1. law, govt and politics
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The UK Coalition Agreement of 2010: Who Won?
Thomas Quinn
Department of Government
University of Essex
Wivenhoe Park
Colchester
CO4 3SQ
Judith Bara
Department of Politics
Queen Mary, University of
London
Mile End Road
London
E1 4NS
John Bartle
Department of Government
University of Essex
Wivenhoe Park
Colchester
CO4 3SQ
This is an Author's Accepted Manuscript of an article published in the Journal of Elections,
Public Opinion & Parties, Vol. 21, No 2 (May 2011): 295-312 [copyright Taylor & Francis],
available online at: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17457289.2011.562610.
1
The UK Coalition Agreement of 2010: Who Won?
ABSTRACT
The UK general election of 2010 resulted in Britain’s first peacetime coalition government
since the 1930s. The coalition parties, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats, agreed a
comprehensive policy deal in a coalition agreement. This article undertakes a content analysis
of that agreement to determine which party gained (or lost) most. ‘Gained’ and ‘lost’ here
both have very specific meanings since they are based on comparisons of party positions as
set out in their respective manifestos with the position of the new government set out in the
agreement. In global terms we find that the agreement is nearer to the Liberal Democrats’
left-right position than the Conservatives’. Nevertheless, a more detailed analysis of policy
areas identifies several where the Conservatives gained more. Overall, both parties secured
considerable gains on their own priority policies.
2
The British general election of 6 May 2010 produced the country’s first hung parliament
since February 1974 and resulted in its first peacetime coalition since the 1930s. The
coalition between the Conservative Party and the Liberal Democrats was based on an
agreement that was thrashed out in negotiations between these parties in the five days
immediately after the election. The broad terms of that agreement were initially outlined in a
draft document published on 12 May and the full details later set out in a 36-page coalition
agreement. This agreement became the touchstone for all government policy and, in effect,
supplanted both parties’ election manifestos.
Most analysis thus far of the coalition’s formation and its policy agreement has been
produced by journalists and insiders. Some media outlets provided descriptions of policy
compromises and assessments of who ‘won’ (e.g. BBC, 2010a). David Laws, a Liberal
Democrat MP and one of his party’s coalition negotiators, published an inside account of the
negotiations (Laws, 2010). Descriptive accounts of the coalition talks and agreement were
provided in the post-election academic volumes (Fox, 2010; Kavanagh & Cowley, 2010: 205229; Norton, 2011). These accounts are useful but they are, inevitably, subjective. In contrast,
this article provides the first objective examination of the agreement using content analysis.
What follows focuses on two key questions commonly addressed in most analyses of
coalitions: ‘who got in’ and ‘who got what’ (Laver & Schofield, 1990). First, it explains how
and why the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition was formed. Second, it compares the
agreement with the coalition partners’ manifestos using the content-analysis methods
developed by the Comparative Manifestos Project (CMP). The most remarked-upon aspect of
the CMP is its location of parties on a left-right scale. A simple comparison of these scores
for agreements and manifestos provides a useful indicator of who ‘won’ the negotiations
(Budge & Laver, 1992). Similar methods can be used to assess which party won in specific
policy areas, particularly those that were important to the two parties.
3
Traditionally, manifestos are the principal form of policy documents released by
parties. The winning party in British general elections has typically claimed a ‘mandate’ to
govern, largely on the basis of its manifesto (Weir & Beetham, 1999). That position is greatly
complicated when no party wins a majority in the House of Commons. When more than one
party enters government, their manifestos – pre-election ‘contracts’ with voters – may be
supplanted by coalition agreements – post-election deals between parties. These documents,
however, must bear some relation to the parties’ manifestos. Not surprisingly, they have been
the focus of increasing attention in the coalition literature (Müller & Strøm, 2008). In a
country, like the UK, without much experience of coalitions formal coalition agreements and
manifestos are of crucial significance.
The article begins by briefly reviewing the study of coalitions. It then examines the
feasible coalitional options and the preferences of the major parties after the election. The
third section provides a comprehensive content analysis of the coalition agreement, making
comparisons with the parties’ manifestos in terms of overall right-left position and specific
policy areas, and considers the allocation of cabinet portfolios.
The Importance of Policy
Coalitions are rare in the Westminster system and there is relatively little research on how
they operate (Oaten, 2007). The key issues, however, have been identified in studies of
established multiparty systems. These include: the parties’ payoffs; how parties ‘win’ without
a parliamentary majority; who enters government; and how rewards are distributed (Laver &
Schofield, 1990). The bulk of this article is devoted to the last two questions, but a few words
should be said about the first two.
Parties obtain payoffs of two main types: office and policy. The earliest coalition
models assumed that politicians were motivated exclusively by the pursuit of office. Since
4
office was a constant-sum prize, rational politicians would form coalitions that could control
a majority of votes in the legislature while excluding those parties whose support was not
essential, in order not to share out cabinet portfolios more widely than necessary – the famous
‘minimal winning’ criterion (Riker, 1962). Empirical research showed that 40% of real-life
coalitions were minimal winning, a fairly good predictive rate (Laver & Schofield, 1990: 71).
