Coalition:

I think that I can quite safely say that the coalition government of 2010 was the biggest change of british politics in at least a decade. I remember when I was studying my A Level politics exam, and we looked at coalition goverments. We all concluded that First Past the Post (FPtP) would happily ensure there would never be coalition. So why was there are coalition government, and more importantly what does it mean for British Politics.

What is a coalition: for those that don't know this is when multiple political parties join together and work as a team to form a government/run the country. In Britain we have a House of Commons, made up of 650 seats (no. constantly changes). The country is split into 650 blocks roughly equal size of population. In each block called a constituency everyone votes for which MP (Member of Parliament) they want. So let's say in Camberwell and Peckham, Ms Harman wins it and so scores one seat for Labour. At the end, the party which has the majority seats forms the government. If no-one party has a majority 326 in this case, then they must form a coalition. This creates a frantic period where all the parties do their maths and grovel for the 3rd party to join them not their rivals.

Reasons for: No party had the full support of the electorate. (Okay I know an 8yr old could tell you that) I will be a bit more explanative. Now however much Blair say's we live in a classless Britain, he is wrong and there is nowhere where he is more wrong than in politics. Now I appreciate that under his leadership under that under the banner of New Labour his party appealed to the Middle Classes and the Conservatives attemted to appeal to the working classes lose the image of the party for the top 3%. However, people still don't see this, when I was in college at the time and was talking to my friends. Now these are people who are not particularly political but were becoming involved for the election. There political knowledge was not great but they were keeping up with all the debates on TV and were reading policies, (don't be stupid, no one reads maniphestos). But, what I didn't understand was these people who nearly all were Liberal Democrats was they had no idea what Conservative policy was. The majority of people I spoke to in the run up of the election honestly thought Conservative policy was to re  recreate feudalism. This is what I meant about class politics still being alive, maybe not in policy but in ideology. That said, this attempt at escaping class politics has contributed to a mass loss of confidence as so many cry "But they are all the same!" and who can blame them.

Admittedly this is made worse by the classic shot of Camaron in Prime Ministers Question Time (PMQT) being flanked by Clegg and Osborne who let's be honest look the same. The labour front bench isn't much better.

Therefore, my arguement is when it came to the election, the Liberal Democrats as the first test for Clegg a relatively young and inspiring leader managed to persuade the students that they were not a dead vote after all. Angry at Labour ignoring their voice on the Iraq War and the G20 the students put in a fairly decent turnout, partly responsible for the highest turnout for 10 years. While the Liberal Democrats did not do well in the election. Even Clegg accepted that they lost the election they subtracted from the vote that the other two would have received.

Labour were truly down and out, as John Major found in 1997 sometimes you just need to take a break and fall back into opposition. The Tories had been in power for 18 long years, and sometimes you just run out of things to do, tempers of the public run high and generally you have to step down. A lot of parallels can be run here, Blair and Thatcher were both very powerful, very presidential leaders who both routinely marginalised cabinet. They both eventually had a crisis that demanded resignation; Iraq War and Poll Tax, both were replaced by unelected PM's Gordon Brown and John Major. At the end both parties had literally fallen apart at the seams.

But the Conservatives, despite having an energetic leader Mr Camaron who despite returning e the party from the dark days of *shudder* ; Michael Howard in charge... The Conservative party never managed to get the full confidence of the electorate. Therefore, we have a position of 3 parties whom no-one wants. Hence the coalition.

Impact of the coalition: fundamentally, it is a goverment that no-one actually wants... Additionally, it had different ramifications for each party. For Labour it put them into an interesting position, as the sole opposition it gave them the responsibility for solely keeping the government to account. It gave them a potentially weak government to scrutinse, after all any arguaments of cross political ideology would bode well for them. Many Labour supporters were hoping that it would mean the government would callapse leaving a chance for a Labour come back in 4-5 years. The association of the Tory/LibDem alliance would weaken traditionalist party support, many supporters would condemn Clegg for allying with the hated Conservatives. All in all, Labour seemed to be in a relatively good position, after all how could a liberal Conservative government possibly work...

The impact for the conservatives seemed quite negative, I remember the feeling being that it was the best chance for  Conservative Government since Hague was running the party... and the best that we managed to end up with was a coalition government. Still if for nothing else, we remained positive and if not for anything else, it meant Mr Brown was nowhere near the economy which could only be a good thing.

Introduction:

Hi, I am just going to say a few word s on myself. I am a political enthusiast who was until recently a political activist. I do not attempt to maintain a neutral interpretation of politics and I was a Conservative campaigner for the last general election. However, my aim in this blog is to look at what British Politics has become and will examine the news in relation to the bigger picture, or at least what amuses me.