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Nick Clegg has got a difficult political game of chess to play, but he can go for checkmate if he wishes
Nick Clegg has a very difficult political game of chess to play, but he can go for checkmate if he wishes.
He is indeed much more popular in the country than members of Labour would like to admit. A recent YouGov survey found that just 20 per cent of people say Ed Miliband is performing well as Labour leader, while 21 per cent think the same of Nick Clegg as leader of the Liberal Democrats, despite his party’s unpopularity.
Tim Montgomerie has produced an article in the popular grassroots blog ‘Conservative Home’, warning David Cameron that it has been a mistake to put the NHS at the centre of the political debate. Montgomerie has indeed used the term ‘potentially fatal’ in describing the potential impact of the Bill on the future electoral chances of the Conservative Party in 2015.
The poll ratings of the Liberal Democrats have been consistently poor recently. In June 2011, an ICM poll reported that the Liberal Democrats have plummeted in the public’s opinion suffering a 14-year low with a score of 12 per cent.
Nick Clegg has been important in enabling important amendments to the proposed Bill. For example, in May 2011, he opposed to the surprise of many the competition regulator. He also publicly criticised David Cameron for declaring his love for the NHS while taking advice from people talking up the potential for private profits.
Nick Clegg has been remarkably loyal to the Coalition, having pledged an ‘united coalition’ in that famous rose garden scene on 12 May 2010, vowing to provide ‘strong and stable leadership’. Clegg has repeatedly emphasised the function of the Coalition as acting ‘in the national interest’.
However, many interested parties have now united instead against the NHS Health and Social Care Bill, including the Royal College of GPs, Faculty of Public Health, British Medical Association, Royal College of Nursing and Royal College of Midwives, which all oppose the bill outright.
Interestingly, Tim Farron MP, seen as a critical figure within the Liberal Democrats, has voiced his concerns, stating clearly this was not a Bill that the Liberal Democrats would have introduced if they had been in power on their own. He added: “What we’ve done is to prevent the worst excesses, to stop the emphasis on competition and put the emphasis on quality. I guess my largest complaint is that it has taken 12 months and it has taken people’s eye off the ball when it comes to delivering health care at the chalk face.”
This political game of chess for Nick Clegg is therefore an extremely complicated one. If his party supports the Bill, he could be supporting legislation modernising the management of the NHS ‘in the national interest’. However, many MPs and activists from various parties have warned that this Bill is no longer fit for any purpose.
If Liberal Democrat MPs are successfully whipped to recommend the Bill for enactment, the popularity of David Cameron is very unlikely to be affected. Ed Miliband will have been handed a gift for the 2015 general election, and the Liberal Democrats might achieve their lowest poll rating ever. Despite the national interest, does Nick Clegg wish this to be his lasting legacy for the Liberal Democrats?
If, on the other hand he decides to urge his party to oppose the Bill, he will have strengthened the importance of the Liberal Democrats in the Coalition, and may indeed have done England a big favour. That might be a more fitting legacy.
Drop the Bill – HM Government must publish the Risk Register
In November 2011, as described in the GP magazine, the Information Commission ruled that the Department of Health breached the Freedom of Information Act by failing to provide a copy of the risk register requested by former shadow health secretary John Healey. The Department of Health’s response to why they would not wish to publish the Risk Register is provided in this blog article. The analysis provided in this letter is markedly at odds with Andrew Lansley’s own headline of an article published in the Guardian in 2010 here: “An open, transparent NHS is a safer NHS”.
In ‘Any Questions’ on Friday evening, Tim Farron himself discussed the improvements in the Bill which had resulted as a result of the Liberal Democrats’ intervention, citing the influence of Shirley Williams and Paddy Ashdown, and explained that he was not in favour of marketisation of the NHS. He further explained that he wished for stability, and did not wish for ‘doctors and nurses to be mucked around by politicians’. Indeed, Nick Clegg has previously provided that the intervention in the NHS legislative process is a victory for the Liberal Democrats in the democratic process.
Neil Foster on the highly influential ‘Liberal Conspiracy’ website has written as follows:
Many Coalition MPs and Ministers will be wondering how they can save face and pull back at this late stage.
There is one way: publish the Department of Health’s Risk Register. The unpublished advice and projections in the Risk Register are likely to reveal an array of unknowns and significant potential for spiralling costs and deterioration of patient care.
If not, then why is the Health Secretary so keen to avoid the instructions of the Information Commissioner to release it?
