All eggs in one basket

The Lib Dems had a good story to tell at the local elections, says Lord Steel, but no-one was listening – and now the party’s future will be dictated by the performance of the economy.

Writing on Sunday, Professor John Curtice neatly summed up the reason for the Lib Dem wipeout last week: “A party that says one thing in an election campaign but does another in office soon loses the trust of its voters.”

Add to that in Scotland the rooted hostility to association with the Tories, plus the Salmond ‘tsunami’, and it is not hard to see why the Lib Dems were reduced to a rump in the Parliament. The public inflicted cruel collective punishment.

So what are the lessons to be learned? Never again should tired politicians be stampeded into making up hasty coalitions. No other country behaves in this way, and MPs, civil servants and Palace officials should be ready next time round to take the weekend off after the election and start discussions calmly and slowly the following Monday.

Here I am not being wise after the event. In endless TV interviews during the five days last May I counselled against haste and media pressure.

The student fee fiasco was not so important in itself – it could have been any topic – but Curtice is right. Especially in Scotland, all the back-slapping between Tory and Lib Dem ministers gave the impression of a union of hearts and minds, which it is not. (Chris Huhne’s public spat may explain why his constituency of Eastleigh was one of the rare areas of Lib Dem council advance.)

The coalition is a business arrangement born of necessity to clear up the country’s dire financial debt. It should never be portrayed as anything else, nor should Lib Dems be beguiled into pursuing private obsessions with little public resonance – AV and an elected House of Lords, for example.

I expect the parliamentary parties in both Houses to seek constructive amendments to defective bills on the NHS, police and Europe, for example.

Lib Dems in the coalition had a good story to tell – the poor lifted out of tax, pensions up etc, but no-one was listening, no matter how often it was repeated. Their one hope – and they should concentrate on that almost exclusively – is that the nation’s finances come right during the next four years, enabling them to say: “We contributed and suffered but it has been for the general good, and that is what politics is about.”

As to Scotland, the UK government is right to signal that now, with an SNP majority in Edinburgh, their referendum on independence is bound to happen – best therefore for the two to cooperate on the mechanics of timing and wording. There is no need for panic at Westminster. Most polls in recent years have put percentage support for independence in the low 20s – the highest was 33 per cent.

The current Scotland Bill has yet to go through all its examination and possible amendments in the House of Lords. I have some sympathy for the view that transfer of Corporation Tax should be considered (especially as it is in Northern Ireland) but, with the SNP having refused to nominate anyone to the Lords – unlike their Welsh counterparts, who now have two peers – we shall absurdly not have anyone to articulate the view of the Scottish government during its passage.

Lord Steel of Aikwood was the Leader of the Liberal Party 1976-88 and first presiding officer of the Scottish Parliament 1999-2003.

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