This approach, however, could not explain minority and ‘surplus majority’ governments.
A major reason why non-minimal winning coalitions are viable is that policy payoffs
are also important to politicians. Later coalition models accordingly emphasised policy,
initially integrating it in the general minimal-winning approach (de Swaan, 1973). Yet
policies, unlike offices, also benefit parties outside government. This point implies that the
minimal-winning criterion is not crucial in determining who ‘wins’. Minority governments
can survive if there is no alternative government that could offer a different set of policies
that command a legislative majority (Laver & Shepsle, 1996). The party that controls the
median legislator on the main policy dimension is in a very powerful bargaining position
because it can veto movements away from its own preferred position.
One of the implications of putting policy at the centre of coalition politics is that a
distinction emerges between executive coalitions and legislative coalitions (Laver &
Schofield, 1990: 67). Executive coalitions consist only of those parties that provide ministers.
Legislative coalitions consist of all those parties that sustain the government in parliamentary
votes. ‘Support parties’ are part of the legislative rather than executive coalition. Moreover,
the members of the legislative coalition may change from parliamentary vote to vote. Thus,
minority governments, whether they consist of one party or more, are viable if enough parties
in parliament support them. This consideration was important in the formation of a UK
government in 2010.
5
Policy payoffs are the principal focus of this article. The determination of ‘who won’
is judged primarily in policy terms, although the allocation of cabinet portfolios is also
considered. Before examining ‘who got what’, we turn to the question of ‘who got in’.
The Coalition Parties
The Conservatives and Liberal Democrats were not the most obvious partners in government.
Although these parties sometimes cooperated in hung councils in local government where no
party has an overall majority, there had been little cooperation at the national level since the
Second World War. Political developments in the 2005-10 parliament drew the Conservatives
and Liberal Democrats closer together on policy, while the election outcome forced both
parties to work together in government.
The Liberal Democrats
The 2010 election was, in turn, exhilarating, crushing but ultimately historic for the Liberal
Democrats. The party began the campaign in third place in the polls on around 20% but
support rose by 10 points after Nick Clegg’s widely praised performance in the first-ever
leaders’ debate (Allen et al., 2011). However, this poll surge prompted more scrutiny of the
party’s less popular policies on immigration and defence, and support drifted downwards.
Even so, the party’s final vote came as a shock: its share of the vote rose by just 1 point
between 2005 and 2010 to 23% and it made a net loss of five seats.
After the initial shock of the result, the party’s leadership realised that they were in a
powerful position in the hung parliament. Supporting the Conservatives would see the Tories
return to office after 13 years in the wilderness and provide the new government with a
parliamentary majority. The same was not true if the Liberal Democrats supported Labour,
but it was still possible to forge a ‘progressive alliance’ with the nationalist parties. Most
6
Liberal Democrat MPs and members would have been more comfortable with a deal with
Labour because of the parties’ close ideological proximity on the centre-left. Nick Clegg had,
however, repositioned his party since becoming leader. Economic liberals had set out their
ideas for reviving classic liberal ideas in The Orange Book (Marshall & Laws, 2004).
Although they constituted a minority group within the party they were promoted to most of
the key portfolios. Clegg also readopted the strategy of ‘equidistance’ between Labour and
the Conservatives, making it clear that the Liberal Democrats would consider cooperating
with either party in return for policy concessions (Quinn & Clements, 2011).
The Conservatives
The Conservatives spent the five years before the 2010 general election ‘modernising’ their
policies, organisation and party image (Quinn, 2008). Under David Cameron, the party had
softened its image by increasing female and ethnic-minority representation, and adopting a
more socially-liberal approach. Traditional right-wing rhetoric on tax cuts, immigration and
the European Union was toned down. With the onset of recession, however, the
Conservatives appeared to return to their previous position and demanded rapid deficit
reduction to avert a debt crisis. This issue became a key dividing line in the election between
the Tories and the other two main parties.
The election result was a disappointment to the Conservatives. They had high hopes
of winning an outright majority but Britain’s electoral system made that task very difficult.
Despite achieving their biggest swing from Labour since 1979, the Tories were left 20 seats
short of an overall majority.
7
From Hung Parliament to Coalition Government
The election left the Conservatives as the largest party, but needing the support of other
parties to command a majority (Table 1). Labour needed the support of the Liberal
Democrats and some minor parties to obtain a majority. Since the hung parliament led to one
executive outcome among several,, it is therefore necessary to explain what governments
were feasible, which outcomes the parties preferred and why the eventual outcome was a
Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition.
