WI: No "Con/Dem Coallition" in 2010?

I know its only fifteen months on but what do our esteemed board members think would've happened if the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats couldn't reach an agreement following the 2010 general election. Would conservatives call a new election after a few months of a minority govt., how would the past year or so play out with a Tory minority? Would the so-called "Rainbow coallition" of Labour ever work?
 
A rainbow coalition is purely ASB in practical terms. Most likely a Tory minority which steers cautiously to obtain LD support on confidence and supply measures for about a year or so IMO. Then, like Wilson in '66, say "I need a proper mandate to implement our programme."
 
I once saw a blog post by a journalist who wrote as an ATL version of himself saying what if Brown hadn't formed the Rainbow Coallition. In that it lasted about six months with massive concessions to the regional parties (in relations to the size of their representation, that is) and plagued by infighting including at one point Caroline Lucas crossing the floor in the middle of a debate to sit in the opposition.

This was followed by a GE in early 2011 where David Davis lead the Tories to a significant majority win (with more right wing policies, though what he means by this isnt specified)

I can't for the life of me find the article!
 
ATL 2010...

Well, on the assumption the results were as in OTL, one POD could be the Friday afternoon when David Cameron, instead of taking up Clegg's offer of talks to form a Coalition, spurns it and announces he will be forming a minority Government.

Now, that can't happen without Brown resigning first and the onus would then be on Labour and the LDs (and others) to cobble together a deal which would have more votes in the Commons than the Conservatives and their allies (DUP).

I suspect the "agreement" wouldn't be a Coalition as we know it in OTL but a supply-and-confidence package which would enable Brown to stay on. Such a package would likely have included electoral reform and possibly without a referendum. The Tories would have been incandescent with anger but as long as the arrangement holds together, they are kept out.

Had Labour not been able to deliver a satisfactory package, Brown resigns on Monday and Cameron becomes Prime Minister. The LDs are widely derided for having allowed the Conservatives in tthrough their own intransigence.
 
The arithmatic was not as against arainbow coaltiion as some say. Yes the dup would likely have voted with the tories but the nats and greens would have had no option

Also lady hermon, independent was thought likely to support labout and the Alliance MP would have voted with lib dems
 
As Stodge says, assuming OTL result, the maths of the whole election only allow for the following:

1. OTL Conservative-Lib Dem Coalition
2. Conservative minority government with supply and confidence deal with Lib Dems (and unofficial support from the DUP)
3. Conservative minority government with no support except DUP and just pray you don't get voted down in the house
4. 'Rainbow' Coalition of Labour, Lib Dem, Nationalists, Greens and the supportive NI parties (SDLP for Labour, Alliance for Lib Dems)

2 & 4 aren't going to hold long. Six months? A year maybe. This will end with another election. Option 4 will probably require Brown to stand aside and allow David Miliband to be PM. Additionally, David Cameron may not make it as leader of the Conservatives, though this *could* be disasterous for the Conservatives (If I was Labour, I'd wait for the potential Tory coup AND THEN call a second election whilst they were leaderless). Option 2 will just fall at some point when the Lib Dems say they can't support something or another (NHS reforms? Tuition fees?) and it gets defeated in the House.

3 might not even get past Monday afternoon though I suspect Her Majesty would be unwilling to allow David Cameron to request *another* dissolution so soon and may instead make it known that either 1, 2 or 4 should be tried first.
 
Thoughts...

I'm not sure I agree. None of the other parties (and especially Labour and the Lib Dems) wanted a quick second election. They were desperately short of money and needed time to rebuild finances.

On that basis, I think Option 3 might have proved more durable as indeed might Option 4. I don't think the LDs would have offered Option 2 to be honest. They would probably have reasoned that it would be better for them to have the voice of opposition than the passivity of Government support.

Had Cameron refused to negotiate on the Friday afternoon, Option 2 wouldn't have existed and had any talks collapsed in acrimony, it wouldn't have been on the table either.

