Labour party

Tuesday

Peter Hoskin

Whatever happens, Clegg has sullied his credibility with the Tories

Let's not get ahead of ourselves: some sort of deal between the Lib Dems and the Tories is still a distinct possibility, even if negotiations have been rocked by the events of yesterday. But whether it goes through or not, Clegg has seriously dented his credibility in Tory circles. Backbenchers who were warming to the idea of a formal Lib-Con coalition a few days ago – if only to scupper Labour's hopes – are now dead set against it. The very notion of Clegg as Home Secretary is becoming a collective anathema. The question now is whether – failing a Lib-Lab coalition – the Tory leadership is more inclined towards a confidence and supply deal than they were before.

David Blackburn

Game on for a Lib-Con Coalition

Gary Gibbon reports: 'Last night’s two-hour meeting of the Lib Dem MPs (with a sprinkling of peers) seems to have swung the party decisively behind a Lib-Con coalition deal. An announcement is widely expected now today.' It’s preferable to the alternative and as George Osborne made clear this morning the Tories can do nothing without Lib Dem support. There’s a suggestion that Clegg may have forced Cameron’s hand into further concessions with his sudden wooing of Labour, in which case he’s a very clever and brave shyster. I’ll believe it when it happens though. PS: A note of caution, as if one were needed. Clegg can't put a time on any deal. Incidently, there is no appetite for a Lib-Lab coalition among centre-left bloggers.

David Blackburn

This isn’t English

‘The Tories are stuffed,’ a resigned Shadow Cabinet minister tells Gary Gibbon. Endorsing any such view is premature but, with Lib Dem elders counselling Clegg to join Labour, the most likely outcome is a coalition of the losers, albeit nice progressive ones. Ah, the irony of the New Politics – plus ca change and all that. Politics has descended into a grotesque spectacle of blackmail, and bungled devolution is to blame. As James reported last night, talks with the Tories ran aground on sands that are the territory of Holyrood and Scottish Liberals presented every obstacle possible.

Peter Hoskin

The Lib Dem big hitters pushing Clegg towards Labour

Today's papers have the lowdown on the events of the past few days, and one thing is becoming increasingly clear: a Lib-Con deal faces not just the opposition of the Lib Dem base, but also some of the party's most influential figures.  In a Times account of a Lib Dem meeting yesterday, it's revealed that Sir Menzies Cambell "urged his successor not to bind the party into a irrevocable deal with the Tories."  Meanwhile, the Telegraph reports that "Vince Cable played a significant role in resisting an agreement [with the Tories]."  And Paddy Ashdown was across the airwaves this morning, explaining how a Lib-Lab coalition could provide "stability" and "legitimacy," against a "rabidly anti-European" Tory party.

Alex Massie

The Blundering Parties

The biggest blunderer today was, I think, Nick Clegg but one can make a case arguing that each of the parties played their hand badly on Monday. Oh, sure, in one sense Labour must be enjoying this: Tories in a fury, Liberals suddenly interested again and, who knows, perhaps there's a faint glimmer of hope that something may yet arrive to rescue the party and keep it in office. But Labour's good mood reflects a short-term tactical stroke, not a strategic victory. Gordon might have wrong-footed the Tories today and damaged prospects for a Tory-Liberal arrangement but that's it. Labour's overall position had not, I suspect, improved greatly not least because, despite all the talk and the hype, it remains difficult to see quite how they really can push through a deal.

Monday

Peter Hoskin

The Tories should shine a light on Labour’s leadership machinations

One striking aspect to this evening's brouhaha is how senior Labour figures are going out of their way not to endorse anyone as Gordon Brown's successor.  Brown himself has said that he won't back an "individual candidate," and Peter Mandelson and Alastair Campbell have made similar noises in television interviews. There are, I imagine, two main reasons for this.  First, it's all too soon: Labour won't want to engage in full internecine combat while there's still the chance of a deal with the Lib Dems.  And, second, they will want to create the impression that – contrary to Gordon Brown's ascension to power in 2007 – the next Labour leader has been chosen in an open and clean contest.

