I recently wrote about the possibility that having a Coalition government could in fact undermine the ultimate proof that the Conservative party has changed – in other words, that people would think that the Lib Dems were the ones doing all the good things, and the Tories all the bad things.

Of course, it’s generally assumed (though not always true) that the larger party in a coalition takes the credit for the good things, and the smaller party takes the blame. I think that in the UK, we could in fact be the opposite – the Lib Dems did pretty well taking the credit in the Scottish Parliament, for example.

Maybe it’s just a Lib Dem thing? Anyway, I’ve been thinking further about this one.

This week, the Budget has been the big story. It has been stoutly defended by Shirley Williams (on Newsnight and on the Week in Westminster), Vince Cable (great job on Question Time) and Nick Clegg (slightly shellshocked interview on Today).  But there have also been a number of Lib Dems who, in carefully worded arguments, have tried to firstly say that they will amend the Budget to make it more progressive and secondly that they knew for a fact that the ideologically driven Tories were held back in their slashing and burning by Lib Dems.

It is unlikely that any serious amendments will be made to the Budget, not least because while individual sections seem to be unfair, the package as a whole is designed to be as fair as it’s possible to be while still succeeding in sorting out the financial mess. There will be further measures, as for example Iain Duncan Smith outlined, which will go further in making work rather than benefit claiming pay – but that is a separate point, and will work in a different way.

It is also very unseemly for individual MPs to be trying to claim that it was only Lib Dems that saved us all from the baby-eating Tories. Much of the strength of the Coalition rests on the fact that it has entwined the two parties so comprehensively, and that every single announcement and spokesman underlines that it is agreed Coalition policy.

I wonder if there needs to be a reminder to both parties, perhaps from the’ Whips offices, about the nature and necessity of the Coalition, combined with a warning that this is exactly why Labour are so keen to attack the Lib Dems rather than the Conservatives. Because if the Coalition is to last, and be able to take the necessary decisions for the country, they cannot fracture under pressure. They took this historic step for a variety of reasons, and they must all be prepared to see it through.

The first thing to say is well done to all those new Conservative MPs – 97 more seats, over 140 new MPs, and a huge leap from being Foot-esque in number to so nearly being able to form a government. This is an enormous achievement, and something that in 2005, even I simply didn’t think was going to be possible.

On Friday I was sitting at work still watching the results come in and feeling really rather down that we hadn’t made it. Until I looked down the list of the new House of Commons and realised it was going to be a significantly different place. This can only be good for our politics.

Over the weekend I’ve spoken to a number of people both within and outside the party, and come to some conclusions…

Our radical ideas for renewing politics have great potential. Things like recalls, citizen referendums, localism, devolving power, transparency and accountability have strong support from both Conservatives and Lib Dems.

Many of our radical ideas for renewing our society are also supported by both parties. Perhaps things like replacing the Human Rights Act with a British Bill of Rights are more difficult but again, the general thrust is not contentious.

Yes, there are disagreements over timing, but in principle, both parties are committed to lowering the tax burden on the lowest paid, and on making Britain a greener, more competitive place to do business. I’m still not wholly sure whether the Lib Dems support or oppose our plans to cancel the rise in NICs, but their manifesto outlined a number of cuts, some of which are more credible than others, and at least they have acknowledged that cuts there must be.

So in terms of doing what needs to be done, I don’t think that there will be a great difficulty in getting to a situation where we have a new government.

I think some sort of agreement between the Lib Dems and the Conservatives will bring benefits (and risks) on both sides. The benefits are obvious – stable government, a clear programme that doesn’t rely on cajoling individual MPs because there is a majority in favour of it, political cover for cuts and of course the huge bonus for the Lib Dems that they can point to having delivered parts of their manifesto at a national level. And of course, some of the more liberal ideas that the Tories have but might have had problems with the Right of the party can be delivered as part of a progressive liberal programme.

There are risks of course for both as well – what will each side have to give up that they (or more likely their activists…) are wedded to? How does a party that has portrayed itself as non-political, as ‘new politics’ sell the fact that it’s done a deal behind closed doors in a typical political way? How do the Tories manage the fact that many activists are less keen on working with Lib Dems than even Labour (and the same in reverse goes for the Lib Dems)? The whipping on both sides is going to be interesting – opinion varies significantly from the left of the Lib Dems to the right of the Tories.

But the discussions going on just now will be considering all this and more. Finally, I think a few things have been forgotten in all the excitement. Labour and Gordon Brown have been comprehensively rejected. The new House of Commons is going to be a very different place. We have the chance to radically renew our politics, our society and our economy and we need to grasp it with both hands.

In politics, ‘England does not love coalitions.’

So said Benjamin Disraeli, who represents the sentiments of the contemporary Conservative party to indications that the upcoming general election will result in a hung Parliament—a neologism for a minority government.

Yet what was true when uttered in the mid-nineteenth century may not be true in the early decades of the twenty-first.  Various opinion surveys reveal that coalition government is just what the people want, even if they aren’t entirely certain what lurks behind the appealing packaging.

Coalition governments—apart from the unity Ministries that coalesce around a single issue in periods of great national distress, such as world war or economic collapse—are the by-products when no one party in the House of Commons can command a majority of MPs. Yet formal coalitions are not the inexorable outcome.

It is equally possible that, to use a potential scenario, the Conservative party will enjoy the greatest plurality of seats without the necessary majority to form an undisputed Government. In this instance, the Liberal Democrats may choose to support David Cameron, without necessarily joining his Cabinet and assuming a share in office.

