Lib-Lab or Con-Lib? British Liberals hold the key (News Feature)

By Anna Tomforde May 11, 2010, 13:27 GMT

London - There is a bizarre twist to the frantic search for bedfellows in Britain's post-election scenario. The Liberal junior partner, while having performed poorly in the poll, is calling all the shots.

Nick Clegg, the 43-year-old Liberal Democrat (Lib Dem) leader who gained near-superstar status for his refreshing approach to change and reform, could not translate 'Cleggmania' into votes.

The Lib Dems, partly due to the vagaries of the majority voting system, even lost seats and improved their share of the vote by a negligible 0.8 per cent.

However, despite coming a distant third, Clegg secured the winning position of 'kingmaker' from an electorate that voted for change, refusing to hand the two 'old parties' - Labour and the Conservatives - the clear majorities they had traditionally enjoyed.

Britain is therefore, for the first time since the end of World War II, in the middle of serious coalition negotiations - with Clegg being wooed by both main camps in a dramatic show of horse-trading and political theatre.

If the Lib-Lab 'progressive alliance' promoted by Labour should be born, it would be the first formal coalition in which the Liberals hold real power since Churchill's wartime coalition government between 1940 and 1945.

The short-lived Lib-Lab pact formed by Labour prime minister James Callaghan in 1977 consisted of a bi-party agreement falling far short of a formal coalition.

For the past 70 years, Britain's two big parties had taken it in turns to rule, aided by a first-past-the-post voting system that remained largely unchallenged.

But the political environment has changed with this election, riding on a wave of expectation of something new - a third way.

Also, the arithmetic is different this time, as the party system has become more fragmented, and a number of smaller parties have eaten into the 'old parties'' vote. The Green party won its first ever seat, for example.

It is, therefore, hardly surprising, that Clegg's key bargaining demand in his talks with both Labour and the Conservatives has been electoral reform - towards a system that would benefit the Liberals and other small parties.

Labour has made the more generous offer to the Liberals on that score, offering immediate legislation on voting reform and a referendum later on proportional representation.

But even the Conservatives, although deeply averse to a change in the voting system, have offered a referendum on reform.

Clegg's dilemma is acute. While voting reform - his party's long held dream - is within his grasp - he also knows that Britain needs a stable government at a time of great economic uncertainty.

Party pressure on him to seize the chance of a lifetime is great. But Clegg himself has said that any coalition agreement struck must 'stand the test of time.'

Meanwhile, leading figures in the Labour party, which lost heavily in the election, are said to be ready to 'promise the earth' to Clegg in return for staying in power.

But a string of party elders have warned that a Lib-Lab pact would result in weak government as the two parties would not have a parliamentary majority of their own.

Even if Labour and the Lib Dems got together, they would need the support of a whole range of disparate smaller parties, including the Scottish Nationalists and Northern Ireland parties, to secure the safe passage of legislation.

As it stands, Lib-Lab would have 315 seats, compared with 363 in a Conservative-Liberal pact in the 650-seat House of Commons.

David Blunkett, a long-time Labour minister in the government of Tony Blair, said a 'coalition of the defeated' in Britain would 'lack legitimacy.'

'They (the Liberals) are behaving like every harlot in history,' he said Tuesday.