CAMPAIGN: DAY ONE:AS GORDON Brown launched the UK's four-week election campaign yesterday, there were early signals that the major parties were debating the post-election arithmetic that could see the United Kingdom acquiring its first formal coalition government since the second World War.
Mr Brown went to Buckingham Palace in the morning to seek Queen Elizabeth’s permission to dissolve parliament next week. Shortly afterwards, he spoke outside Downing Street, flanked by his entire cabinet, to say: “‘I come from an ordinary family, in an ordinary town, and I’ve never forgotten where I come from, or the values – hard work, duty, fairness, telling the truth – my parents instilled in me.
“That’s why during this world recession the team and I have fought so hard for families on middle and modest incomes. And from now until polling day I will travel the length and breadth of Britain with one clear message: Britain is now on the way to economic recovery. And now is not the time to put it at risk. Over the next few months we face big challenges and big decisions upon which our future success depend.
“Get the big decisions right, as we did in the last 18 months at a time of economic crisis when we led the way for the whole world, and prosperity, jobs and better schools and hospitals will result. Get these decisions wrong and the livelihoods of thousands upon thousands of Britain’s families will be damaged. The economy is now starting to grow again but the wrong decisions by withdrawing money from the economy could damage our chances,” he said.
Mr Brown’s launch of the campaign side by side with his cabinet and his declaration that “I am not a team of one. As everybody can see, I am one of a team”, is aimed at counteracting the public’s lack of warmth towards the Scottish leader, and contrast starkly with the more presidential style of the campaign being planned by the Conservatives for their leader David Cameron.
However, the prospect of a hung parliament – with no one party having an overall majority – has already begun to dominate the campaign, with Labour culture secretary Ben Bradshaw saying that while he wants Labour to win an overall majority he was “relaxed” about a different result: “[There are] very many successful countries in the world that manage to live with coalition governments,” he said, emphasising that he was personally very close to the Liberal Democrats.
Labour would lose its House of Commons majority with just 24 seats falling, but Mr Cameron would need the biggest swing since the second World War to get a majority of one, and an even bigger one to secure a workable majority. Consequently, the prospects of a coalition, or minority government emerging cannot be ruled out at this stage, though opinion polls are volatile.
Liberal Democrat MP Chris Huhne appeared to hint that Mr Brown’s place as the Labour leader could come into question if both parties end up in post-election talks. He drew a pointed comparison with May 1940, when the Labour Party and the Liberals refused to serve in a national government until Neville Chamberlain stood down.
Meanwhile, justice secretary Jack Straw highlighted the Conservatives’ refusal to agree to a referendum on replacing the first-past-the-post voting system with the alternative vote (AV) – which is not as representative as PR.
The Conservatives, he said, had ruled out AV, and want to keep the “out-dated hereditary principle in the House of Lords”. They were, he said, guilty of “a remarkable snub to the British people”. The Liberals do not like AV, but an offer to introduce it could form the basis for post-election talks with Labour.