11/12/2010

Available for over a year

George Parker Political Editor of The Financial Times looks at this week's events in Westminster. Seven months into the coalition government and its biggest challenge to date, the vote on raising the cap on university tuition fees, a measure which for the moment applies only to England. In the end the government won this acrimonious battle by a majority of 21, but with the Liberal Democrats' votes splitting 3 ways, the conclusion was that this was their grimmest week so far. Sir Menzies Campbell, Nick Clegg's predecessor as Liberal Democrat party leader voted against the policy. Did he not think this whole episode was very damaging to a party that had waited so long to be in government? There have been more back bench rebellions in this government than in any other of the post war era, according to research by Professor Phillip Cowley of Nottingham University. He joins Chris Heaton Harris a new and occasionally rebellious Conservative MP, and Hilary Armstrong a Chief Whip in the last Labour government, to consider why. Central to Liberal Democrat policy is a change in the voting system. If the referendum on the Alternative Vote scheduled for May 5th 2011 were to deliver a YES, their fortunes could be changed. Former Home Secretary John Reid now Lord Reid, is backing the NO campaign, former independent MP Martin Bell supports a YES. The Conservative Jacob Rees Mogg, take the view that a pact between Conservatives and Liberals should be seriously considered come the next election. A minority view perhaps but he explains his case. The editor is Marie Jessel.