Option 3 is certainly realistic but with only 315 MPs, I suspect Cameron would have had to have made big concessions to either the LDs or the Nationalists to get key legislation (including Osborne's Emergency Budget) through. I think such an arrangement would have precipitated a crisis of confience in the markets in the late summer of 2010 and we might have been facing an autumn election (sounds like a TL to work on).

Option 4 is less unrealistic than it sounds - the combined grouping has 330 MPs (remember the five SF MPs don't count) so they have an effective cushion over the 315 Conservatives and allies. Brown would have to go and concessions would have to be made but it could have been done had Labour been more able and willing and do it. We would probably have seen AV without a referendum but I think the ATL Coalition would have held together surprisingly well (sounds like another TL).
 
I'm not sure I agree. None of the other parties (and especially Labour and the Lib Dems) wanted a quick second election. They were desperately short of money and needed time to rebuild finances.

True. I had completely forgotten about that. I'm right in thinking only the Conservatives could've even attempted another election with the cash left for them?
 
True. I had completely forgotten about that. I'm right in thinking only the Conservatives could've even attempted another election with the cash left for them?

Pretty much, yeah.

In addition, I think, assuming the election result is as OTL, Cameron would've been able to hold on as Tory leader, more or less. He'd gained a hundred extra seats, and was the clear winner of the General Election in terms of votes.

Stodge- I very much doubt any Rainbow Coalition would've held together for long. Market instability, electoral unpopularity, nationalist demands, and Liberal Democrat uneasiness would've put paid to it within a year or so, I suspect.

The end result for such a scheme would quite likely be a Conservative landslide victory at an autumn 2011 General Election, with the Tories making even more gains from Labour, and all but wiping out the Liberal Democrats. Really, in the medium term, Opposition right now is the best place for Labour to be.
 
Stodge- I very much doubt any Rainbow Coalition would've held together for long. Market instability, electoral unpopularity, nationalist demands, and Liberal Democrat uneasiness would've put paid to it within a year or so, I suspect.

I'm not sure I agree with this. The Rainbow Coalition under David Milliband (probably) would likely be more coherent than you think. First and foremost, all the parties would be aware of the immediate consequence of a break-up, an election and a Tory majority.

Am I suggesting Lib Dems in the Cabinet ? No, I don't think so and not with Nick Clegg as LD leader though I do see widespread consultation on policy especially on electoral reform and a not very subtle attempt to prevent a Conservative landslide.

Of course, degrees of support will vary - some parties may simply offer support on Supply & Confidence. Others may choose more active involvement. The key players are Labour, LD and the Nats. Caroline Lucas doesn't matter that much and as long as the SDLP/Alliance and Lady Hermon stay onside the Rainbow will have enough votes.
 
Stodge. I'd be willing to attempt a Rainbow Coallition TL if it werent my first ever proper timeline (let alone a political one)
 
I'm not sure I agree with this. The Rainbow Coalition under David Milliband (probably) would likely be more coherent than you think. First and foremost, all the parties would be aware of the immediate consequence of a break-up, an election and a Tory majority.

Am I suggesting Lib Dems in the Cabinet ? No, I don't think so and not with Nick Clegg as LD leader though I do see widespread consultation on policy especially on electoral reform and a not very subtle attempt to prevent a Conservative landslide.

Of course, degrees of support will vary - some parties may simply offer support on Supply & Confidence. Others may choose more active involvement. The key players are Labour, LD and the Nats. Caroline Lucas doesn't matter that much and as long as the SDLP/Alliance and Lady Hermon stay onside the Rainbow will have enough votes.

I don't think it would, Stodge. For example, what happens with Tuition Fees? I think it's pretty improbable Labour wouldn't implement the findings of their own Browne Report, and, given the Tories won't be at all co-operative on that, and the Lib Dems won't vote in favour, the Government will be defeated.

