IF THE UK election has proved anything it is surely the profound flaw at the heart of the rationale for maintaining the first-past-the-post electoral system. For years both Tories and Labour have argued that it is the system, however unfair, best able to guarantee the election of a stable majority government. Quod erat demonstrandum. Well, clearly not.
The abject failure of the system to do precisely that, in producing a hung parliament with no natural coalition majority on either side of the house, inevitably has set the baseline for the talks about forming a government. Initially that will be between the Tories and the LibDems. But the offer yesterday of an all-party committee of inquiry on electoral reform from Conservative leader David Cameron is a meagre bone that should not possibly entice Nick Clegg. He needs a solid commitment.
A battered and disappointed Mr Clegg finds the idea of coalition talks with prime minister Gordon Brown distasteful. Although his party ideologically may be more sympathetic to Labour, he is wary of forming what Tories are calling a “coalition of the defeated”. But the election made a very painful point to the Lib Dems – their vote was up 1 percentage point, yet the party lost five seats, leaving it with about a third of the number that its national share should entitle it to. The result has demonstrated decisively that Mr Clegg’s party can never achieve parliamentary lift-off without a change in the electoral system. The reform of voting thus remains more clearly than ever not just a policy option for the Lib Dems but an existential issue for the party.
Labour campaigned on the promise of constitutional reform, including electoral change, offering the prospect of an autumn referendum on a somewhat more proportional system. The party is open to being pushed further. It is almost inconceivable that Mr Clegg will not exploit the prospect of the talks with Labour that will follow those with the Tories as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for his party in present circumstances.
Mr Cameron yesterday was pointing to Labour’s 29 per cent share of the poll as evidence that it “has lost its mandate to govern our country”. A coalition of the Labour and Lib Dem parties would represent 52 per cent of the electorate. It would command a minority position in the Commons, and would need the support of the SDLP, Lady Hermon, and the Scottish and Welsh nationalists.
The legitimacy of such a government could be enhanced, and the pill sugared for the Lib Dems, were Labour to be persuaded that Mr Brown should step aside as prime minister in favour of a new face. It is a possibility that the canny deputy prime minister Lord Mandelson hinted at yesterday.
Mr Clegg will make the call. While he is doing so over the coming days, it is worth recalling Charles Haughey abandoning the core principle of opposing coalition to go into government with Des O’Malley in 1989 and Dick Spring’s negotiations for government with Albert Reynolds. As we look into familiar territory, we are told that Britain is different.