The Coalition and why it is good for Labour

In May 2010 something that hadn't happened for 70 years occurred. Britain gained a coalition, between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats, fast forward a year and the Conservative Party in Canada has just won a majority government with the Liberals the second party being resigned to a distant third place with the New Democratic Party becoming HM Loyal Opposition.

Most people would say that these two events are unrelated but in fact it could be a sort of looking into the future for what could have happened in Britain. In 2006 the Conservative Party won a minority in Canada (this being the first election fought under this banner), previously the Conservatives had been two parties, the Alliance Party and the Progressive Conservatives, Stephen Harper the former leader of the Alliance Party was elected to be Prime Minister of Canada. In five years the Conservatives had performed very little legislation, blaming the lack of a "majority" to the lack of real policy makings. There was an election in 2008 and the same result occurred. In this election there was talk that the Conservatives might do deal with the New Democrats, this never occurred, and aren't the NDP and the Conservatives grateful for it!

In 2011 the Liberals were wiped off the political map, their election defeat was so crushing that even their leader lost his commons seat. For a party that was once considered to the natural governing party of Canada this was a disgraceful election and to think that the Liberals had in effect voted for Christmas, they were the ones that called the vote of no confidence which brought down Harper's minority government.

Why does this matter for Britain? In 2010 Labour suffered its second worst electoral performance since the 1930s only Michael Foot's hopeless manifesto gained less in the popular vote. The Lib Dems did not make any gains in the Commons and actually lost a few seats, in other election times this may have led to Nick Clegg losing the confidence of his MPs, but this election was special, for this Parliament was hung.

A few days of bargaining later and Nick Clegg has agreed to form a coalition with the Conservatives offering a chance to form a so called "Progressive government" a year in this coalition is introducing the most draconian spending cuts since the 1920s and the Lib Dems are facing the brunt of the criticism for selling out to the Conservatives.

What if the coalition had never happened. It's not for certain but Cameron would have surely ruled in a minority government much similar to Harper's, maybe the Conservatives would have lost the subsequent election. But one thing is most certain of them all, Labour would not have benefited at all. A prediction would be that Nick Clegg would call upon a new era of politics just like the NDP did and that Labour would be considered part of the old era. Die hard Labour supporters would stick with them, but the more progressive ones would go to the Lib Dems and the swing voters would most definitely give Mr Cameron a majority.

So thank Nick Clegg for being a Fib Dem and that David Cameron for allowing the punch bags to come into the coalition because one thing's for certain the Two Part system is back and its the Lib Dems that are headed for the graveyard and not Labour thankfully.