How 2015 will be very different from 2010

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 - and now a fixed term parliament will radically change the background to the election, requiring changes in attitudes, behaviour and conventions - 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 impartial could easily have been compromised if the factual information provided by officials on the costs of spending measures had become a matter of controversy. Moreover, while the Liberal Democrats had thought a lot about negotiations following a hung parliament, they had done scant work to prepare potential ministers for office or to adjust policy pledges to the inevitable compromises of coalition government. It is not just the lessons learnt from May 2010 that will make 2015 different. The existence of the coalition means that the two parties will increasingly be competing against each other as May 2015 approaches, as well as governing together. This situation is hardly unique. Most European countries, and until 2007 the Scottish government, have faced the same problem. For instance, in Scotland, before the 2007 election, officials were allowed to provide information to a minister from one coalition party without supplying it to a minister from the other party. Similarly, after an election, officials were seconded to advise the parties involved in the negotiations. Whitehall officials are sceptical about whether the Scottish model can be transferred to central government without compromising the impartiality of the Civil Service. Pre-election preparations should be conducted differently in future. Permanent Secretaries will have to treat the two governing parties in a different, and more arm’s-length, way. One or other party may be in office after the election, but not necessarily in coalition together. Consequently, the Civil Service needs to discuss the election plans and policies of the governing parties in a similar way to those of the Opposition party. Above all, it is a matter of attitudes and expectations. Coalitions generally hold together in other countries because of the expectation that an election, generally held under a proportional system, will lead to another coalition rather than to a single party government. That constrains their pre-election behaviour. By contrast, in the UK, many in the political and media worlds regard the coalition as an aberration before a return to a single majority government. That is likely to make the pre-election period even more unstable, hence the need for thoughts and talks now about what may happen, and about how the existing conventions should be revised.