peter Riddell</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Parliament and the political process]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Coalition Government]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Government transitions]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/?p=1784</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[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 of three parliamentary committees to report on the issue (PDF, 1.2MB). The report underlines a broad, but not total, consensus now emerging about the conventions. It also highlights some big, and so far unresolved, unintended consequences. Does the Salisbury-Addison convention still apply? The long-running attritional battle in the House of Lords over the AV and constituency boundaries bill has shown that some peers &#8220;may not feel bound to apply the Salisbury-Addison convention to policies contained in a Coalition government’s programme&#8221;. The convention arose out of the post-1945 situation when Labour had a huge majority in the Commons, but was in a very small minority in the Lords. Since the removal of a majority of the hereditary peers in 1999, the ruling convention has been that no single party should have a majority in the House. But on the arguable assumption that the crossbenchers are excluded, the [...]]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/1784/forming-the-government-the-lessons-from-may-2010/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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		<item>
		<title>How &#8216;inevitable&#8217; was the Con-Lib Dem Coalition?</title>
		<link>http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/1250/how-inevitable-was-the-con-lib-dem-coalition/?source=rss</link>
		<comments>http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/1250/how-inevitable-was-the-con-lib-dem-coalition/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 30 Nov 2010 11:01:49 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Peter Riddell</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Parliament and the political process]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Coalition Government]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Government transitions]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/?p=1250</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[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. But until the final day, such a rainbow grouping and other options which had seemed more likely before the election – notably a Conservative minority government – remained open. What tipped the balance was the subject of an absorbing Institute for Government seminar involving two MPs who have written books about the creation of the coalition – David Laws, a key member of the Liberal Democrat negotiating team (22 Days in May) and Rob Wilson, a Conservative whip at the time, though he talked to players in all the parties (5 Days to Power- the Journey to Coalition Britain). The books are complementary, and largely agree on the main features. How the Conservatives gained the initiative A crucial, and largely unappreciated feature at the time, was the rise of the &#8216;Orange Book&#8217; generation of younger Lib Dem leaders (Nick Clegg, David Laws, Chris Huhne and Danny Alexander) who were less hostile [...]]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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		<title>Yes, Prime Minister on stage: the verdict</title>
		<link>http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/652/yes-prime-minister-on-stage-the-verdict/?source=rss</link>
		<comments>http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/652/yes-prime-minister-on-stage-the-verdict/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 30 Sep 2010 16:02:15 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Michael Hallsworth</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Leadership for government]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Parliament and the political process]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Coalition Government]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Political leaders]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/?p=652</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[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&#8217;s scheming and Jim Hacker&#8217;s spluttering. And it was superbly, wickedly, funny. After a glittering career, the show retired in 1988. Now, on its 30th birthday, a stage version has opened in the West End. But is this a triumphant return to the frontbench, or another reminder that all political careers end in failure? New trimmings Sadly, the latter seems more accurate. From the very start, the play sets itself up as contemporary satire rather than period piece: the opening scene pointedly references coalitions, financial crises and climate change. Yet it becomes obvious that the show has invested in new trimmings rather than a full refurbishment: everything still hangs on the relationship between Jim, Bernard and Sir Humphrey. This set-up, the original show’s greatest strength, now feels dated. The premise of the Prime Minister dealing with a major crisis accompanied by just two civil servants and a solitary special adviser feels naggingly inauthentic – not least because the latter seems more like a grudging nod to modernity than a real [...]]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/652/yes-prime-minister-on-stage-the-verdict/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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		<title>Why Cameron and Clegg need to reflect on the working of the coalition</title>
		<link>http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/514/why-cameron-and-clegg-need-to-reflect-on-the-working-of-the-coalition/?source=rss</link>
		<comments>http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/514/why-cameron-and-clegg-need-to-reflect-on-the-working-of-the-coalition/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 16 Sep 2010 10:42:39 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Peter Riddell</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Parliament and the political process]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Coalition Government]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/?p=514</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[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. The agreements both on policy and procedures were reached far more quickly and smoothly than in other countries with coalitions. The revived Cabinet committee system is ensuring that decisions can be taken by both partners and possible problems anticipated. But that was only stage one. As Akash Paun’s report, United We Stand?, shows, further changes are needed — to prevent both Nick Clegg at the centre and Lib Dem departmental ministers from being overloaded. Strengthening the Deputy Prime Minister&#8217;s office There is an inherent asymmetry in the coalition — in numbers, resources, experience and preparation. Apart from Jim Wallace’s six years as deputy First Minister in Edinburgh and Tom McNally’s three years by the side of the late Jim Callaghan in 10 Downing Street, none of the Lib Dem ministers had any experience of office before May. More to the point, none expected to be in office. This has put strains [...]]]></description>
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		<title>Friends, Romans and Coalition Partners</title>
		<link>http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/350/friends-romans-and-coalition-partners/?source=rss</link>
		<comments>http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/350/friends-romans-and-coalition-partners/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 16 Aug 2010 10:10:29 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Zoe Gruhn</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Leadership for government]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Coalition Government]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Political leaders]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/?p=350</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[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. However, as a recent event at the Institute showed, coalitions are nothing new. Far from it. They played, for example, a key role in the politics of the Roman Republic in the first century BC as it struggled for survival. What we did at the event was to take Shakespeare&#8217;s &#8216;Julius Caesar&#8217;, which, unusually for him, is reasonably closely based on historical fact, and use it to look at how coalitions are built and mobilised. Reasons for the coalition In the play the main motivation for the plotters was to maintain the purity of the Roman Republic and prevent it falling into tyranny under Caesar’s leadership. What was needed was to bring together people who shared that common aim although who, in most other respects, were not natural allies. This meant that the faction which emerged and led to Caesar’s assassination included some very different personalities who, in other circumstances, would certainly not have been natural bedfellows. [...]]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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		<title>Is coalition government here to stay?</title>
		<link>http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/237/is-coalition-government-here-to-stay/?source=rss</link>
		<comments>http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/237/is-coalition-government-here-to-stay/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 21 Jul 2010 13:45:40 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Akash Paun</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Parliament and the political process]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Coalition Government]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/?p=237</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[According to Nick Clegg, the historic formation of a Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government signals &#8220;a permanent move to greater pluralism, diversity, and fluidity in politics&#8221; and a new era in which coalitions become the norm. An alternative viewpoint has the Liberal Democrats facing a painful political squeeze between Labour and the Tories, or even being assimilated by their larger coalition partners. In this scenario, an early swing back to the two large parties and majoritarian politics may be on the horizon. Institute for Government analysis of electoral trends over the past century backs the claim that the classic era of two-party politics lies behind us. In 1951, Labour and the Conservatives collectively took an incredible 97% of the vote, winning all but 9 of the 625 seats up for grabs. The six decades since have witnessed a Liberal renaissance, the emergence of Scottish and Welsh nationalism, and the rise of smaller movements such as the Greens and UKIP. By 2010, the Big Two had fallen to their lowest combined standing since 1918. When falling turnout is taken into account, Labour and the Tories have lost almost half the votes they managed to attract six decades ago. What this all suggests, [...]]]></description>
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