Table 1: Result of the UK General Election 2010
Votes %
Seats N
Seats %
Conservative Party
36.1
306
47.1
Labour Party
29.0
258
39.7
Liberal Democrats
23.0
57
8.8
Democratic Unionist Party
0.6
8
1.2
Scottish National Party
1.7
6
0.9
Sinn Féin
0.6
5
0.8
Plaid Cymru
0.6
3
0.5
Social Democratic & Labour Party
0.4
3
0.5
Green Party
1.0
1
0.2
Alliance Party of Northern Ireland
0.1
1
0.2
Independent Unionist
0.1
1
0.2
Others
6.8
1
0.2
100.0
650
100.0
TOTAL
Feasible Governmental Options
Although several governmental options were theoretically possible, ideological differences
ensured that only three were possible in practice: a minority Conservative government, a LibLab or ‘rainbow’ coalition, and a Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition. For a while, a
8
minority Conservative government had looked to be the most likely outcome given the
ideological distances between the Conservatives and the other parties. It could operate in two
different ways. The Conservatives could govern alone and defy the other parties to reject
their Queen’s Speech. If they performed well in office, the Tories might be able to call
another election within a few months. Alternatively, a more formal legislative coalition
would see the Liberal Democrats offer supply-and-confidence support to a minority
Conservative government in return for concessions, for example on political reform.
However, the problem with a minority government was that it could prove unstable when the
country’s economic problems demanded a strong government to reassure the markets.
Furthermore, there was no guarantee that the Tories would perform better in a second
election, especially as it would have to take deeply unpopular decisions on spending cuts
and/or tax rises.
A second option would be a Labour-Liberal Democrat coalition with support from
nationalist parties. Despite talk in the media of a ‘rainbow’ coalition between Labour, the
Liberal Democrats and the Celtic nationalists, more consideration was given to a Lib-Lab
minority government. It would have a combined total of 315 seats, with support from a
broader legislative coalition that included the Scottish and Welsh nationalists, the SDLP and
the single MPs from the Alliance and Green parties . Together, the parties would control 329
seats, an effective majority of 13 assuming Sinn Féin’s continued abstention. The Democratic
Unionists were not essential to this legislative coalition, although their hostility to the
Conservatives was noted.1
The basis of an executive coalition between Labour and the Liberal Democrats was a
shared ideological position on the centre-left. They also agreed on a more gradual deficitreduction programme than that favoured by the Conservatives. Similarly, the ‘rainbow’
9
legislative coalition would be based on ideological similarities, with the nationalists and
Greens on the left, while the Alliance was a sister party of the Liberal Democrats.
The third option was for a Conservative-Liberal Democrat executive coalition. This
outcome appeared obvious given the parliamentary arithmetic, as the coalition would govern
with a comfortable majority of 81, assuming Sinn Féin’s abstention. The major perceived
drawback, however, was that the two parties seemed ideologically far apart. The
Conservatives were firmly rooted on the centre-right but the Liberal Democrats, despite
having a policy of ‘equidistance’ between Labour and the Tories, generally thought of
themselves as left of centre. There would thus be serious questions asked about the cohesion
of a Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government.
The Parties’ Preferred Options
Many on the Tory right preferred a minority Conservative government, suspecting that the
Liberal Democrats would dilute their policies (Winnett, 2010). A coalition, however, had a
strong appeal for Cameron. He was reportedly unconvinced that the Tories would win a
subsequent election and worried about a backlash from his party over his failure to win
outright. A deal with the Liberal Democrats would safeguard his own position and enable
him to implement a centrist policy programme (Oakeshott, et al., 2010).
The question for Labour was whether it wanted to remain in government at all. It had
just polled its second-worst share of the vote since the 1930s and its leader looked to have
been decisively rejected by the electorate. Nevertheless, the prime minister, Gordon Brown,
and key Labour figures such as Lord Mandelson supported moves to form a Lib-Lab coalition
government. Others in the party were opposed. Two former home secretaries, David Blunkett
and John Reid, came out publicly against a coalition on the grounds that the public would not
10
accept it. They were also worried about the price the nationalists would extract for their
support.
Ideologically and temperamentally, the Liberal Democrats are a centre-left party.
Reports indicated that their MPs and individual members alike preferred a deal with Labour
(Oakeshott, et al., 2010). However, a Lib-Lab coalition was problematic because it would
lack a majority and possibly lack legitimacy: the Tories and parts of the media dubbed it ‘a
coalition of losers’ (H. Watt, 2010). The Liberal Democrats were also concerned that Labour
was not united behind a deal, posing a threat to the stability of a coalition. However, a deal
with the Conservatives was also problematic because the two parties were not ideologically
close. The Liberal Democrats were particularly sceptical about the chances of extracting
concessions from the Tories on the key issue of electoral reform. They wanted proportional
representation but were prepared to accept a move towards the alternative vote (AV) system.
Labour had promised a referendum on AV in its manifesto. The Conservatives were united in
their opposition to any change.
The Formation of the Coalition Government
Clegg announced on the morning after the election that the Conservatives, as the party with
the most votes and seats, should have the first opportunity to try to form a government. That
afternoon, Cameron read a televised statement that surprised everyone. He made a ‘big, open
and comprehensive offer to the Liberal Democrats’, promising to help them to ‘implement
key planks of their election manifesto, providing the country with economic as well as
political stability, and finding further ways in which Liberal Democrats can be involved in
making this happen.’ Cameron indicated that he would deliver on the four priorities in the
Liberal Democrat manifesto: fairer taxes, a pupil premium to direct money towards schools in
poorer areas, a move towards a low-carbon economy and a committee of inquiry on political
11
reform. However, he refused to compromise on reducing the budget deficit, maintaining a
strong national defence, not being ‘soft’ on immigration and not granting more powers to the
EU (N. Watt, 2010).