The ‘last-minute revelations’ from the Risk Register should enable Coalition MPs to say with a reasonably straight face that they have taken on board the warnings alongside those of the Health Select Committee.
However without the publication of the Risk Register there is no plausible exit strategy for MPs who have ignored pressure to repeatedly vote for such a controversial Bill.
The EDM reads as follows on the UK parliament website:
That this House expects the Government to respect the ruling by the Information Commissioner and to publish the risk register associated with the Health and Social Care Bill reforms in advance of Report Stage in the House of Lords in order to ensure that it informs that debate.
The details of this EDM are as follows. As you will see, despite the problems with the parliamentary system of whipping allowing the Liberal Democrats to stand up for the views on the NHS, a number of Liberal Democrat MPs have indeed put their name down.
- Session: 2010-12
- Date tabled: 30.01.2012
- Primary sponsor: Morris, Grahame M
- Sponsors:
At the time of publication, the following MPs had signed up:
| Name | Party | Constituency | Date Signed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Campbell, Ronnie | Labour Party | Blyth Valley | 01.02.2012 |
| Caton, Martin | Labour Party | Gower | 31.01.2012 |
| Clark, Katy | Labour Party | North Ayrshire and Arran | 31.01.2012 |
| Connarty, Michael | Labour Party | Linlithgow and East Falkirk | 02.02.2012 |
| Corbyn, Jeremy | Labour Party | Islington North | 31.01.2012 |
| Crockart, Mike | Liberal Democrats | Edinburgh West | 02.02.2012 |
| Cunningham, Alex | Labour Party | Stockton North | 02.02.2012 |
| Dobbin, Jim | Labour Party | Heywood and Middleton | 31.01.2012 |
| Durkan, Mark | Social Democratic and Labour Party | Foyle | 31.01.2012 |
| Gapes, Mike | Labour Party | Ilford South | 02.02.2012 |
| George, Andrew | Liberal Democrats | St Ives | 30.01.2012 |
| Hancock, Mike | Liberal Democrats | Portsmouth South | 30.01.2012 |
| Hopkins, Kelvin | Labour Party | Luton North | 30.01.2012 |
| Lavery, Ian | Labour Party | Wansbeck | 01.02.2012 |
| Leech, John | Liberal Democrats | Manchester Withington | 30.01.2012 |
| McCrea, Dr William | Democratic Unionist Party | South Antrim | 01.02.2012 |
| Meale, Alan | Labour Party | Mansfield | 31.01.2012 |
| Mearns, Ian | Labour Party | Gateshead | 30.01.2012 |
| Morris, Grahame M | Labour Party | Easington | 30.01.2012 |
| Mulholland, Greg | Liberal Democrats | Leeds North West | 30.01.2012 |
| Osborne, Sandra | Labour Party | Ayr Carrick and Cumnock | 02.02.2012 |
| Pugh, John | Liberal Democrats | Southport | 01.02.2012 |
| Rogerson, Dan | Liberal Democrats | North Cornwall | 02.02.2012 |
| Shannon, Jim | Democratic Unionist Party | Strangford | 31.01.2012 |
| Sharma, Virendra | Labour Party | Ealing Southall | 30.01.2012 |
| Sheridan, Jim | Labour Party | Paisley and Renfrewshire North | 02.02.2012 |
| Skinner, Dennis | Labour Party | Bolsover | 31.01.2012 |
| Vaz, Valerie | Labour Party | Walsall South | 30.01.2012 |
| Wright, Iain | Labour Party | Hartlepool | 02.02.2012 |
For an excellent article from Thursday on this, please refer to Eoin’s blog here.
Andrew Lansley has concealed a ‘risk report’ that has examined the potential dangers of his NHS Bill. He simply refuses to publish it. I am told that the reason for this is that the report contains a very serious warning about the long term damage the bill will do to the NHS. The chief warning in the report is that Lansley’s reforms will spark a surge in health care costs and that the NHS will become unaffordable as private profiteers siphon off money for their own benefit. The report specifically warns that GPs have no experience or skills to manage costs effectively. The profit element contained in Lansley’s reforms is the chief reason for the report citing these worries. This is the reason Lansley refuses to publish the report, because he has claimed that his bill will make costs in the NHS more affordable. This flaw in the bill if exposed would undermine his entire argument and it is the reason the report will not be published until the bill becomes law. But you can help prevent that. Labour Left Chairperson & Labour MP Grahame Morris has tabled an early day motion to force Lansley to publish the report. Please help ensure that your MP does their bit to support the motion. Democracy & transparency must prevail.
