Could the coalition actually set back the modernising cause?

I am a huge supporter of the Coalition. I think it has enormous potential to achieve great things. I think it should last the full five years, and I think it will radically change our society for the better.

So far, so good.

But in purely party political terms, could it actually be bad for the Tories? I wrote, before it was first agreed, about the benefits and risks to both parties. One (background) part of my assessment was that it provided useful cover to both parties to ditch commitments that were slightly batty, unaffordable and out of tune either with these austere times or with the generally liberal, decentralising attitude that the Coalition holds. And yet…

That useful cover may in fact be a hidden danger. I was talking to someone over the weekend who on paper is a true swing voter but who is absolutely DEAD against voting Conservative “because they’re Tories and I remember what they were like in the 80s”. That attitude is really hard to counter (reading today’s Guardian’s CiF comments is just a flavour of the scale of it).

Of course, actually being in government and proving those doubters wrong about Conservatives’ motives and actions is the ultimate ‘decontamination’. What I’m beginning to wonder is whether the way that this government is formed may in fact be counter-productive in achieving that.

When it comes to the next election, we’ve got two sets of candidates, governing together, but each trying to paint the other side’s more ideological wings as the enemy. We’ve then got two political parties – which, by definition, are made up of the more activist, more convinced, more ideological parts of society – and which are both coming to terms with working with each other nationally, and the compromises and difficulties that inevitably come from that.

It seems that the Lib Dems’ work to take their party with the negotiators went a long way to assuaging many activists’ fears – or at least allowing them to be aired. I wonder whether the Tories shouldn’t have done something similar? Because there is no real outlet or forum for discussion privately within the party, it often seems as if only the extremes have a voice – and therefore only those who are discontent are heard. We hear a lot about the Tory right and about rebel backbenchers and so one – but what isn’t mentioned is that the great majority of MPs, members, and voters are supportive of what David Cameron is doing with and has done for the party.

Yet isn’t the danger – particularly for the Tories – that the ultimate decontamination of actually showing what they can do for the good in government could be undermined by the perception that it was force of circumstance rather than a desire to actually be a good, fair and trustworthy government that meant they were a good government?

Personally I – it goes without saying – think that a majority Conservative government would also have been a good one. I do think that the optimism and consensus building that the Coalition has produced are beneficial. I also think we can admit that the two leaders – Nick Clegg and David Cameron – probably have more in common with each other than that do with the outer wings of their parties; and I do think that Betapolitics’ post yesterday may well have something in it. But in achieving this historic and potentially revolutionary coalition government, have we set back the modernising cause?

Related posts:

1. Vote Coalition Party!
2. A Lib-Lab coalition = two-party state
3. Don’t write them off: Labour can still fight back