EDITORIAL DE THE GUARDIAN

The coalition government: Sweetening the pill

A coalition is a better alternative for Britain – and for liberals – than a Conservative minority government

• Editorial
• guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 11 May 2010 22.28 BST
• Article history

The window of opportunity for the centre-left opened on Monday. The Liberal Democrats stared through it for less than 24 hours. Then the window closed once more, and now – for the first time in 13 years – Britain has a Conservative prime minister, albeit one of moderate temperament who intends to serve at the head of a coalition. By this afternoon it was clear that there would be no Labour-Liberal Democrat alliance. Instead, Nick Clegg and his negotiators threw in their lot with David Cameron and his Tory party.

That decision sealed Labour's fate and ended Gordon Brown's prime ministership. Soon, Mr Brown was speaking from No 10 for the final time, giving a touching farewell, before one final journey to Buckingham Palace. His dignified statement included his immediate resignation as Labour leader, a move that shores up his reputation as a party man by preparing the way for Labour to face the future with a new leader as soon as possible.

By the close of the day, however, Labour was very much old news. Within half an hour of Mr Brown's departure, it was the new man's turn in the spotlight, delivering a measured address which gave a generous nod to Mr Brown's record of public service. Despite the familiarity of the rituals by which the old regime was ushered out and the new one was ushered in, the youngest prime minister since Lord Liverpool is fast becoming one who will preside over a new form of politics, even if that has less to do with his initial plans than the scrappy manner of his arrival. After the first hung election in 36 years, the politicians of Britain's radical centre and centre-right have responded by stretching out across party lines to arrive at the verge of a formal coalition government, the first since the second world war. With Conservatives and Liberal Democrats looking set to sit side by side round the cabinet table, it is possible that party politics will never be quite the same again. Reports that the new government will soon fix parliamentary terms will, we hope, prove to be only the first of many indicators of how the fact of coalition will rewrite the political rules.

Even so, there can be no disguising the disappointment of many at this turn of events. The Liberal Democrats and Labour had a historic opportunity to form a democratically legitimate progressive coalition at a crucial moment. Labour appears to have bent over backwards to make policy compromises. In the end it was the Liberal Democrats who said no thanks, this is not going to work for us, and headed for Mr Cameron's door instead. It is a decision with huge and as yet unforeseeable consequences for all the parties – none of which is unaffected by it. In fairness to the Lib Dems, it has to be admitted that the Commons arithmetic with Labour was far more difficult than with the Tories, and that Labour's partisan recalcitrants spent much of the day in front of the cameras illustrating just why the management of such a coalition might be a nightmare. But don't kid yourselves. This was Britain's best fair-votes moment for at least 80 years. The moment was missed. It is a national opportunity lost.

In fairness also to Mr Clegg, on whom the label of not-so-secret Tory will now be unjustly pinned, it must also be said that he did not choose the cards the electorate dealt him last Thursday. The numbers and the difficult problem of appearing to rescue a defeated government inevitably stayed his hand in the dealings with Labour. The Conservative option was clearly easier arithmetically, and its legitimacy understandable as a first step in the negotiations. Mr Clegg gave Labour its chance, too – not "squalidly" (Daily Mail); not "a coup" (Daily Telegraph), but properly, openly and constitutionally. The outcome is of course a major blow to the centre-left, both short-term and existentially. But it has to be said that Mr Clegg at least appears to have played his hand fairly and well. Certainly, by taking the time to reach out to both sides of the political aisles, the Liberal Democrat leader did a great deal to sweeten the prospect of an alliance that will lean to the right of his progressive party.

It also has to be said that opportunity is not absent from the emerging Tory-Lib Dem coalition either. Such a coalition is a better alternative for Britain – and for liberals – than a Conservative minority government, never mind a Tory majority. The presence of Liberal Democrats around the cabinet table and the possibility of direct Liberal Democrat ministerial authority in some policy areas is a cause for hope, not despair. Every concession – whether on tax or civil liberty or the shape of the government – that the negotiators have won from the Tories over the past few days is a small reason to hope that Mr Clegg's party will make their values and their presence felt, for the better. Already tonight there were suggestions that Conservative inheritance tax plans – which would have given most to those in least need – might be abandoned. Mr Cameron's own pet plan for fiscal favours for married couples was always an illiberal proposal, and it is one which could soon bite the dust now that Liberals seem set to enjoy their first taste of power in living memory. And this government will be headed, too, by a prime minister who often appears to be – not least to his currently agitated rightwing backwoods – a genuinely liberal Tory, which is an authentic and honourable tradition.

All this will be tested in the crucible over the coming months. The new government will take office with the books awash in red ink. Both the yellow and the blue wings of the new alliance were well aware of this, and yet they both campaigned in the recent election on the promise that they could cut taxes related to income. The great test of both parties will be whether the rich can be made to pay their fair share for the debt, or whether instead the burden will fall on the poor and those on lower incomes through service cuts and rises in VAT. Labour, regrouping, will see future opportunity here. Today, though, may still be a liberal moment of a kind. Not the one we, and others, sought. A very fragile one. But not a moment entirely without possibility either.