Columns

James Forsyth reviews the week in politics ‘Go back to your constituencies and prepare for government,’ David Steel told the Liberal Assembly in 1981. Twenty-nine years, six leaders and a merger with the Social Democrats later, the party is at last in government, but not in the way it had hoped. The Liberal Democrats have historically prescribed higher spending as the cure for most government problems. Yet today, in coalition with the Conservatives, they are proposing the largest public spending cuts since the 1920s (the last Lib-Con government). So far, the Liberal Democrats have held it together. Not a single parliamentarian has defected. Only a few councillors have quit. But the same cannot be said for the party’s supporters.

James Forsyth reviews the week in politics The coalition has a problem communicating with the middle classes. As 20 October and the spending review approaches, the government’s message to other groups in society is easy to understand. The vulnerable will be protected from the cuts. Low earners will be allowed to keep more of the money that they make. But what about Middle England? It is much harder to discern what the coalition wants to say to them. Politically, this is a dangerous vacuum. It is easy to see why anxious bourgeois voters — and there are many of them — might think that the coalition is going to attempt to balance the budget by lumping an unbearable fiscal burden on their backs.

James Forsyth reviews the week in politics In the last parliament, it was Tory MPs who were the odd ones out at Westminster. While they socialised among themselves, Labour and Liberal Democrat members could regularly be seen in each other’s company. As the prospect of a hung parliament loomed, this fraternising stepped up. By contrast, the few Liberal Democrats who had Tory friends tended to cut off contact as the campaign progressed. One Lib Dem spokesman took his Tory opposite number out to dinner a few days before it began and told him regretfully that he couldn’t see him anymore and that he’d no longer be able to admit how much he agreed with him. But then came those five days in May. Now, Labour MPs delight in shunning the Liberal Democrats.

James Forsyth reviews the week in politics Coalition politics has thrown political journalists for a loop. For years we have been used to members of government claiming that there is not a cigarette paper of difference between them and their colleagues — even when the disagreements were obvious. But now Cabinet ministers happily admit that they differ. And when they disagree, the coalition partners set about resolving their differences in a civil and reasonable fashion. The lobby journalist’s bread and butter — the splits story — is in danger of disappearing. But the old politics is not dead. There are still vicious rows going on in government, but they are blue on blue: Tory versus Tory. This is not as odd as it might seem.

James Forsyth reviews the week in politics You wouldn’t know it from listening to the Prime Minister, but the coalition is on course to be a great reforming administration. In its first 11 weeks, it has announced plans to reform all four major public services. At the same time, its first Budget mandated the largest public spending cuts since the creation of the modern welfare state: a shrinking which goes beyond anything Margaret Thatcher ever attempted. But to achieve its reforming ambitions, the coalition must work out how to steer past the reefs on which past reformers have been wrecked. Tony Blair was so passionate about reform that speeches on the subject used to bring him out in a sweat.