The Lab-Lib Coalition - Pros and Cons

Today was a interesting day in politics. Gordon Brown making quite a shocking resignation and Labour attempting to beat the Conservatives with offers of coalitions. What we know as of Today is:

• Gordon Brown will step down as Labour leader in time for conference season which is around October. This is to allow The Liberal Democrats to begin talks on forming a coalition. Nick Clegg and Gordon Brown have struggled to get along. It is believed from sources in the Labour Party, most notable Diane Abbot on BBC News that this is organised by Peter Mandelson.
• Who will run for Labour leader is still not 100% certain, Harriet Harman has said she would not run, the current speculated front runners are Ed Balls and David Miliband. My bets would be on David Miliband.
• Labour will offer the Lib Dems an Alternative Voting bill and a referendum on Proportional Voting. The Conservatives have offered a referendum on Alternative Voting but nothing on Proportional Voting. One of the core policies for the Lib Dems is voting reform, as they (and other smaller parties) would benefit most from this reform.
• Talks are still ongoing for a Lib-Con and Lib-Lab Coalition. The Lib Dems haven't made their minds up.
• A LibLab Coalition would see Gordon Brown has PM, even if it is for a short period of time. There would then be an leadership election in the Labour party and assumed that whoever wins that would take over as PM. However, it is the hope of this blogger that in that situation the power would be moved over to the Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg, with him becoming PM. Under a LibCon, David Cameron would be PM with no chances of that changing without extraordinary circumstances.

As Liberal Democrat voter, the upside of a Liberal Democrat coalition with Labour and other smaller parties is that more of the Liberal Democrat policies could be implemented in government because Labour would be more dependent on the Lib Dems to keep them in power than the Tories would be (who could technically speaking, still form a minority government). This means Labour would have to make more cohesion with the Liberal Democrats (an example of this is offering the referendum on Proportional Voting).

The problem with the LibLab coalition is that it wouldn't just be the Liberal Democrats that Labour would have to get on side. It would be the SNP, Plaid Cymru, the single Green Party MP and assuming that Sinn Finn won't take their seats in Parliament. This could make for a very unstable coalition, all it would take is a minor party to start withdrawing support and siding with the Tories and it would begin to fall apart, party by party. Another issue is public support, Labour lost the election in terms of votes. Gordon Brown would become PM again but only for a few months, then it would be another PM, who hasn't been through the debates and screened by the public during the election process. Remember that when Gordon Brown became PM, there was an expectation that an early election would be called.

John Reid (former Home Sec and MP) was make a quite frank view on the Lib-Lab Coalition who felt that the two losing parties are forming a coalition with the Labour party hanging on to power. He felt that the public would take it out on the Labour party causing them lose even more MPs at the next election. (See the video of John Reid on BBC News here)

One thing is important to take away from all of this: We will not have a new government soon, who will be PM is still up in the air and there is still a possibility of another election. In my opinion however, to my displeasure that David Cameron will be PM, but if he will be joined by the Liberal Democrats is another matter. I also predict the government will not last the whole 4 years and the possibility of an early election is high.

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