FOR A long time the “C” word has been the big taboo of British politics. The nightmare vista of coalition government because of a hung parliament and resulting “ungovernability” is conjured up to scare voters back to the Labour-Conservative duopoly that has swapped power since the second World War. A vaguely remembered, brief minority government – 1974’s Lib-Lab pact – just serves to confirm that the means by which the rest of Europe is governed is just plain, well, not British.
Yet the C word does not seem to be having the desired effect any more. Polls suggest voters are less concerned. Despite Tory warnings of market disarray following an uncertain result, the latter, as they say in business, appears to have “discounted” the possibility with some equanimity. Goldman Sachs analysts declared last week that a hung parliament would not be such bad news for the pound after all: “This may . . . be due to the fact that all key parties seem to support a degree of fiscal consolidation in the foreseeable future”.
Of course, as a cursory study of European examples will show those who want to know, the case that coalition government is inherently unstable is nonsense. For 38 years between 1948 and 2010, 13 of Ireland’s 23 governments were coalitions, lasting (the current, not included) on average three years. One involved five parties (from 1948 to 1951), and political complexions have ranged from centre-left to centre-right.
And as the historian Timothy Garton Ash points out, the German for “hung parliament” is simply “parliament”. They know no other. Germany has had less than two years of single-party or tolerated minority government out of the last 60. The rest of the time, it has been governed by largely stable coalitions. “Germany,” he points out, “does show that you can run an effective economic policy with coalition governments; and Greece shows that you can run a lousy one with a clear single-party majority.” The same is true of Ireland.
So roll on a hung Commons. Coalition would do British politics good, not least because it is the only likely outcome that would ensure the overdue reform of the iniquitous first-past-the-post voting system. It is inconceivable that the Lib-Dems would enter government without a commitment to the partially proportional system which Labour promises to put to referendum.
Coalition government could also help transform the confrontational culture of British politics, favouring a more consensual, centrist approach to policy, and less a tendency for abrupt reverses in direction. At a time when the British public is deeply alienated from politics, a government whose constituent parts could command a popular majority could also begin to restore some authority and real legitimacy to the system.
Scotland and Wales have functioned happily for some years without majority governments in their devolved administrations. As has Northern Ireland, intermittently since 1999 – though not so much coalition government as enforced powersharing.
Is it really still a problem for the English?