13 Years with a Labour majority

“What I’m interested in is the big poll on 6 May, when people really have to choose five more years of Gordon Brown – the uncertainty, the bickering, the haggling of a hung parliament – or a decisive clean break with the Conservatives.”  David Cameroon

Is it really as simple as that? Perhaps it is, but a hung parliament could potentially force debate and compromise. With a huge Labour majority these are things that have been missing for the last 13 years.

After the Labour landslide victories in the ’97 (179 seat majority) and ’01 (167 seat majority) general elections there was no requirement for Labour to worry what the opposition had to say. The last election in 2005 was not quite as overwhelming a victory, giving Labour a still substantial 66 seat majority.

For the last 13 years Labour had a very comfortable working majority, with the loyalty to the party rather than the electorate it’s meant unpopular legislation can still be railroaded through in comfort with the minimum of debate. There have been once or twice that the party whips have had to do a little work, but the MP’s understand where their loyalty lay.

The opposition is relegated to a rather noisy, but ultimately inconsequential role.

There is no check and balance to the government and they are allowed to operate with relative impunity.

Looking back to 2001 and 2002, having a 167 seat majority when some very controversial laws and motions were being revised (extended detention without charge, ID cards and the war in Iraq) meant that the wants and desires of the electorate were not necessarily considered.

Looking at it in a rather simplistic way I do think that a functional pack made up of a couple of the current parties could be a good thing for government and would certainly add a check to the system that has been missing since the tine Conservative majority of the mid 90’s. A Labour-Lib Dem pact (anti-Conservative more than anything else) seems the obvious alignment. The Lib Dems are philosophically a lot closer to Labour than the Cameron and the Conservatives. To give some additional credit to Nick Clegg, he’s done a rather good job in differentiating the party from the big two during the last year and taking a lot of the ground in the political center Under the leadership of Paddy Ashdown and Charles Kennedy the party seemed a little further to the left than today.