Cameron’s statement set the agenda for the following five days in which the Liberal
Democrats negotiated first with the Conservatives and then Labour. In respect of their own
four manifesto priorities, one of the Liberal Democrat negotiators, David Laws, estimated
that his party secured 75-80% of what it wanted during talks with the Tories.2 The Liberal
Democrats made less headway on the speed of deficit reduction, although it was not a
prioritised policy in the manifesto. Clegg later said that he changed his mind during the
election campaign on the need for swift action to reduce the deficit because of the Greek debt
crisis. It also became clear that a Conservative-Liberal Democrat deal would entail a full
coalition, largely because of the need to demonstrate stability to the markets (BBC, 2010b).
The major obstacle to a deal with the Tories remained electoral reform. The
Conservatives offered to set up a committee of inquiry but the Liberal Democrats rejected it
outright. This issue proved a sticking point and allowed Labour to get back in the game. Four
days after the election, Brown announced his resignation in order to facilitate discussions
between the Liberal Democrats, who had demanded his departure, and Labour. This
announcementforced the Conservatives to shift on electoral reform. William Hague, the
party’s chief negotiator, declared that the Conservatives would go the ‘extra mile’ and offer a
referendum on the AV electoral system as part of a ‘final offer’ to the Liberal Democrats
(Webster, et al., 2010). The Conservative concession on AV also demonstrated that they took
seriously the possibility of a deal between Labour and the Liberal Democrats. It was an
indication of the latter’s power of pivotality in the hung parliament.
One remaining issue for the Liberal Democrats was to stop the Tories from
opportunistically calling an early election. They demanded that fixed-term parliaments be a
12
part of any deal. The Tories agreed, insisting that term would be five years. A draft
agreement was published on 12 May 2010 and was followed by a full agreement entitled, The
Coalition: Our Programme for Government and subtitled Freedom, Fairness, Responsibility
(HM Government, 2010a).
Who Got What: Policy
In their study of coalition agreements in post-war Western Europe, Müller and Strøm note
that their purpose is ‘to contain conflict within the coalition and to coordinate government
policy’ (2008: 159). The UK coalition agreement enshrined a comprehensive policy bargain
between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats. Among other things, it emphasised the
need to reduce the deficit, promised a referendum on AV and made provisions for where the
parties could not agree on issues such as the level of tuition fees paid by university students.
However, it is not the purpose of this article to offer a subjective assessment of the policy
victories achieved by each party. Instead, this section undertakes a content analysis of the
coalition agreement. Each party’s starting point in the negotiations was its own manifesto:
Invitation to Join the Government of Britain: The Conservative Manifesto 2010
(Conservative Party, 2010) and Liberal Democrat Manifesto 2010: Change that Works for
You (Liberal Democrats, 2010). A simple comparison of the coalition agreement with the
manifestos provides some evidence about which side ‘won’.
The coalition agreement and manifestos were analysed using the CMP coding scheme
(for further details on the manifestos, see Bara, 2010).3 This scheme was developed in the
1970s by the Manifesto Research Group (MRG) building on David Robertson’s pioneering
work (Robertson, 1976; Budge et al., 2001).4 Robertson’s study was based on an analysis of
British manifestos between 1922 and 1974 and a coding scheme of 21 categories that
emphasised differences in policy priority rather than adoption of confrontational positions on
13
the same issues: accordingly, salience became the key measure. The MRG became the CMP
in 1989 and extended country coverage (to 19 in the first instance) and the number of coding
categories to 56 (for a full list, see Budge, et al., 2001: 222-8). In the 1990s studies linked
manifestos with coalition programmes (Laver & Budge, 1992). Later studies used the CMP
scheme or variations to link manifesto intention to government output, either through pledge
analysis (Bara, 2005) or government-expenditure analysis (Klingemann et al, 1994). There is
thus an established protocol for linking such documents in this manner.
The most important use of content analysis associated with the CMP is to measure
party positions along a right-left scale. Of the 56 CMP variables, 26 are included in a
summative measure to map the content of manifestos in right-left terms (see Bara, 2006).
This method has enabled analysts to track party movements over time and compare party
systems, leading to significant improvements in understandings of electoral politics. Figure 1
displays the positions for the coalition agreement and the two participating parties according
to the CMP measure. In 2010, the Conservatives’ aggregate right-left (‘rile’) score was +17.6,
while the Liberal Democrats’ was -3.0 (CMP/MARPOR (WZB)). Thus, the two parties were
on opposite sides of the divide (with the centre denoted by a score of 0). In the coalition
agreement, 25.6% of (quasi-) sentences were coded ‘right’ and 24.0% ‘left’. Thus, the
agreement’s ‘rile’ score was +1.6, which is just right-of-centre but much closer to the Liberal
Democrats (a difference of 4.6) than to the Conservatives (a difference of 16.0). The mean of
the coalition parties’ positions was +7.3.5 The weighted mean, defined as their positions
weighted by the legislative seats they control, was +14.4.6 In each case, the actual outcome
was further left than predicted.