James Forsyth

The Tories work to seize the moral high ground

Well, well today just keeps getting more and more extraordinary. The Tories have responded to the Lib Dems beginning formal negotiations with Labour by offering the Lib Dems a referendum on AV in exchange for a full coalition with Lib Dems in the Cabinet. The Tories stress that this is their final offer to the Lib Dems. Having spoken to several members of the shadow Cabinet, it appears that the offer is designed to allow the Tory party to seize the moral high ground. They believe that if the Lib Dems were to join with Labour to ram through a change in the voting system—Labour are offering the Lib Dems AV without a referendum and then a referendum on STV—then they would be discredited.

Peter Hoskin

How can the Lib Dems deal against the backdrop of a Labour leadership contest?

And so it begins. With Brown's statment earlier, the Labour leadership contenders are already creeping out of of the Downing Street woodwork.  Paul Waugh tweets that David Miliband will announce his candidacy tonight.  The News of the World reports that Ed Balls has his campaign primed and ready to detonate.  And I'd be very surprised if there aren't more names about the enter the fray. All this activity is sending electic currents through the Westminster air – and it could end up burning Labour and the Lib Dems.  Both sides are are saying that they want to create a "strong" and "stable" government.  But how can Clegg & Co. see anything stable in this situation?

Fraser Nelson

Brown saves the worst till last

We have just witnessed Gordon Brown’s last and most audacious confidence trick. “Gordon Brown to resign” says the television newsflash: but the story was the very opposite. Gordon Brown is staying on, saying – pretty much – that it will take an SAS operation to get him out of No.10 before the autumn. He declared a "constitutional duty" to stay until a new administration is formed "with majority support in the House of Commons". Untrue. You just need a majority to pass laws. One can govern with a parliamentary minority (see Alex Salmond in Edinburgh, and Harold Wilson in 1974). Cameron won the right to govern, when he last week secured a greater share of the vote than Blair in 2005 and two million more votes than Brown.

Peter Hoskin

Brown statement: now with added video

And here's a transcript of the statement "We have a parliamentary and not presidential system in this country and as I said on Friday, with no party able to command a parliamentary majority arising from the general election, my constitutional duty as prime minister is to ensure that government continues while parties explore options for forming a new administration with majority support in the House of Commons. "The business of government has continued including concerted action in Europe today to avert the financial crisis in the Euro area. Alistair Darling the chancellor spent much of his time yesterday in the European finance ministers meeting in Brussels.

James Forsyth

The best possible news for the Tories

Gordon Brown’s announcement that the Liberal Democrats have requested formal coalition talks is the best news that the Conservative party has had since the polls closed on Thursday. David Cameron can now say that his party has negotiated in good faith and that his broad, comprehensive, and open offer to the Lib Dems is on table and they can take it or leave it. If the Lib Dems do end up going into coalition with Labour they would completely discredit themselves and be slaughtered at any subsequent election, remember getting PR through the Lords would take at least a year. The markets would also not be impressed by a coalition that would not be able to take any tough decisions on the deficit.

Peter Hoskin

Gordon Brown announces his resignation

You're witnessing history, CoffeeHousers: Gordon Brown has just announced his departure from frontline politics.  In a statement outside Downing St, he confirmed that he would be stepping down as Labour leader by September – triggering a leadership contest in the process.  It's clear that he's using himself as a bargaining chip, making a Lib-Lab deal more palatable to Nick Clegg.  Indeed, he even said that formal talks between the parties are now commencing. This threatens not just to shake the kaleidoscope, but to smash it to pieces.  Until 17:05 this afternoon, most folk thought that a Lib-Con deal was imminent.  But surely Brown wouldn't have taken this step if there wasn't a chance – however slight – of sabotaging those efforts.

Peter Hoskin

Do the Lib-Lab talks alter the landscape?