Please comment there if you would like to raise your concerns.
If we are serious about left progressive politics, we should appear to mean it.
It is easy to blame the demise of ‘left, progressive politics’ on Nick Clegg. This vehement dislike for Nick Clegg is inadvertently encouraged by the spin and media factories of the Liberal Democrats to argue that a majority of people voted for a Coalition – this is not true, as no-one can vote a priori for a hung parliament (as such). I would argue that people wished to vote anti-Cameron instead, in favour of a left progressive agenda. In fact, the last thing they wanted was a Tory Lite in the form of Nick Clegg – but that’s what they’ve got.
This is what worries me about the future. I am still keen on the growth of left progressive politics. Labour conceded a long time its mistakes on the erosion of civil liberties (e.g. periods of detention in terrorism, ID cards), but needs to be aggressive in demonstrating that it had over a period of centuries a commitment to civil liberties, in fact. The Tories simultaneously argue that there has been an erosion of civil liberties and that the Human Rights Act is too ‘liberal’. The Liberal Democrats strongly indorsed the Human Rights Act (1998) before they got into bed with the Tories for political opportunism; the Tories violently opposed the Act, preferring an unenforceable aspirational Bill of Rights instead.
The future includes aspiring Councillors like Lisa Harding. Here is her website:
http://lisaharding.mycouncillor.org.uk/
There is no doubt about Lisa’s commitment to her Party (the Liberal Democrats), nor indeed to her local constituency.
Indeed, a friend of mine on Facebook wrote as follows,
Really, really interesting that was. Thank you. If all councillors showed this much enthusiasm for the history of the place they are representing we’d all be a darn sight better off. Well done Lisa Harding.
There’ll be a cold day in hell before the Lib Dems ever get a vote from me. But with people like this on their team, they should be very proud. I shalll mail this to Mr Clegg and voice my approval after work 
I will not go as far as to say the Labour Party as a whole should ‘work with’ the Liberal Democrats. After all, we know the rather unpleasant diatribe that Tim Farron and Nick Clegg have produced against Labour’s spending during the world recession. However, I would really like an appreciation that a progressive left agenda can be worked out on human rights. Take for example the disaster that was waiting to happen between the Tories and Lib Dems on control orders. And also – for any chronic patient in the NHS or any parent sending their kid to school in the state sector – such demonisation and vilification of the State won’t be tolerated any longer. The ‘Big Society’ has failed, and there is a reason for that.
Dear Tim Farron
First of all, I wish you sincerest best wishes for becoming the President of the Liberal Democrats, commencing January 2011. I understand from colleagues that you have been a popular choice, and I feel that you have been very good at explaining the difficult issues concerning the country at present.
I am genuinely concerned however that your political interviews recently have demonstrated a lot of political point-scoring surrounding Labour’s past period of government under Gordon Brown. To put this in context, I am a Labour Party activist, a member of the Holborn and St Pancras Constituency Labour Party. To give you an example, Labour is more than aware of its substantial mistakes in civil liberties, which is why it is taking great pains to get this policy right this time. You will be aware that even in your own party there is much unfinished business from David Laws’ “Orange Book”, and the path to be followed by the Coalition must be to see through your policy review on the Human Rights Act. It is not a secret that the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats do not ‘see eye-to-eye’ on this; if anything, as you know, the position of Labour was much closer to the Liberal Democrats, notwithstanding the terrible past on civil liberties by Labour.
So the offer of Ed Miliband to the Liberal Democrats on policy is not a plea for help. It remains to be seen whether Nick Clegg’s pledge to revisit Forgemasters will be sufficient to see your party have a succesful outcome in Oldham East, for example. It is a genuine acknowledgement that we must all move the country forward. For example, Labour does wish to distance itself from the Liberal Democrats making more people unemployed and slowing growth, which will be your legacy not ours. Whilst I personally believe that Nick Clegg and the Coalition need each other until 2015, and indeed any criticism might make them stronger, there will need to be a rigorous policy review within your Party, especially if the country returns a ‘NO to AV’ verdict. Such a verdict is possible, because it is unfortunate that people are indeed seeing this vote as a plebicite on Nick Clegg, whose unpopularity is well known.
Yours sincerely,
Dr Shibley Rahman