14
Figure 1: Right-Left Positions of the Coalition Parties’ Manifestos and the Coalition
Agreement
LD
(-3.0)
-10
-8
-6
-4
-2
COALITION
(+1.6)
0
2
4
CON
(+17.6)
6
8
10
12
14
16
18
20
By these standards the Liberal Democrats appeared to have done rather ‘better’ than
the Conservatives in the agreement. There are, however, grounds for caution. The policies
included in the left-right index comprise only 50% of the content of the coalition agreement,
57% of the Conservatives’ manifesto and 46% of the Liberal Democrats’. Nevertheless, it
provides an indication that at least part of the agreement favoured the Liberal Democrats.
Policy Sections in the Coalition Agreement
Another way of looking at policies in the agreement is to examine them section by section.
There were 31 policy headings listed in the coalition agreement, each containing its own set
of statements that could be coded. Table 2 provides the proportion of each section that was
coded as right and the proportion coded as left, together with overall right-left scores for each
section (left statements subtracted from right statements) and the result expressed as a
percentage of all statements in that section. Sections are listed in descending order of ‘rile’
scores, with those at the top of the table being more ‘right-wing’ and those at the bottom
being more ‘left-wing’. Civil liberties, taxation and national security have the highest scores
while consumer protection, international development, and jobs and welfare have the lowest.
15
Table 2: Right-Left Scores for Individual Sections in the Coalition Agreement
Section
number
3
29
21
6
14
17
9
20
8
27
1
13
10
16
11
24
7
12
30
4
25
28
31
15
23
2
26
22
19
18
5
Section heading
Civil liberties
Taxation
National security
Crime and policing
Families
Immigration
Deficit reduction
Justice
Defence
Social action
Banking
Europe
Energy and climate
Government transparency
Environment and food
Political reform
Culture
Equalities
Transport
Communities
Public health
Social care
Universities
Foreign affairs
Pensioners and older people
Business
Schools
NHS
Jobs and welfare
International development
Consumer protection
- Foreword
- Back cover
Total (whole document)
% of all
statements
2.9
2.4
1.6
3.5
2.7
1.7
2.2
1.9
2.9
1.7
2.7
2.2
5.4
2.7
3.5
7.0
2.7
1.4
2.5
4.9
1.0
1.3
2.4
1.9
1.6
4.3
3.5
6.8
2.5
3.7
1.7
Right %
Left %
Rile %
100.0
93.3
90.0
77.3
64.7
63.6
57.1
66.7
44.4
54.5
52.9
7.1
14.7
5.9
4.5
4.5
0
0
6.3
9.7
16.7
0
6.7
25.0
0
18.5
0
7.0
0
4.3
0
0
0
10.0
0
0
0
0
16.7
16.7
27.3
41.2
0
8.8
0
0
0
0
0
6.3
25.8
33.3
25.0
33.3
58.3
40.0
59.3
50.0
62.8
62.5
78.3
81.8
100.0
93.3
80.0
77.3
64.7
63.6
57.1
50.0
27.8
27.3
11.8
7.1
5.9
5.9
4.5
4.5
0
0
0
-16.1
-16.7
-25.0
-26.7
-33.3
-40.0
-40.7
-50.0
-55.8
-62.5
-73.9
-81.8
10.0
0.8
100.0
25.4
40.0
25.6
19.0
0
24.0
6.3
40.0
1.6
Note: Rile % = Right % – Left %. Left + right % do not add up to 100% because some
statements cannot be coded as either left or right.
16
Comparison with the manifesto positions is difficult here because these documents
did not contain the same 31 sections and policies are scattered in these documents.
Nevertheless, the right-left scores for each section provide some useful information about the
position of the coalition and the extreme right and left scores are particularly informative.
On the economic issues of taxation and deficit reduction, policy was to the right –
strongly so in the case of taxation with a score of +93.3 and somewhat less so in the case of
deficit reduction at +57.1. These high scores mean that those sections were consistently
‘right’ rather than ‘left’ in their statements. On this basis, it could be argued that the
Conservatives ‘won’ on economic policy. However, the Liberal Democrat manifesto pledged
to cut taxes for the low paid, following the prescriptions of Orange Book liberals. By 2010,
the Liberal Democrat leadership wanted a smaller state and so it is difficult to say that they
‘lost’ on this issue. On the other hand, cutting the deficit was a Tory position and the fact that
it took priority over other measures in the agreement indicates that the Conservatives won
that particular argument. Although the Liberal Democrats wanted to move slower on
reducing the deficit during the campaign, it was not one of their manifesto priorities.
