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Alasdair Gray

A Vote of no Confidence

By Alasdair Gray, the UK – May 2010

After a strange and enthralling election Britain has no government.  Instead, we have a hung parliament with Labour, unsurprisingly, losing 91 seats to the conservatives. But, although the Conservative party gained 5% of the vote from Labour, it was still not sufficient for them to govern unchallenged.

The biggest shock of the night, however, came from the pitiful performance of the Liberal Democrats who, after three weeks of hope and impressive media performances from their leader Nick Clegg, actually lost five seats.

The result? A hung parliament.  And so begins the very complex and sensitive undertaking of forming a government without any party having an overall majority.

Such indecisiveness has caused everyone to try and explain who and which party will ultimately hold the power.  Talk of kingmakers and prospective deals have occupied a lot of international news attention.

Lost in their discussions is the really powerful message of this election.  The British electorate stated loud and clearly that none of the candidates could be adequately trusted to lead the country on their own.

What is more, none of the upcoming days of back-room talks, shady phone calls and party-political groveling – all in the name of “democracy” – will change likely this lack of confidence.

Although no one was surprised by the swing away from Labour, events over the last few weeks go some way to explaining it.

Front page headlines in right wing British papers the week before the election needed little imagination slating Gordon Brown, leader of the Labour party – “Bigot-gate,” “Brown Brands Gran a Bigot,” “Brown toast” – the incumbent PM all but handed them a shovel.

You would have expected that an experienced politician of 24 years would be capable of meeting a loyal, elderly constituent without causing such a media frenzy. Yet after a very brief, camera friendly discussion about immigration for the press with a 65 year-old Labour voter, Brown got into his chauffer driven car and without removing his mike said, ‘That was a disaster… who put me with her… she’s just a bigoted woman.’

The gaffe gave birth to a new wave of controversy and inevitable opinion pieces raising the archetypal questions surrounding trust, accountability and the role of the prime minister. The next day, in a radio interview, Brown spoke of how he felt the broadcaster who released the clip breached the two-way relationship between politicians and the media.

But during an election should the media feel obliged to hide the private side of politics?  In this case, it probably matters little.  Brown said should he lose the election he would go into charity work.  Ex-Conservative PM, John Major, told an interviewer on the BBC that Brown should do as he did – sit down and watch the cricket.

This series of events epitomize exactly what was wrong with Brown’s premiership. No matter what he did well, there was always something or someone in the background ready to undermine and overshadow him.

Within a few months of becoming PM, Brown had dealt with a terrorist attack, a bird flu scare and widespread flooding on a biblical scale. After he controlled these events so capably everyone seemed ready –and more importantly happy- for him to call a general election.

Brown, however, refused. This led almost every tabloid paper to print the headline ‘Brown Bottles It’. And this is how Brown will be remembered, as an ‘almost’ Prime Minister.

It’s too bad that any leader’s entire career is judged by their last tap dance at the exclusion of every other performance.  And with the added surveillance of new media, the “dour Scotsman” was found wanting.

In the future, savvy politicians must realize that the election landscape is forever changed. Just two months ago, British politics was considerably different. David Cameron was measuring the curtains of 10 Downing Street, Gordon Brown was preparing an inadequate pre-election budget and an all but unknown politician, Nick Clegg was going about his duties as leader of the Liberal Democrats.

Fast forward to April and the first ever prime ministerial debate saw the Liberal Democrats flung into the centre of the electoral fray with a boost in their poll ratings that placed them in second place. Dropping 7%, Cameron was struggling to make an impact.

Brown fared poorly in the debate and his party dropped to third place, leaving him with just 27% in favor of his reelection.

The debate however, will not be remembered by polls and statistics but rather as a cornerstone in British political reform.  For the first time ever the public could put the leaders on the spot and hold them accountable to issues that mattered to them.

But a candidate’s media competency is not enough.  It is all too easy to forget the UK is still at war, there is still great economic uncertainty and vital issues such as nuclear proliferation are coming to a head. One wonders whether having a third option in Clegg – who has mastered the art of going before media but may be a bit of a novice in government- is actually a good thing.

Arguably, the challenges the country faces are not an ideal environment suitable for an inexperienced government. Besides, regardless of whether it is suitable, the electoral system currently in place simply will not allow it. This was shown on Thursday night.

In British elections, focused, tactical campaigning has always been essential. The first-passed-the-post (FPTP) system divides the country into 650 constituencies each with their own members of parliament. The people living in a particular constituency then vote for their local MP. The party to have elected MPs in over half of the constituencies in the country is considered to have a majority and may form a government.

But the system does not necessarily represent the will of the people.  To see this you have only to look at the election night statistics.

Overall, what matters is seats. The Tories gained the most with 306, Labour came second with 258 and the Lib Dems third with a disappointing 57.

So, if the system were fair, one would reasonably expect the Tories to have just under six times the vote share of the Lib Dems and Labour to have around five times that amount. In actual fact, the Tories had 36% of the votes, Labour had 29% and the Lib Dems were snapping at their heels with 23%.

So despite an increase in votes since the last election in 2005, Clegg somehow lost seats. It is for this reason that the Lib Dems will have proportional representation as one of their primary conditions of their support of any party.

The hung parliament has left Clegg in the position of kingmaker considering the rather impossible scenario of the two main parties (Labour and the Conservatives) cooperating effectively. Thus the Liberal Democrats are apt to rise in influence should electoral reform be granted or at least discussed.

Electoral reform in the next parliament is crucial for parties such as the Liberal Democrats.  Theoretically it is possible for them to achieve more votes than -for example- the Labour party, but still gain fewer constituencies, therefore holding less power.

The FPTP system is more like a political game of chess than democracy. Campaign strategists can decide which constituencies can be sacrificed in favor of concentrated votes. As such, the system benefits the main parties, so why change it?

But from this election, none of the parties got what they wanted and so it is without doubt that a second election will be held in the not too distant future. By electing no clear winner the British public has shown that we will not stand for complacency with something as fragile as our country’s future. Democracy is alive and well.

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