Nick Clegg's in the last ditch. Now is the time for him to come out fighting

Defeat over Lords reform gives the Lib Dems a chance to affect coalition policy where it most matters: the economy

Meanwhile, back at coalition ranch, the Olympic spirit has gone. In the debacle over House of Lords reform, David Cameron barely scrapes a bronze for party discipline and Nick Clegg has been stripped of his gold for loyalty. Ed Miliband is moving fast up the medals table.

The Liberal Democrats are justified in feeling aggrieved at Cameron abandoning Lords reform, particularly after failing to deliver an alternative vote a year ago. To lose both looks like more than carelessness to Clegg's critics. That does not strictly justify Clegg in refusing to agree to boundary revisionsthat are plainly overdue, and were linked to the alternative vote changes. But these are not rational times. If Clegg cannot appear strong, he can at least appear angry and full of vengeance.

Lords reform was, after electoral reform, the nearest Lib Dems had to a bosom creed. We do not know why this mattered so much, but it has become a talisman of liberal radicalism, to be implemented in that split second opportunity when the party might hold a balance of power in the Commons and "name its price". Other topics, such as pupil premium, green subsidies and NHS reorganisation were the small change of government. Reshaping the constitution separated a Liberal Democrat from the common herd.

As a result it was written into the coalition agreement of May 2010, the nearest thing to a 10 commandments in these days of relativist politics. Cameron and Clegg beamed and patted each other on the back and swore unswerving devotion "until a 2015 general election do us part". Since then Cameron has been more than devious in his handling of Clegg. A sworn Lib Dem pledge on student fees was curtly refused. The alternative vote fell by the wayside in a referendum which Cameron opposed last year, by 13m votes to just 6m. Lords reform was the last substantial item in the Lib Dem locker even if, as anti-reformers keep saying, "it never registers on the doorstep".

Clegg last month made a bad tactical error. His Lords reform bill was dreadful, making it easy for 90 otherwise loyal Tory MPs to defy their whips on "a matter of conscience". Eighty per cent of peers would be elected for a single 15-year term on a regional party list system that is selected by party managers. This would be little different from the existing system of appointment chiefly by whips. Why Clegg also kept the bishops and 90 impartial "appointees" is a mystery. A part-elected chamber is a nonsense, neither one thing nor another. Cameron's own strategy is obscure. He seemed to want Clegg's reform to proceed and proposed a guillotine motion to that end. Yet he is nervous of his so-called rightwing and its implausible refrain that he gives too much ground to Clegg. In this case, a deal was clearly in his and his party's interest. If he reneged on his effort to "make one last try", it was likely that Clegg would feel forced to retaliate and deny Cameron his support for boundary reform. This denial would cost the Tories 20 to 40 seats.

This is plainly self-defeating for Cameron. It not only deprived him of seats that are rightly his, it undermines any hope that Clegg will be able to carry his party into a second coalition with Cameron in a future hung parliament – a parliament which is now more likely because of the failure of boundary changes. Clegg's move is perhaps his first significant gesture towards Labour's Ed Miliband.

Reforming the Lords has become almost as troubled as reforming the Commons back in 1830-2, when Tories and Whigs contorted themselves over its indefensible basis of selection. There can be no justification for the present "rotten borough" peerages, retirement rewards for party loyalists or crudely sold to those who pay large sums into party coffers. This is utterly wrong. But changing it depends on the support of those who most benefit from it. To that extent 1832 was more impressive, when two parliaments in succession were elected specifically to reform themselves.

The coalition will soldier on. By appointing half the Lib Dem MPs to ministerial jobs, Cameron gave himself a payroll vote with a promise of five years in office. For all this week's spluttering and expostulation from the Vince Cable tendency, few seem inclined to surrender their cars and salaries. Even Lib Dem backbenchers, however disgruntled, cannot relish a probable massacre at the polls. Power is an astonishing glue. Lib Dems may be angry at the coalition, but so what? They are trapped.

More disappointing is the failure of the party to make any impact on coalition policy where it most matters, in economic policy. With Labour's Ed Balls hobbled by his responsibility for the deficit, there is a golden opportunity for Lib Dems to drag the coalition away from its enslavement to the bankers' ramp and the cure-all of "quantitative easing". It could and should be the party of immediate demand reflation.

Clegg argues that the coalition's guiding objective is to rescue the economy. So why not rescue it? Why capitulate to the dismal doctrines of the Treasury and the Bank of England, that growth must be held back to curb the deficit and that reflation will lead to inflation? This is the doctrine that Cable once wrote a book opposing, but as minister apparently buys hook, line and sinker.

If Liberal Democracy is about anything it is surely about applying the lessons of the past to the present. One such lesson is that no economy ever found the path to recovery through the agency of its banks. Clegg should fight for that cause at least in his famous last ditch.

Дата добавления: 2015-10-29