Hanging Together

Nicoll discusses Britain's first coalition in peacetime since the National Government of the 1930s. The surprising outcome was an alliance between the Conservative Party and the center-left Liberal Democrats, for long the third-largest party, ever hopeful of recovering nineteenth-century glorie...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Survival (London) 2010-06, Vol.52 (3), p.5-10
Main Author: Nicoll, Alexander
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Central government
Coalition governments
Coalitions
Conservative parties
Electoral reform
Foreign policy
Government
Hanging
Inequality
Labour parties
Military policy
Parliament
Political Parties
Power
Proportional representation
United Kingdom
Voting
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Summary:Nicoll discusses Britain's first coalition in peacetime since the National Government of the 1930s. The surprising outcome was an alliance between the Conservative Party and the center-left Liberal Democrats, for long the third-largest party, ever hopeful of recovering nineteenth-century glories but until now seemingly doomed forever to the margins. Not only is coalition an unfamiliar concept in modern Britain, but the two participants are not at all natural bedfellows. In some respects the Liberal Democrats' platform was to the left of the Labour Party, for example in their opposition to a 'like-for-like' replacement for the Trident submarine-borne nuclear deterrent. Liberal Democrats had always seen themselves potentially in alliance with the Labour Party in an eventual realignment of the left. Nevertheless, the new partners' negotiating teams did find a remarkable amount on which they could agree in forging a common policy programme.
ISSN:0039-6338
1468-2699
DOI:10.1080/00396338.2010.494869