On security issues, or what are sometimes known as ‘drawbridge issues’, the
agreement saw strong ‘right’ scores for national security, crime & policing, immigration,
justice and defence. These are policy areas on which centre-right parties are traditionally
strong and, together with deficit reduction, constituted the Conservatives’ own red lines. The
two issues on which the Liberal Democrats came under fiercest attack in the election
campaign – immigration and Trident – were both security issues. Europe was weakly ‘right’
but the rile score does not show the full picture. The CMP scheme has two categories for
Europe but neither is among the 26 dimensions comprising the ‘rile’ scale. These categories
are ‘Europe positive’ and ‘Europe negative’, capturing positive and negative statements about
the EU. In the section on Europe in the coalition agreement, three statements were classified
17
as ‘Europe positive’ and 10 as ‘Europe negative’, giving a net score of 100*(3-10)/13 = 53.8, which is quite strongly Eurosceptic. In the entire agreement, five statements on Europe
were positive and 12 negative, giving an overall net Europe score of 100*(5-12)/17 = -41.2.
In contrast, public services had ‘left’ scores, particularly jobs and welfare, the NHS,
schools, pensioners & older people, universities and social care. These scores suggest that the
Liberal Democrats did well on these issues, but the Conservatives probably had left scores on
public services, just not as high. The relative salience of public services in the agreement and
their strong left scores reflected Liberal Democrat influence in the negotiations. However, on
university tuition fees, a key issue for Liberal Democrat members, the coalition agreement
merely permitted Liberal Democrat MPs to abstain in any parliamentary vote to increase
tuition fees. In its manifesto, the party promised to phase out tuition fees altogether and its
MPs signed a pre-election pledge to vote against any move to increase fees. The coalition
agreement’s position on tuition fees, therefore, fell some way short of what the Liberal
Democrats wanted. The party’s compromise on this issue reflected the parlous state of
government finances. Indeed, a word of caution is needed when assessing coalition policies
on public services since – as already noted – all areas of the agreement are secondary to the
goal of deficit reduction. The back cover of the coalition agreement emphasises that:
The deficit reduction programme takes precedence over any of the other measures in
this agreement and the speed of implementation of any measures that have a cost to the
public finances will depend on decisions to be made in the Comprehensive Spending
Review (HM Government, 2010a: 35).
On Britain’s external relations, the Liberal Democrats appeared to have secured a
‘left’ slant to the coalition agreement. That is evident on foreign affairs, where talk of
18
multilateral commitments was explicit, and in particular on international development. This
section was the sixth-biggest policy segment in the entire agreement and had a rile score of 73.9.
Areas of policy requiring regulation also saw a strong ‘left’ flavour. These included
business (-40.7) and consumer protection (-81.8). Banking was slightly to the right (+11.8)
but it contained a significant left component, reflecting the need for tighter regulation in the
wake of the debt crisis and public disgust at the activities of many bankers.
The highest ‘right’ rile score was for civil liberties, understood here as the balance of
power between the individual and the state. Thus, individualism is ‘right’ and collectivism is
‘left’. The Conservatives became more consistently supportive of civil liberties under
Cameron than they had previously been. However, although seen as a left-leaning party, the
Liberal Democrats are essentially liberal: they are an individualist party rather than a
collectivist one in the mould of Labour. They too are strong supporters of civil liberties.
Two final groups of policy that were important in the agreement did not translate
easily into right-left terms. First, political reform was the longest policy section in the entire
agreement. It contained details on, among other things, the referendum on AV. Its rile score
was weakly ‘right’. It is hard to say that one party ‘won’ on this issue, since it was an
instance of compromise and agreement to disagree. Ultimately, much will depend on the
outcome of the AV referendum.
Second, environmental policy, encompassing sections on energy & climate and
environment & food, together accounted for 9 percent of the coalition agreement. Both had
low ‘right’ scores. Both parties had emphasised green issues in recent years, the Tories doing
so mainly after Cameron became leader. An important remaining disagreement between the
parties was in this area, on nuclear power. Liberal Democrat MPs could abstain in a
parliamentary vote on building nuclear power stations but it would not be a confidence issue.
19
It is clear that the Conservatives did well on some issues while the Liberal Democrats
did better on others. However, both parties had reasons to be satisfied. Before the coalition
negotiations, Cameron set out four ‘red lines’: the necessity of immediate action to reduce the
deficit, not being ‘soft’ on immigration, strong defence, and Euroscepticism. On the basis of
the sectional ‘rile’ scores, the Conservatives secured all of their ‘red lines’. The Liberal
Democrats’ four priorities in their manifesto were fairer taxes, a pupil premium, a green
economy and political reform. They made big gains in all of these areas, although the latter
two areas did not translate easily into right-left terms. It appears, therefore, that the principal
form of compromise in the coalition agreement consisted of each party achieving ‘victories’
in policy areas of high importance to it. On the whole, they did not simply split the difference
on policies. This point is acknowledged in the agreement itself:
In every part of this agreement, we have gone further than simply adopting those
policies where we previously overlapped. We have found that a combination of our
parties’ best ideas and attitudes has produced a programme for government that is more
radical and comprehensive than our individual manifestos (HM Government, 2010a: 8).
In areas where there were genuine differences, the parties sometimes devised
pragmatic solutions, such as agreements to disagree. In other instances, they set up reviews,
e.g. control orders for terror suspects, the taxation of non-domiciles and stamp-duty
threshold. On tuition fees, the parties agreed to wait for the Browne review, established by
Labour, to report in the autumn of 2010. Reviews enable parties to reach the outlines of a
deal quickly while not letting issues on which differences remain to derail the agreement.
