Liberal Democrats have gathered in Liverpool for their Autumn Conference. Some activists have fretted over whether the party leadership did the right thing in forming a coalition at Westminster. Not this one.
When I was asked shortly after the deal was struck how I felt, I said, “overwhemingly enthusiastic”. It’s an opportunity that might not come along again so we need to grasp it and hold tight at the beginning. The benefits will come later.
As a party we have always supported proportional elections – we prefer STV in multi-member constituencies – which will inevitably lead to some form of coalition or partnership agreement with others. That our discredited first past the post system threw up a coalition is unusual. The minority party has to make compromises to its own manifesto commitments to hold the balance of power, but can sometimes bring about changes that wouldn’t have happened otherwise in the efforts of all parties to provide stable government. Something we know well in Scotland.
Stable government has been provided at Westminster since the election and Liberal Democrats have played an important part in that. Its important for the UK as a whole that members of two different parties can work together in key posts. That there are no splits and divisions.
There have been mistakes in these early days but we must ride these and take the longer view and see what happens. That’s what we did in Scotland in 1999 and benefited from it later. The activists in Liverpool need to be aware of this, curtail their criticism but not their honest scrutiny and show some political maturity.