Co-operation between the two parties can be readily predicted in addressing the budgetary deficit and in decentralising power and returning this autonomy to the people—although the exact prescription for action will doubtless differ.

Yet, in other important national affairs—be it defence, immigration, electoral reform, or the question of integration within the European Union and membership in the euro—the objectives of the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats are implacably opposed, and it is likely that any agreement, were it possible, would adhere to the principles of neither party nor coincide with the wishes of their respective constituencies.

In his own time, Disraeli observed that ‘these are the vast questions of permanent interest which will occupy at intervals the mind of the nation, and on which they will receive no solution or guidance from a Cabinet consisting of members who are diametrically at variance on all these important heads.’

In our time, George Osborne has called it ‘a vote for politics behind closed doors; indecision and weak government; a paralysed economy; yet another election; and very possibly, waking up on the 7^th of May to find out that Gordon Brown is still in Downing Street.’  A briefing sheet and a humorous ‘Hung Parliament Party’ video buttress the Conservative criticism.

It is well to remember, too, that the crux of the argument against a coalition government echoes the argument against proportional representation. A coalition—either in fact or in spirit—that effaced adherence to political principle and electoral mandate, is an excuse for and example of proportional representation.  PR undermines fairness and accountability, as Conservative peer and political scientist Lord Philip Norton outlined for Lords of the Blog and argued in a Speakers’ Corner Trust debate.   First-past-the-post may have its flaws (principally with respect to pluralities), but as Lord Norton summed up, ‘A new electoral system is not so much a solution as a dangerous distraction.’

Were a Conservative government to be concocted by coalition with the Liberal Democrats along fudged lines and naked opportunism, then the Tory case against PR is severely weakened—‘Do as I say, not as I do.’  Fortunately, Cameron has been firm:

…there is one group of people who would love a hung Parliament.  And that’s the politicians.  They could sit in Westminster, they can haggle, I’ll have this job, you have that office, bit of pet spending on my project over here, bit of pet spending on your policy over there.  The politicians would adore it…

Now would a hung Parliament be progress here?  A bunch of politicians sitting around working out how they can change the electoral system so you the people will never have the chance to decisively throw a Government out of office again.  That’s not change.  The change we need is to put people in charge.

And, according to Monday’s Daily Telegraph, ‘Even if he fails to secure an outright majority, it is understood Mr Cameron is preparing to “go it alone” and form a minority government.’

If there be slight probability of ever establishing in this country a more democratic government that the English constitution [wrote Disraeli], it will be as well, I conceive, for those who love their rights to maintain that constitution; and if the recent measures … however plausible their first aspect, have, in fact, been a departure from the democratic character of that constitution, it will be as well for the English nation to oppose, with all their heart, and all their soul, and all their strength, the machinations…

So, while a hung Parliament is the creature of chance and circumstance at the ballot-box, coalition government is the offspring of conscious choice in the corridors of power.  Whether this choice is conducive to the public welfare, is ultimately decided at the subsequent election unless, through proportional representation, coalition governments become the norm.

Then will the seat of power shift, from the people to the politicians.

Stephen MacLean’s research website is focused on Organic Toryism

Rachel Sylvester in yesterday’s Times had an important piece about the election of John Bercow as the new Speaker on Monday.  I’m not going to go over the arguments for or against any of the candidates – none of them were particularly inspiring. Most of them have expenses problems. Almost all of them had in some way acted against more openness in the House of Commons, either by voting to exempt themselves from FoI requests, or by other votes. Most of them were virtual non-entities.

I quite liked some of Parmjit Dhanda’s ideas.  I particularly liked his insistence that MPs don’t understand why the public have disdain for them.

Until MPs understand why so many voters are so angry, there is no chance of the changes that are needed. The constant carping against John Bercow, for example (who, for the record, I thought did a pretty fair job at PMQs today) is pointless – who the Speaker is is just not that important in the wider scheme of things, and it smacks of self-obsession to continue to complain. The Speaker is who he is. Get over it.

What is important is that MPs grasp the mettle of reform.  They need to make changes to the way the Commons works so that MPs’ activities and the laws that are passed are responsive to their constituents, transparent, honest and provide value for money.  It is no longer good enough for whips to stitch up backroom deals or for MPs to be able to hide behind bleats of ‘we regulate ourselves’.

It’s time to change how politics works.  This speech is a good place to start but there’s plenty more to be done.

David Cameron’s speech this afternoon was bookended by TV and radio interviews.  The speech itself was an important one.

But the really big political story was not the admission that debt is out of control. Nor the admission that the system does have some fundamental weaknesses. No – it was the simple apology in those interviews. 

One of the questions on the subsequent PoliticsHome poll was along the lines of ‘was David Cameron bounced into a direct apology?’  No – of course not. First of all, you can see a pattern across numerous big speeches: the written speech is released, but in the interviews a more direct message comes through – more humane, more in tune with how normal people think and speak.  

Secondly, and politically more weighty at least in the short-term, this apology ups the pressure on Gordon Brown.  He cannot apologise – for he knows that the moment he apologises for one thing, something else will become the issue.  Basically he will end up being asked to apologise for being born.

However, the most important result from this is, for now, only a possibility.  In the longer-term, this apology could set the tone for the future. As I’ve argued before, politicians are only human, like the rest of us, and they do make mistakes, like the rest of us.  

And admitting there’s a problem is the first step to a solution.