Comment: Praising the Lib Dems (when no-one else will)
Despite broken promises over tuition fees, today’s child detention announcement shows us why the Lib Dems shouldn’t be demonised.
By Ian Dunt
Last May was a pleasant surprise. Given the election result, it was encouraging to see two men adapt to historical circumstance in such an ambitious, far-sighted way. Nick Clegg and David Cameron took the bull by the horns and went for a full coalition arrangement, rather than the safer (for Clegg at least) confidence-and-supply. But even for those of us who admired their approach, the last couple of months have not been easy.
The riots associated with the nascent student movement are a direct result of betrayal at the ballot box, not just the policy itself. It’s hard to blame them, frankly. The Lib Dem tuition fee position was more than a manifesto commitment; it was a key plank of the party’s agenda. Clegg and Vince Cable’s U-turn will have disillusioned tens of thousands of young voters with the democratic process – possibly forever. What other option is there but the street?
This hardly helps those of us who believe that coalition government can be a good thing in and of itself. It hardly helps those of us who want a yes vote in the AV referendum.
The general approach of the government to economic issues has also been staggeringly undemocratic. There is simply no mandate for the scale and scope of the economic plans. The privatisation of higher education, a brutal cut back to the welfare state, a general move away from the state towards an ideological free-market position: the financial crisis has been used as a vehicle to drag Britain to the right. These plans did not win support at the election. The Tories were perfectly honest about it and they did not win, even under a staggeringly unpopular Labour government. That means something.
But politics is not just about ideals any more than it can be restricted to practicalities. Politics is an untidy mixture of both. Grown up political minds pursue practical changes, secure what can be secured and take the option available in reality rather than wait for the ideal situation to develop. But without an ideal in mind, without a destination, these practical calculations are reduced to a glorified chess game: vacuous, bureaucratic and immune to principle.
For those of us who believe in basic standards of human rights and evidence-based policy making, the coalition has so far been an unmitigated success and that has been largely down to Lib Dem influence.
Clegg has won his war to end child detention in immigration cases. This policy was a stain on this country’s reputation. The deputy prime minister has accomplished something firm, concrete and commendable. The Tories would not have done it alone and you can find plenty of Conservative back benchers spitting bile about it today. I have no idea what kind of Britain it is they want to live in, but it’s certainly not mine. There is, quite frankly, no counter-argument to this policy. There is nothing so bad that it outweighs the moral implications of incarcerating innocent children. Meanwhile, Labour is noticeable by its silence. The party should offer a craven apology. We will not forget what it did easily, and its loss of voice now does little to repair the damage.
Over at the Ministry of Justice, Ken Clarke is fighting the good fight. The right wing tabloids are at his throat. So are Tory backbenchers. They are part of an industry which encourages an expensive, ineffective and bizarre factory-system of inadequacy, whereby people are locked up, let out, commit again and locked up again. It’s insane. Only a lunatic would promote this idea, or someone so obsessed with retribution that they become indifferent to the future victims of crime. Rehabilitation is the only way to protect victims, and the government plans lay out an evidence-based pathway to that result.
Clarke is a Tory but this would have been impossible under a Conservative government. It was only possible under coalition, where the Lib Dems would support Clarke’s appointment and his approach. Without the justification of coalition, Cameron could not possibly have got it past his backbenchers. They’re upset enough about it as it is. Confidence and supply would have been unlikely to provide it. For those of us who lost our patience with the last government’s constant cowardice in the face of tabloid indignation, it’s an extraordinarily satisfying process.
A similar, but qualitatively different process is taking place at the Home Office. Anyone watching Theresa May’s reaction to the tuition fee protests this week will be aware that this woman is not a natural liberal. She has swallowed the police line entirely. Those of us at the protest know for a fact that there was no escape route through Whitehall, but she parrots it endlessly. Why? Because the police said so. Her reaction reveals an a priori disposition towards believing police statements over those of eyewitnesses or students. And yet, look at what she is doing at the Home Office. The mad, draconian legislation of the last decade will be scrapped.
Do we really believe this is what May, who barks about law and order whenever she is given the opportunity, would be doing if she was left to her own devices? Cameron was famously hesitant on civil liberties. David Davis convinced him and George Osborne to fight 42-day detention, but he is now firmly in the wilderness. Without the Lib Dems in government, this process would not be taking place with such speed and relish. If Clegg and his colleagues have as big a role in the formulation of the British bill of rights as planned, the coalition could produce an important historical document which protects us against future draconian government.
Our current predicament is very far from perfect. But the moment we start demonising the Lib Dems we discourage efforts to secure change behind the scenes. Politics is about practical means towards ideal goals. The most practical thing liberal-minded voters could do now, however distasteful the economic agenda, is to take note of the good things the government is doing. Give the Lib Dems an incentive.
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