Coalition: the devil and the detail

Breakfast interview on BBC radio this morning for me. Douglas Hurd before me sounding quite cock-a-hoot about the whole thing. I was more guarded: these are both exciting and disconcerting times — it’s always a strange experience when you have to work with people who are your natural opponents. But, as I said, this isn’t a marriage or fling — we don’t have to find the Tories lovable or even alluring — this is a business working relationship. And now they will have to get on with the job.

What I didn’t have chance to mention is how discombobulating all this must be for many Conservatives. One leading Oxfordshire Tory who lives in the Banbury constituency was only last week describing ‘the Liberals’ as ‘dreadful’ and saying that in America ‘liberal’ is an insult, and that it should be here too. I say to you, Cllr Keith Mitchell: you are all Liberals now.

And that is the other point that wasn’t fully discussed on air: the amount of ground the Tories have given in creating a coalition agreement that has so much good LibDem policy. Some highlights:

• restoring the link between pensions and earnings
• raising the tax threshold significantly so as to help the poorest
• real reform of the banking sector
• introducing a pupil premium to assist those in the most deprived areas

I could go on but, for the sake of balance, I should point out that the Conservatives did have some lines in the sand. They have stuck to their position on immigration, insisting on a cap where possible — a policy that is not just illiberal, it’s unworkable. It fails to realise what a mess the system is in, partly of their own making. They have also insisted that ‘any transfer of powers’ to the European Union should trigger a referendum, without admitting that we should have the most fundamental debate on whether we are in the Union or not.

There are other areas where the agreement is worryingly silent: for Banbury, with the battle for the Horton and Bicester Community Hospital, it would have been good to hear more about the running of the NHS and Primary Care Trusts.

In other words, this is an agreement which includes, for us, painful compromises. There are distinctly old-style Tory policies, but alongside them there are real progressive successes. The challenge will be to ensure this coalition unlocks the possibility of further and more radical reform of our system, with the traditional forces of reaction themselves becoming agents of change. That is when we will have truly new politics.