The Coalition: a half-time report Barring unforeseeable accidents, the 2012 party conference system marks the mid-point of this fixed-term parliament. It therefore provides a good opportunity to review the record to date, with particular emphasis on events since the third edition of Exploring British Politics was published. First, the state of the parties. A Yougov poll conducted after the Labour conference (but just as the Tories were gathering for their own meeting in Birmingham) showed Ed Miliband’s party on 45%, the Conservatives on 33%, and the Liberal Democrats languishing on 9%. The Liberal Democrat conference had clearly done nothing to revive the fortunes of Nick Clegg or his party, but at least the poll placed them ahead of UKIP (6%). By contrast, Ed Milliband’s ostentatiously unscripted speech provided a substantial boost, so that his performance as a party leader was now rated more highly than David Cameron’s (although a majority of respondents thought that both leaders were doing their respective jobs badly). One might quibble that the government’s present unpopularity offered Miliband an open goal, but this would be to misread the psychology of such occasions. As opposition leader, Tony Blair could have fluffed his conference speeches and still won a resounding victory in 1997. By contrast, Miliband has made at best a faltering start as leader; and while some voters might already regard his party as a viable alternative to the present government, even their thirst for political change must be tempered by the knowledge that Labour enjoyed 13 years in office and bequeathed an economic crisis to its successors. A poor performance in such circumstances would have confirmed suspicions that Miliband was the coalition’s chief electoral weapon; he had to do well enough to ensure a big ‘bounce’ in the polls. He did just that, with a speech which included a few policy ideas as well as references to his own background and the frequent use of the phrase ‘One Nation’ to characterise his approach. Senior Conservatives, including Foreign Secretary William Hague, ridiculed Miliband’s ‘One Nation’ appeal. However, the slogan makes good sense as a Labour rallying cry at the present time. It is a marked improvement on the Conservative version (‘We’re all in this together’), which invites critics to examine whether the affluent ministers who use that phrase are really ‘in it’ at all. The origins of ‘One Nation’ point to a different tactical purpose; for those with long memories, it evokes a time when Conservatives like Edward Heath rejected the idea that mass unemployment was ‘a price worth paying’, and treated the public sector with respect as a provider of essential services, rather than a parasitic growth which drained the economy. David Cameron could have cemented his party’s hold on the ‘One Nation’ slogan; after all, in the past he has claimed to belong to that Conservative tradition. However, the 2012 Conservative conference was never going to provide Cameron with a platform for the renewal of this commitment; it was always more likely that he would throw some red meat to mollify his right-wing critics. As it turned out, Cameron’s speech was widely admired for the sense of principled determination it conveyed; although the mood music was distinctly Thatcherite, there were no specific concessions to the right. He resorted to a very old political joke, attacking Labour as a ‘One Notion’ party; instead, he extolled an ‘aspirational nation’, which clearly did enough to perk up existing Conservative enthusiasts but could have meant very little to the Britons whose aspirations were being thwarted by a lack of job opportunities in an economy which was flat-lining at best. Despite these flaws in the speech, in the circumstances it was a masterly performance which had an instant effect on the opinion polls. The Yougov survey conducted on 10-11th October placed Labour at a more realistic 42%, with the Conservatives just 7 percentage points behind and the Liberal Democrats falling perilously close to parity with UKIP. Since the publication of Exploring British Politics 3, the main political development has been the abandonment of plans to reform the House of Lords. While not unexpected, this was a serious blow to Clegg’s credibility; he duly responded by refusing co-operation with Conservative plans for constituency boundary revision. Since the proposed changes would have benefited the Conservatives, this form of retribution reduces the chance that the Liberal Democrats will hold the balance of power after May 2015, making it more likely that they will return to opposition after the heady experience of office-holding. Ominously for the party, opinion polls consistently show that a majority of voters who backed the Liberal Democrats in 2010 intend to support Labour next time. Despite the boost in Miliband’s poll ratings, perhaps the 2012 conference season will be remembered not for the performances of the main party leaders but for the efforts of their chief internal rivals. Just before the Liberal Democrats opened their conference in Brighton, a Guardian/ICM poll suggested that the party’s fortunes would improve markedly (though not dramatically) if it replaced Clegg with Vince Cable. However, having disposed of two leaders in the last parliament, the Liberal Democrats are seemingly stuck with the present incumbent, despite the fact that he is currently far more of an electoral liability than were either Charles Kennedy or Sir Menzies Campbell. For Labour, Ed Balls made the kind of speech which would have identified him as the obvious leader-in-waiting if Miliband had delivered another damp squib. The star of the conference season was undoubtedly Boris Johnson, who made jokes at his leader’s expense while claiming to be speaking on his behalf. In hindsight, it was the kind of knock-about, lightweight effort which reinforced the doubts of those who already considered Johnson to be unsuitable for national leadership in difficult times. The September reshuffle The other key development was the cabinet reshuffle of 4 September 2012. Reshuffles are fascinating occasions for serious students of British politics; among other things, they can give an indication of the state of the battle between the main parties (a struggling government often tries to ‘refresh’ the cabinet in the hope that different faces will bring a change of fortune), and the balance of power between the various factions in the ruling party. They can also give an indication of an individual prime minister’s attitude to patronage: is he or she a ‘good butcher’, happy to bid farewell to failing colleagues? David Cameron’s reshuffles were always likely to be more complicated than usual, given the context of a coalition between very unequal partners. However, the 2012 changes would have been perplexing in almost any context. The most likely candidate for