British Coalition Government shows unity

Only a few days after Thursday's British general election, Conservative and Liberal Democratic leaders have cobbled together an accord to form a coalition government.

There are notable policy differences involved. Compared with many Conservatives, Liberal Democrats are much more pro-Europe and pro-immigration.

The Conservatives led by David Cameron won a total of 306 House of Commons seats, short of the 326 M.P.s required for a governing majority. The Liberal Democrats' 57 seats should add a comfortable margin.

The Labour Party won only 258 seats, ending thirteen years in power and providing a bitter defeat to the troubled tenure of Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who succeeded Tony Blair in 2007.

Opinion polls earlier projected a very substantial Conservative victory, as well as greater support for the Liberal Democrats. For a time, Labour finishing in humiliating third place seemed a real possibility.

Liberal Democratic leader Nick Clegg's strong performance in first-ever American-style debates among the three party leaders generated great visibility. Established party loyalties are relatively strong in Britain, however, and characteristically many voters return to past practice as the actual voting date approaches.

This election reflects continuity with tradition in other ways. In the twentieth century, partisan conflict between Conservatives and Labour has been intense, yet coalition governments also emerged in times of crisis. The last coalition was led by Winston Churchill during World War II.

Additionally, a coalition National Government was formed in 1931 to address the extraordinary challenges of the Great Depression. While current difficulties of high unemployment are far less severe, the new British government does face very substantial public sector deficit and debt levels, which must be reduced.

Earlier Liberal and Conservative parties dominated nineteenth century British politics, but the expansion of the voting population from 1884 led to the rapid rise of the Labour Party, and Liberal collapse after World War I. Measurable Liberal revival began in the early 1960s, spearheaded by the charismatic party leader Jo Grimond.

A stunning 1962 Liberal off-year election victory in the suburban parliamentary constituency of Orpington seemed to provide evidence that British voters were in a mood for radical change. For a time the Liberals rivaled the other two parties in opinion poll support.

Yet the Liberals of that era never won more than a handful of parliamentary seats. An early 1974 general election also resulted in a House of Commons with no clear majority, but the major parties refused to deal with the Liberals.

The 1980s brought the new Social Democratic Party, led by breakaway Labour leaders Roy Jenkins, David Owen, William Rodgers and Shirley Williams. Alliance with the Liberals resulted in greater voter support, but still comparatively few M.P.s elected. The Liberal and Social Democratic parties formally merged into the new Liberal Democratic Party in 1988. .

Proportional representation to replace the existing single-member district system, which is comparable to our House of Representatives, is a past and present Liberal priority.

The Conservative leadership has agreed to a national referendum on an alternative vote system, in which voters number candidates in order of preference. Before World War I, the last Liberal government in Britain was planning to implement proportional representation.

The new coalition agreement still may face strong resistance from rank-and-file members on both sides. However, undertaking the coalition at all reflects significant, albeit slow, long-term decline of strongly established class-based partisanship.

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