They are means of postponing agreement until a future date. By then, circumstances may be
different, with intra-party opponents won round or external events intervening.
20
Who Got What: Cabinet Portfolios
The primary focus of this article has been policy but it would be remiss to ignore the office
payoffs that the coalition partners received. The principal position in the government is the
post of prime minister, but there were numerous other cabinet and junior frontbench posts
available. The infrequency of coalition governments in the UK ensured there were no strong
precedents for how to divide up ministries. Previous research in multiparty systems has found
a strong norm of proportionality, with cabinet portfolios distributed to coalition partners
roughly in proportion to the legislative seats that each won. Smaller parties in coalitions are
frequently awarded slightly more portfolios than strict proportionality demands and larger
parties slightly fewer (Browne & Franklin, 1973; see also Laver & Schofield, 1990: 171-81).
The UK coalition government’s cabinet reflected this norm of proportionality. Table 3
shows the legislative seats won by the coalition parties as proportions of the total seats
controlled by the coalition. It also shows the proportions of cabinet members and other
frontbenchers from each party. The Liberal Democrats controlled 15.7% of coalition seats in
the House of Commons, 21.7% of cabinet seats, 18.8% of other frontbench positions and
19.3% of all frontbench positions. Most of these frontbenchers were MPs, although a
significant minority were members of Britain’s second legislative chamber, the House of
Lords. A cabinet office document setting out how the coalition government would operate
stated that the two coalition parties would continue to be allocated cabinet and ministerial
places roughly in proportion to the sizes of their respective parliamentary parties (HM
Government, 2010b).
21
Table 3: Members of the Coalition Government (July 2010)
Conservative
Liberal
Legislative
Cabinet
Other
Total
seats
members
frontbenchers
frontbenchers
N
%
N
%
N
%
N
%
306
84.3
18
78.3
78
81.3
96
80.7
57
15.7
5
21.7
18
18.8
23
19.3
363
100.0
23
100.0
96
100.0
119
100.0
Democrat
Total
Note: ‘Cabinet members’ include only full members of the cabinet; it excludes several other
ministers who are merely permitted to attend cabinet. ‘Frontbenchers’ consist of cabinet
members, other ministers and government whips as set out in the July 2010 Cabinet Office
document List of Ministerial Responsibilities (HM Government, 2010c: 2, 4-7). Unpaid
parliamentary private secretaries are not counted as frontbenchers. ‘Legislative seats’ refers
to seats in the House of Commons. Seats controlled by each party in the House of Lords are
not included in the calculations in this table. Most frontbenchers sit in the Commons, but
about one-fifth sit in the House of Lords: two Conservative cabinet ministers are peers, as are
17 Conservative and five Liberal Democrat junior frontbenchers.
As the largest party, it was not surprising that the Conservatives took the top post, as
Cameron became prime minister. Clegg was appointed deputy prime minister (DPM) and
took a place in the cabinet, but like the prime minister he had no policy portfolio. The Liberal
Democrats were allocated four other cabinet posts: Treasury chief secretary (first David Laws
and later Danny Alexander7), business (Vince Cable), energy and climate change (Chris
Huhne), and Scotland (first Danny Alexander, later Michael Moore). One could dismiss these
22
posts as insignificant, as they do not include any ‘great offices of state’: the Treasury
(chancellor), the home office and the foreign office. Moreover, the post of DPM could be
seen as a bauble without any significance, a post held as a consolation prize in the past by
such figures as Sir Geoffrey Howe after his demotion from the foreign office in 1989.8
This response would be mistaken. It was never realistic to expect the Liberal
Democrats to be given the chancellorship, as it would have been problematical to run a
government in which the prime minister came from one party and the chancellor from
another, much smaller one. However, the Liberal Democrats took the portfolio of chief
secretary to the Treasury because it was essential that they were involved in the vital task of
deficit reduction. Furthermore, neither home affairs nor foreign affairs were policy priorities
of the Liberal Democrats. Political reform was a priority and that was put under the
supervision of the DPM. The energy and climate change portfolio reflected the Liberal
Democrat priority of a low-carbon economy. The allocation of the Scotland portfolio to the
Liberal Democrats made sense because they had 11 MPs representing Scottish constituencies
while the Conservatives had just one. The business portfolio was a less obvious prize, but
was possibly deemed an appropriate post for Cable, then the Liberal Democrats’ deputy
leader and their most respected spokesman.
It is clear that the post of DPM in the coalition government is not comparable to that
occupied by Howe and others. The cabinet office document on the operation of the
government makes clear that the DPM must be fully consulted before any reallocation of
portfolios. The DPM also has the exclusive right to nominate Liberal Democrat MPs to fill
cabinet positions. In overseeing the political-reform programme, Clegg was put in charge of
one of the government’s most important policy areas. No previous DPM has had such a vital
role in a British government, largely because coalitions have been rare. In the official cabinet
list, which ranks the 23 members of the cabinet, Clegg was second only to Cameron and
23
above the chancellor, the home secretary and the foreign secretary. Of the other Liberal
Democrats in the cabinet, Cable was ranked eighth, Huhne tenth, Moore nineteenth and
Alexander twenty-first (HM Government, 2010c: 2). The average ranking of these five LibDem posts, calculated as (2 + 8 +10 + 19 + 21)/5, was 12. The average ranking of the 18
Conservative cabinet members was also 12. Thus, Conservative and Liberal Democrat
cabinet members had equal average rankings.