the chop (Jeremy Hardy) was promoted, while two others who seemed to be heading for the door (Kenneth Clarke and Baroness Warsi) were merely asked to sit in different seats. Meanwhile, the Liberal Democrat David Laws, who had left the cabinet due to serious irregularities in his expenses claims, was welcomed back as a junior minister after little more than two years in purgatory. Cabinet posts in the coalition government after September 2012 reshuffle Post Party Replaces Prime Minister David Cameron Con Deputy Prime Minister & Lord President of the Council Nick Clegg Lib Dem Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne Con Foreign Secretary and First Secretary of State William Hague Con Lord Chancellor & Secretary of State for Justice Chris Grayling Con Kenneth Clarke (Con) Post Party Replaces Home Secretary Theresa May Con Leader of the House of Commons Andrew Lansley Con Sir George Young Secretary of State for Defence Philip Hammond Con Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills Vince Cable Lib Dem Secretary of State for Work and Pensions Iain Duncan Smith Con Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change Ed Davey Lib Dem Secretary of State for Health Jeremy Hunt Con Andrew Lansley (Con) Secretary of State for Education Michael Gove Con Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government Eric Pickles Con Secretary of State for Transport Patrick McLoughlin Con Justine Greening (Con) Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Owen Paterson Con Caroline Spelman (Con) Secretary of State for International Development Justine Greening Con Andrew Mitchell (Con) Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Theresa Villiers Con Owen Paterson (Con) Post Party Replaces Secretary of State for Scotland Michael Moore Lib Dem Secretary of State for Wales David Jones Con Cheryl Gillan (Con) Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport Maria Miller Con Jeremy Hunt (Con) Chief Secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander Lib Dem Attorney General Dominic Grieve Con Leader of the House of Lords and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster Lord Strathclyde Con Minister without Portfolio (Chairman of the Conservative Party) Grant Shapps Con Baroness Warsi Minister without Portfolio Kenneth Clarke Con New post Senior Minister of State at the Foreign Office, Minister for Faith and Communities Baroness Warsi Con New post While some of the pre-reshuffle speculation – involving the displacement of big cabinet figures like George Osborne and Vince Cable – had been based on wishful thinking, the lack of significant change at a time when the government was in obvious trouble could only encourage speculation that Cameron was a poor butcher, a prime minister too weak to make the necessary changes, or a mixture of both. Well attested stories of ministers effectively refusing to be sacked could only lend credence to the idea that, for temperamental or contextual reasons, David Cameron was unable to act as if he was the master of his own house. The prime minister’s room for manoeuvre was always going to be circumscribed within a coalition of this nature, in which his deputy has effective control over the make-up of the Liberal Democrat cabinet contingent. Yet it would be a mistake to underestimate the extent to which this prime minister has been able to transform a necessity into a virtue. Clearly he has on occasion used the presence of Liberal Democrats within the cabinet as a shield against critics who would prefer a more right-wing policy agenda. If pressed, he can even cite the need to placate the Liberal Democrats as the reason why a bête noir of the right, like Kenneth Clarke, has been shuffled this time rather than sacked. Viewing the opportunities which leadership of a cabinet government can offer a Tory who wants protection against his right wing, Sir John Major must feel very envious of Cameron’s alleged predicament. Overall, then, there are no good grounds for interpreting Cameron’s use of his office as a lasting setback to the powers of the prime minister. Indeed, a more plausible reading of events would suggest that Cameron has simply utilised his considerable powers in a manner which shows flexibility as well as strength. When one examines the position of the cabinet vis-a-vis the premier, that impression is reinforced. In the course of the reshuffle, the size of the cabinet increased by two. Cameron clearly felt that there were good reasons for expanding the cabinet to accommodate Clarke and Warsi; but improving the efficiency of the institution as a decision-making body cannot have been among those reasons. The bigger the cabinet, the greater the potential for sterile disputes (and leaks of contentious decisions). Thus when a cabinet expands beyond certain limits, one can be pretty sure that the real action is happening elsewhere, in sub-committees or bilateral meetings. In the past, prime ministers have sometimes felt constrained to buy off dangerous opponents by offering them cabinet places. The 2012 reshuffle can be seen as further evidence of the declining authority of the cabinet as an institution, making the appointment of either friends or foes to places at the ‘top table’ a relatively costless exercise. This impression was reinforced by the furore aroused when Andrew Mitchell – the recently-appointed Chief Whip – lashed out verbally against police officers guarding Downing Street. Accused of using words which could have opened the average citizen to arrest and even prosecution, Mitchell denied that the officers had reported the conversation accurately. Cameron argued that Mitchell’s half-apology was sufficient to allow him to continue as a cabinet member. In this instance the prime minister might be forced to retract his support for the splenetic Mitchell. But if his instant reaction was a misjudgement, it must be attributed at least in part to a feeling that cabinet membership is far less important than ordinary ‘plebs’ assume. For these and other reasons, British politics remains as fascinating as ever. David Cameron’s conference speech has undoubtedly helped to shore up his authority within the Conservative Party, but it is probably fair to say that the coalition government’s most significant achievement to date is its survival. Its formation in 2010 might have prevented economic disaster; yet no-one can ever know whether the most plausible alternative (a Liberal Democrat agreement to support a minority Conservative government on the basis of ‘confidence and supply’) would not have had the same effect of appeasing global markets. Politically speaking, the only beneficiaries of the coalition seem to be the Labour Party as an institution, and David Cameron as an individual, in that order; and at the time of writing the most likely outcome of the next election is a slender, but workable Labour majority.