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Guardian sniping may prove the coalition’s popularity

The ‘honour’ of penning this morning’s pointless anti-Lib Dem article in The Guardian goes to Andy Beckett. In trying to justify his headline that ‘Nick Clegg’s alliance with the Conservatives has damaged the Lib Dems’ popularity with leftwingers, both in and out of the party’ Beckett quotes one former party leader, partly quotes two others and finding one member who joined after the election and another whose level of activism seems to be at doubt from his local party in Reading.

The quote assigned to Paddy Ashdown (I’ve always known him as Paddy and I’m not starting any of this ‘Lord’ stuff now) is ‘Am I happy about helping the Tories to form a government? No’. Seems clear enough? Maybe not. Read more of what Paddy said once the coalition had been formed:

I’ll admit that I was sceptical, too. A deal with the Labour Party would have been easier, more comfortable and far more consistent with our strategy of realignment – and it was this which I worked for over the past few days. But some of the old Neanderthals in Labour wrecked that opportunity, and have now turned their party back towards tribalism. We Lib Dems could then have abandoned Nick Clegg’s promise to work with others in the national interest, moved back to our comfort zone, sat tight and done nothing. That would have been the simpler thing to do. But it would have been the wrong one.

The Tories, under David Cameron, seemed to understand the demand from the electorate for a new kind of politics better than many in Old Labour, and responded to it with speed, understanding and a good deal of statesmanship. Those of us who learnt our politics in opposition to the Tory party of the Thatcher era found this surprising, and in some cases even quite hard to deal with.

I expect Paddy also found it a little easier to deal the thought of a Conservative coalition with after the appalling way he was treated by Tony Blair in 1997, when Paddy thought political realignment and electoral reform might be delivered by the incoming Labour government.

Beckett also quotes David Steel out of context when talking about ‘collaboration with the enemy’. Reading Steel’s post in The Guardian a fortnight ago, it is clear that the former leader was referring not to how he saw the coalition in practice, but how he and others might have instinctively reacted to the idea. He goes on to say

As I said at the end of the meeting, Nick Clegg had only one other option as leader – to sit in opposition, watch a minority Tory government struggling with declining sterling and share indices, head for a second election in the autumn armed with buckets of Ashcroft-type cash and annihilate our party as useless hand-wringing debaters. We have not only to hope this coalition works – we have got to make damn sure it does.

The remarkable thing about this article is a lack of any real dissent found from anyone within the party. My friend James Graham’s comments are measured and philosophical, giving a practical illustration of how any coalition is likely to affect the junior partner, rather than a revelation of a coming apocalypse. The vital issue for almost all the Lib Dems that I have spoken to is just how much difference we and our policies are going to make in changing this government from its otherwise pure Tory path.

Beckett draws parallels between this coalition and that of the Lib-Lab pact of the late 1970s stating, ‘In the 1979 general election, the Labour vote actually rose, while the Liberal vote dropped by a fifth and effectively gave Margaret Thatcher her famous victory’. Naughty Liberals – letting the Tories in as usual. But the Lib-Lab pact was between a party with no identity and another with disappearing popularity. The 1977 pact was negotiated in a position of weakness. This year’s agreement has far more strength about it. And the Lib-Con coalition is clearly in the interests of the country; the 1977 deal was in the interests of the Labour Government.

There is recognition that there has been no steep fall in Lib Dem vote. Even the Guardian has to admit that ‘in the one significant electoral contest since the general election, last week’s delayed ballot in the seat of Thirsk and Malton in prosperous Tory north Yorkshire, the Lib Dem proportion of the vote rose while the Labour vote sharply fell’. But still the story continues: the Lib Dems are DOOMED.

Many of the Guardian’s hacks seem to have a point to prove after the paper’s endorsement of the Liberal Democrats for the General Election. But trying to stand up a story of impending gloom, doom and destruction on the basis of some out of context quotes, a new member who hasn’t resigned and an impolite non-activist doesn’t seem like much of a story at all. If anything, the lack of quotable disquiet seems to lead to the conclusion that most Lib Dems are willing to give the coalition the chance to deliver before jumping to judge or running away.

Related posts:

1. When the Guardian’s story literally doesn’t add up
2. Eric Pickles the TARDIS time-traveller
3. The delusion of UKIP