Goodwill to all men?
20th Dec 2011
That it is the season of goodwill is a fact which appears to have bypassed many of those within Parliament. On the Government benches, the issue of deficit reduction remains the overriding objective keeping the Coalition partners together. However, increasingly other policy developments are taking place in the context of intense negotiation and, more often than not, public claim and counter-claim between the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats.
In recent weeks, the EU veto wielded by the Prime Minister, was met with nothing short of horror by many staunchly pro-EU Liberal Democrats and resulted in the spectacle of the Deputy Prime Minister choosing to absent himself from the Commons during the Prime Minister’s statement. Demonstrating that the antagonism isn’t simply flowing in one direction, Clegg used a keynote speech to pour scorn on Cameron’s notions of a marriage tax break; a point of principle which is fundamental to the Prime Minister. Certainly, both Coalition parties seem increasingly at ease openly criticising one another. Of course, such ‘healthy disagreement’ can be seen as a sign that the Coalition is working, but what is certainly the case is that a divergence of opinion is becoming the order of the day across a range of policy areas.
Given this, it would be fair to suggest that the current inter-Coalition bickering presents the Labour leadership with an opportunity to pile the pressure on the Government. However, despite a solid, if expected, by-election victory at Feltham and Heston last week, the performance of Ed Miliband has come under scrutiny from within his own party, with Lord Mandelson and, arguably more worryingly for the Labour leader, Andy Burnham, stating that Labour needs to better articulate its policy positions. Much concern over Miliband stems from the apparent inability of the Labour Party to pull away from the Conservatives in the polls. Indeed, last week, in the wake of the EU veto, a Reuters/Ipsos MORI poll even had the Conservatives ahead.
Whilst not wishing to make any grand predictions for the year ahead, these trends are likely to remain at the forefront of politics throughout 2012. 2011 was a year of landmark events and 2012 will see no slow down in the pace of political developments. For businesses seeking to engage with the Government and the Opposition, continuing to be fully aware of the ever-changing dynamics of coalition politics, as well as within individual parties, will remain vital to an organisation’s overall success.
Marc Woolfson - Director