BY BRAD JAMES
Labour have emerged from a veil of mystery after this weekend. Adopting five key pledged to make the nation a better to live in, roaring it out from a pulpit swamped by party faithful. Their two pronged, aptly parodying the infamy of the Ides of March yesterday, delivered in the form of Ed Balls, the Shadow Chancellor, sabotaging the interview of the actual Chancellor, George Osborne, and forcing him to agree to a debate live on air. Gideon (the Chancellor) giddy with confusion, even shook on it. Surely this was a Labour and left wing coup-de-grace? Apparently not. Because hot on everyone’s tongues in 2015 is the notion of potential bedfellows come the dreaded three words no statesman wants to hear: “no overall control,” is the idea of partnering up and coalitions. In May, the spectre of a Hung Parliament hangs as ominous as the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come did for the horrified Ebenezer Scrooge. Yet this zeitgeist refuses to be banished and must be confronted with earnest honesty and maturity.
Speaking today, Ed Miliband has assured Labour Party faithful that there will be no coalition between his party and the SNP.
“There will be no SNP ministers in any government I lead.” Vowed the Leader of the Opposition. A promise to which the SNP leader, Nicola Sturgeon herself replied that he basically: “ruled out something that no one was promising.”
Yet according to the BBC’s assistant political editor Norman Smith, Miliband has failed to rule out a more informal arrangement with the SNP after the election. Offering a minority Labour government support on a vote by vote system known as confidence and supply. Confidence and supply means that a minority party will prop up a government by voting in support of said government’s laws or motions. Or abstaining from the vote entirely, enabling the likelihood of a government pushing through their laws to have greater advantage. So it is not a coalition of sorts, more of a “you go your way, I’ll go mine” ethic that enables both parties to have their way whilst one doesn’t interfere with the other.
We live in a cynical world. This pessimism has bled over from our reticence as commentators and has petrified into an apathy that dictates a political landscape where indifference is the watchword. It is expectation of the same which has led to our presumption of a Hung Parliament for a second half decade in a row.
In order to obtain a majority, the Conservatives or Labour (let us not kid ourselves that these two parties will remain the frontrunners) will need to achieve 326 seats in Westminster. The prospect of this is akin to climbing a mountain of sand for both the reds and the blues. Projections in most recent polls would bestow 297 on the Conservatives, 267 on Labour. By siding with the Lib Dems a second time (projected to collect 30 seats) the Tories could form a government once more. Yet a Lib Dem alliance with Labour would still produce a minority government. But tallying up 35 SNP seats with the combined Lib Dem/Labour mix, Ed Miliband would therefore be able to form a government, even with confidence and supply. What is lacking however, is the confidence that any party or leader can supply what the public wants. It’s why we’re in this mess to begin with! Let us not forget the vast chasm sundering rhetoric from reality. Nick Clegg made a raft of promises after all, those vows were burgeoned by a virulent student support – off the back of his promise of free tuition fees – yet this soon was jettisoned into the Thames when a real office of power was offered to him by Tories desperate for power (as desperate as himself of course). So bear with us whilst this not easily led electorate hold our breath and wait for action to bolster those words.
