Rainbow Coalition

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So here we are, five days on from the General Election and we still don’t have a result. Having spent days cosying up to the Conservatives. the Liberal Democrats are now negotiating with Labour, although it’s being said that these new talks are not going as well as we might have expected given the vast acreage of common ground between the two parties.

The rolling news channels’ coverage of  events is becoming a tad desperate now. I use the word ‘events’  loosely because for some time now, despite the anchor persons’ claims that the whole thing is fantastically exciting and fast moving, damn all has been happening. When you see the scrolling banner at the foot of the screen proclaim “BREAKING NEWS: Gordon Brown’s car leaves Downing Street” you sense they are clutching at straws. The media feels obliged to cover this, and of course it is important. However, actual news is so thin on the ground that they are compelled to fill the void by interviewing an ever more surreal collection of British political faces, some of whom I was convinced had died years ago. And, of course, none of these interviewees actually KNOWS anything.

Since the world and his wife are now apparently qualified to express an opinion on what’s happening (allegedly), this reporter doesn’t want to be left out. I was appalled when I heard that the Lib Dems had started negotiating with the Conservatives, and frankly amazed, given the huge differences between them in terms of policy and values. I was delighted when it was announced that talks with Labour had started, but my enthusiasm for a ‘progressive alliance’ was tempered by a number of factors, most of them practical issues such as the House of Commons numbers game, public perception of a Lab-Lib coalition as a tacky stitch-up to keep Labour in power, and the complexity of managing a loose collection of parliamentary groupings. It wouldn’t be just Lab-Lib, but potentially all the other minorities such as Plaid Cymru, SNP, even the Greens. Sorry, Green.

Talking of which… Caroline Lucas was interviewed this morning, and was quizzed about how she would align herself with whatever lashed-up government emerges from the mess. She was politely but firmly consistent in saying that her voting would be determined on “a case by case basis”. No dogmatic party line to follow, no Whips to be obeyed on pain of political death, just pragmatic, common-sense consideration of the issues. If only everyone in Parliament could behave like that.

One final thought… given the tight numbers involved if the so-called Rainbow Coalition actually happened, we might even see a situation where our solitary Green MP held the balance of power in a crucial vote. How cool would that be?

Pete Smith @ May 11, 2010