Conclusion
The principal questions examined in this article in relation to the coalition-formation process
were ‘who got in’ and ‘who got what’. The answer to the first question was self-evident with
the formation of the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition. The answer to the second was
less obvious. The Liberal Democrats’ office payoffs were in line with broad norms of
proportionality but on policy, the overall right-left placement of the coalition agreement was
closer to the Liberal Democrat manifesto than to the Conservative one, albeit to the right of
centre. When individual policy areas were examined, the picture was more complicated and
both parties could legitimately claim victories.
Given the large discrepancy in the number of parliamentary seats won by the two
parties, the Liberal Democrats’ achievements in the negotiations were impressive. It was
shown that the questions of ‘who got in’ and ‘who got what’ were related. There were two
feasible working-majority legislative coalitions – Conservative-Liberal Democrat and
Labour-Liberal Democrat plus the nationalists – and the Liberal Democrats were the only
party present in both. They were pivotal in that sense. The Liberal Democrats used the
prospect of a deal with Labour as a means to win concessions from the Conservatives. The
clearest way in which that happened was when the Conservatives yielded on a referendum on
24
the AV electoral system. This concession was made only after the announcement of formal
coalition discussions between Labour and the Liberal Democrats.
The Liberal Democrats did not, however, have a completely free hand in dictating the
terms of the coalition agreement with the Conservatives. The latter had the option of trying to
form a minority government by themselves. There were major drawbacks with this option
and it would likely have been unstable. However, the fact that it was feasible provided the
Conservatives with a fall-back position if the Liberal Democrats refused to compromise on
the Tories’ ‘red lines’ on the deficit, immigration, defence and Europe. Any attempt to dilute
Conservative policies in these areas would almost certainly have caused a rebellion among
the Tory right. Since none of these policies were among the Liberal Democrats’ four key
policy priorities in their manifesto, they were able to compromise. Liberal Democrat gains in
the coalition agreement tended to be overlooked because, on the issue of the deficit, the
Conservatives won the argument. However, cutting the deficit was not the only important
policy in the coalition agreement even if it were the principal one. This article has
demonstrated that the Liberal Democrats left an unmistakable imprint on the totality of
coalition policies.
The UK coalition agreement reflected recent trends in European coalition agreements.
First, it was devoted almost entirely to policy, with no mention of portfolios and only
occasional references to procedures, e.g. the right of Liberal Democrat MPs to abstain in a
vote on tuition fees. Second, the policy programme was comprehensive: at 13,366 words, it
was at the upper end of the scale compared with agreements in other European countries.
Third, the agreement required consistent discipline among both parties’ MPs in legislative
votes with the exception of a small number of issues explicitly exempted, e.g. tuition fees.
Fourth, the agreement envisaged centralised control of decisions by coalition leaders in both
parties (the prime minister and deputy prime minister) through the use of both ex ante and ex
25
post mechanisms. The ex ante mechanism was the policy agreement. The principal ex post
mechanism was the appointment of junior ministers from one party as ‘watchdogs’ in
departments headed by a cabinet minister from the other party (see Müller & Strøm, 2008).
The method used in this article to analyse the coalition agreement provides a
standardised way of examining policy documents. Usually, the method is applied to
individual parties’ manifestos, but coalition agreements are different types of documents.
Unlike manifestos, they are not contracts between parties and voters as much as contracts
between different parties. The CMP method has shed light on the coalition agreement. It
highlighted policy areas where one or other party came out on top, and these largely reflected
journalistic and political assessments. Further, the overall ‘rile’ score of the agreement was
positioned between the ‘rile’ scores of the Conservative and Liberal Democrat manifestos,
which is precisely what would have been expected.
26
Notes
1.
Lord Rennard of Wavertree, private interview, Westminster, 20 July 2010.
2.
Rt Hon. David Laws MP, private interview, Westminster, 15 June 2010.
3.
The agreement is 13,366 words long. This figure includes the foreword (1,054 words),
the main document (12,200 words) and the back cover (112 words), all of which
contain policy statements. It excludes the front cover and the contents page, neither of
which contain codable statements.
4.
Coding of the coalition agreement was undertaken independently by two coders. A
level of 81% correspondence was achieved and disputed categories were reconciled.
5.
The coalition mean is calculated as [+17.6 + (-3.0)]/2 = +7.3.
6.
The weighted coalition mean is calculated as (+17.6*0.843) + (-3.0*0.157) = +14.4.
7.
Laws resigned after holding the post for 18 days because of criticism of his
parliamentary expenses.
8.
Jones (1995: 94) describes Howe’s position as DPM as an ‘honorific but empty title’.
27
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