In addition to this, people generally voted for the "other than Conservative" parties in the expectation there wouldn't be any cuts. We've seen just how badly that incorrect perception has impacted upon the Lib-Dems. ITTL, we'll see it impacting upon Labour too, and the other parties. Lucas certainly will vote against cuts, and I suspect the nationalist parties will veto any cuts in the Scottish, Welsh, and NI budgets, which will mean deeper cuts in England. All of this will hit Labour's popularity very badly indeed.

Finally, there's the whole thing about legitimacy. Look how people complain about Cameron's legitimacy IOTL- and that's with him as leader of the party that won the most votes and seats, and leading a Coalition that won nearly 60% of the vote. Miliband, by contrast, will be a second unelected Prime Minister, leader of a party that was clearly defeated at the polls. The Rainbow Coalition will be seen as totally illegitimate, even more so than the current OTL one is.

I'd expect to see opinion polls throughout the lifetime of the Rainbow Coalition hovering somewhere around 10/25/50. When an election is eventually called, these will obviously be whittled down somewhat, but I stick to my prediction that it'd be a comfortable Conservative victory, with a majority of fifty or sixty seats at minimum.
 
I can see a Rainbow coalition but with an AV referendum doing even worse then OTL, split over cuts and where to place them along with other events that would force either Brown or Miliband into serious coalition arguments that would make OTL's look like a puppy fight.

Labour would be forced to make deep cuts at some point by the IMF, rating agencies and the LibDems, leader Miliband making them earlier, Brown being forced to later.

The eventual other 2010 election would give the Tories a 1983 result with most of England becoming a landslide result.
 

Thande

Donor
A Rainbow coalition would be electoral suicide. It would be a case of excluding the party which got the most votes and seats from power by everyone uniting against them as though the Conservatives were Nazis who needed a cordon sanitaire put around them or something.

Besides this, if Brown remained Prime Minister the credit ratings agencies were ready to downgrade our sovereign debt rating the day after. Such a government would limp on for a few months and then collapse over any number of minor things, triggering a new general election and probably a 1983-level Conservative majority if Cameron successfully played on the sense of voter outrage.
 
I once saw a blog post by a journalist who wrote as an ATL version of himself saying what if Brown hadn't formed the Rainbow Coallition. In that it lasted about six months with massive concessions to the regional parties (in relations to the size of their representation, that is) and plagued by infighting including at one point Caroline Lucas crossing the floor in the middle of a debate to sit in the opposition.

This was followed by a GE in early 2011 where David Davis lead the Tories to a significant majority win (with more right wing policies, though what he means by this isnt specified)

I can't for the life of me find the article!

Pretty plausible, apart from Davis being Tory leader, why would Cameron resign?

Also, Brown wouldn't need Lucas if he got Plaid and the SNP on board.
 
A Rainbow coalition would be electoral suicide. It would be a case of excluding the party which got the most votes and seats from power by everyone uniting against them as though the Conservatives were Nazis who needed a cordon sanitaire put around them or something.

Besides this, if Brown remained Prime Minister the credit ratings agencies were ready to downgrade our sovereign debt rating the day after. Such a government would limp on for a few months and then collapse over any number of minor things, triggering a new general election and probably a 1983-level Conservative majority if Cameron successfully played on the sense of voter outrage.

I want to do a TL but my life might be packed enough as it is and I will need to ask questions.

Turbot War will be getting updated at some point this week I promise, BG must annoy me until then.
 
Am I suggesting Lib Dems in the Cabinet ? No, I don't think so and not with Nick Clegg as LD leader though I do see widespread consultation on policy especially on electoral reform and a not very subtle attempt to prevent a Conservative landslide.

I'd be gobsmacked at this. Labour, as the second largest party, managing to 'form a government' on Confidence and Supply ONLY with the other parties? They'd not get anything BUT Confidence and Supply votes through. That'd never work for five years.

I can see a true Rainbow Coalition, with Lib Dem MPs in the cabinet, but not just Labour Confidence and Supply.
 
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