An offer of AV

[ajva]

I think the LibDems should go for it. It's not PR, but it's a slight improvement, and a hell of a concession from the Tories. And what's more, if the LibDems turn it down, they'll be seen as putting their party interest first and possibly be punished for that later on.

What do you think?

Comments

[ajva.livejournal.com]

You have to remember that going into coalition with the Conservatives is likely to make us vanish as a political force for at least a decade, possibly forever.

Are you sure about this? I would have thought the opposite was the case.

[djm4]

Yes. The problem is that whichever choice Nick makes, it will always be possible for either Labour or the Tories to argue that they were offering a batter deal which he rejected, and that a vote for Lib Dems is a vote for the other party. And that if he'd chosen them, we could have had voting reform, which will lose him the support of a lot of the Fair Votes crowd.

Whoever he doesn't choose doesn't actually have to *deliver* on any if this, just claim that they would have done. And whoever he does choose will, as the senior partner in the coalition, use the Lib Dems as a scapegoat for every unpopular decision they make, and take the credit for every popular one.

[ajva.livejournal.com]

Well, on the other hand, I would say agreeing to the Tories' deal would offer these two advantages:

1) An opportunity to prove that the LibDems are capable of being a party of government, capable of hard decisions, rather than simply being the wishy-washy bunch that a lot of the electorate unfairly think them to be and

2) An opportunity to prove that coalition government can work. As I've said before, if multi-member STV is the LibDems' long-term aim, they have to be able to show that coalition government can work for Britain. Otherwise most people won't want it.

[djm4]

Neither of those opportunities is, IMO, at all real, especially with so few MPs and the prospect that a snap election called will give the Conservatives a majority. If the Conservatives had anything to lose by making a hung parliament look bad, then I'd agree. But they don't - and nor, for that matter, do Labour.

[ajva.livejournal.com]

But the LibDems do - that's my point. The LibDems, paradoxically, have the most to lose if they can't strike a deal. Very few people will want proportional representation in this country if it becomes obvious that coalition governments can't work here. That's the only circumstance under which I can see the LibDem vote utterly collapsing for a generation.

[djm4]

I agree, I just don't think the Lib Dems are in a position to make a deal work - at least, not to make it work well enough that it will be seen to work by the British public.

[ajva.livejournal.com]

Is it possible you forget that the British public loves a noble underdog? If the LibDems are seen to strike an honourable deal, but then lose out afterwards, many more people will be on their side than if they're seen to be deal-breakers for the sake of party political advantage, and they'll live to fight another day. Make no mistake: if all these coalition talks end in stalemate or something unstable, the LibDems will be blamed, and coalition politics will be disregarded as a permanent impossibility. Which will be the death-knell of PR for the next 20/30 years.

On the other hand, if they result in a coalition that the LibDems are seen to be betrayed on, there will be sympathy. Enough sympathy to defend the initial negotiating position for later days. Even if it gets the LibDems no further forward today, it won't push them further back in the hearts of the electorate. Unlike if there's no stable deal in the first place. In which case, as I say, the LibDems will get creamed in popular opinion.

And there's always the chance that the deal could work a little better than you expect. One mustn't be completely pessimistic.

[friend-of-tofu.livejournal.com]

This is a very good point! Thank you for bringing up some perspectives which I hadn't really considered.