Isn't it all very cosy?  Turns out the Lib Dem negotiating team secretly met with a Labour delegation over the weekend: Ed Balls, Peter Mandelson, Ed Miliband and Andrew Adonis.  And it's thought that Nick Clegg has had more conversations with Gordon Brown, both on the phone and in person.  So the Tories aren't the only ones enjoying some quality LibTime. It doesn't really alter the cut of the situation, though.  Most folk around Westminster seem to expect a Lib-Con deal, of sorts, at some point today.  But Clegg and his team would weaken their hand if they didn't at least explore every option.  The Tory leadership will appreciate this – and, I'm sure, won't be all that perturbed by these latest developments.

Alex Massie

What A Carve-Up: The Glittering Prizes Awaiting Cameron and Clegg

These are interesting times, aren't they? Interesting but scarcely simple. Nick Clegg may have suggested that a deal must be done by close of play, Monday if it is to be done at all and all the signs may still point to David Cameron coming to an arrangement with the Liberal Democrats but, clearly, difficulties remain. How could it be otherwise given the complexity of the situation and the stakes? Policy is the least of the problem. If one accepts that the old left-right labels are increasingly outmoded and that the defining divide today is between the centralisers and the localists, between the liberal and the statist then, theoretically at least, liberal Tories and true liberals in the Liberal Democrats can do a deal.

Sunday

Martin Bright

Confession Time: I Voted Labour

I left the Labour Party in 1994 and re-joined on May 6th 2010. There, I've said it. I had always intended to vote Liberal Democrat in this election, but changed my mind in the polling station. It seems I wasn't alone.  I couldn't ever quite buy in to the New Labour project, but I would like to be involved in whatever it is that happens next.  Unlike others on the left, I would not be horrified by a Conservative/Liberal Democrat government, although I would be happier with a grand coalition/government of national unity. I voted Labour with a heavy heart. My local MP, Lynne Featherstone is exemplary and the local Labour council's handling of the Baby Peter scandal was woeful.

David Blackburn

No Lib-Con deal for at least 24 hours

William Hague has just emerged from the Cabinet Office and spoken of the 'positive, constructive and substantive talks' between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats. Discussion has encompassed political reform, reducing the deficit, banking reform, regulation of small businesses, environmental issues and civil liberties. Hague says that a further meeting will take place at some stage in the next 24 hours. 'That meeting,' he added. 'Will concentrate on deficit reduction and economic stability'. The language of the statement suggests that an informal pact is more likely than a formal coalition.

Alex Massie

Scotland Will Save England From PR

That's right. There's a genial irony here. The very same Scottish MPs whose election helped prevent the Conservatives from winning a majority will be the men - and they are mostly men - who will prevent electoral reform. Those English voters who think it unfair that the great phalanx of Labour MPs returned from these chilly northern climes exercise an undue (in their eyes) influence upon the affairs of state might also pause to reflect that the people who will prevent electoral reform may well be those same Scottish Labour members. Not that this stops the deluded left from dreaming of some grand so-called progressive alliance. They're all at it and all utterly detached from reality. Exhibit A: Polly Toynbee. Exhibit B: Jackie Ashley. Exhibit C: The Observer's editorial. Wake up people.

David Blackburn

A long day’s journey into night

Sky News are reporting that Brown is to hold a meeting with Cabinet ministers tonight. Lord Ashdown made it pretty clear on Andrew Marr this morning that there would be no 'progressive coalition' with a Labour party that has been comprehensively rejected at the polls, and which would rely on backroom deals with celtic nationalist parties prepared to sell their support for a measure of protection from necessary spending cuts. You'd have thought that tonight's meeting is the beginning of the end for the Labour government.

Saturday

Peter Hoskin

Where are Labour’s manners?

For all the feverish political activity in Westiminster today – and beyond the occasional voting reform protest – there's a strange, impermeable calm to the situation.  Everything is going on behind closed doors, and everyone is remaining relatively tight-lipped.  Signs are, we may have to wait a couple of days before any light breaks through the fog of discussion and counter-discussion.   One thing, though, is already becoming increasingly clear: 13 years of tribalism haven't done Labour much good when it comes to cross-party negotiations.  There are, of course, the rumours that Gordon Brown had an – ahem – "unconstructive" meeting with Clegg last night.