Labour scorn at Lib Dem-Tory tie-up
Ed Balls and Andrew Adonis are among the senior Labour figures who have begun questioning the cohesiveness of the new coalition government.
They believe the Conservative and Liberal Democrats’ decision to form a formal coalition administration will come as a shock to many – and have predicted their unity is unlikely to last five years.
Mr Balls, the former children’s secretary and a close ally to ex-prime minister Gordon Brown, said these were “different times”.
“There will be many people, including Liberal Democrats themselves, [who are] very surprised to see what’s been agreed to with the Conservative party,” he said.
“The one thing it now seems the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives are agreed on is they want to cut public spending this year… there is a real danger we’ll look back and say we made almost a 1930s-style mistake at this point.”
Mr Balls is expected to stand for the Labour party’s leadership and said this morning his party expected a “proper debate”. Only David Miliband has yet announced his intention to stand.
Former transport secretary Lord Adonis, an ex-Lib Dem, wrote in an article in the Guardian that he doubted the longevity of the present government.
“If it lasts five years, water will start to flow uphill,” he stated.
“I am an electoral reformer and a former Lib Dem. But I was shocked by the Lib Dem proposal – in our negotiating session with them – that the alternative vote should be introduced before a referendum, as ‘a big downpayment we need to go in with you’ (in the words of one of the Lib Dem negotiators).
“The commitment in their coalition agreement with the Tories to gerrymander the fundamental basis of parliamentary legitimacy – proposing that votes of confidence will henceforth require the support of 55% of MPs – is presumably another such unprincipled ‘downpayment’.”
The Lib Dems abandoned formal negotiations towards a ‘progressive alliance’ after, they claimed, the Labour party refused to compromise on the bulk of its manifesto.
“We were perfectly serious, but we were not prepared to engage in constitutional gerrymandering,” Lord Adonis insisted.
“It also rapidly became clear that the Lib Dem negotiators had all but decided to back a Tory deal, and were playing us in to squeeze final concessions from Cameron on electoral reform.”
