David Cameron's first 100 days: The good, the bad and the novelty
Guardian, Wednesday 18 August 2010
Franklin Roosevelt's insistence in 1933 that he should be judged by the changes wrought in his first 100 days in office has raised the bar high for less distinguished governments across the democratic world, not least in Britain. In the years since Roosevelt, the habit of marking a government's first 100 days has sometimes been banal. But maybe not in Britain in 2010. As David Cameron's Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government reaches its century this week, we are living in very new times.
The principal novelty of this government is simply that it is a formal coalition. Britain has never before had a genuine peacetime coalition government between parties in the universal suffrage era. For us, this is territory without maps. Coalitions mean doing things differently, giving and taking, swallowing some things while insisting on others. This reality still takes some getting used to, and many have neither accustomed themselves to it nor even tried. So far, to judge by the Guardian's new ICM poll today, the public still seem to like the coalition, Mr Cameron and Nick Clegg. The enthusiasm is ebbing, though the mood will doubtless change again as time goes on.
Post-election realitiesThe coalition that now governs Britain is not the one that this newspaper wanted. For several reasons, a deal between Labour and the Liberal Democrats, with tacit minor-party support, was unachievable after 6 May. However, some coalition was better than none. In the past 100 days there has been much adjustment to new circumstances that reflects well on those who have undertaken it. Mr Cameron reacted more skilfully to the post-election realities than anyone. He has been a good learner about new politics – and a good teacher. The machinery of government has been run better under him than by Gordon Brown. Future party leaders of all parties should study Mr Cameron's work as a coalition premier so far.
The coalition is neither a Tory government nor a Lib Dem government. It is a combination of the two, and it reflects their different priorities as well as their common ground. Nevertheless, the main defining feature of the coalition so far has been its collective commitment – catalysed by an exaggerated fear that the UK faced a Greek-style sovereign debt crisis in May – to largely Conservative demands for fast and deep cuts in public spending across government. These were embodied in George Osborne's budget and, come the autumn, are set to be carried forward in the most draconian spending round in modern history. It cannot be said too often that this is too much and too fast. It is not necessary to cut the government deficit so rapidly. Such cuts, reinforced by deliberate decisions on benefits, inescapably impact more heavily and unfairly on the poor than on the rich. They also put the prospects of more general economic recovery at unnecessary risk. Whatever the many failings of Mr Brown's government, Labour was right to grasp the central role of government in underpinning growth in the aftermath of the financial crisis. It was also right to insist on international action to prevent a spiral of deflationary decline. The coalition's misguidedly excessive austerity at home has been matched by a negligent approach to the potential of the G20 to safeguard global employment and stimulate growth.
The Lib Dems have struggled to make an equivalent mark – a hard ask given the economic situation – on the public face of the new government. This partly reflects the electoral arithmetic on 6 May when, thanks to the unfairness of the electoral system, the Tories won five times as many seats as their junior partners. It also reflects the Lib Dems' long exile from power and the steep learning curve of transforming, almost overnight, from a party of the margins to one of government. Nevertheless, the Lib Dems have achievements of their own, lifting the lowest paid out of tax (though undermined by higher VAT), securing pupil premiums in education to help those most in need, and the first steps towards reform of the electoral system, the House of Lords and the banking system. And they have helped to empower the liberal Tory tradition against a still very disgruntled right, bolstering moves to cut back prison building, reform the criminal justice system, place the UK nuclear deterrent (though not nuclear power) on the table, ensure that ministers act maturely on Europe, and abort inheritance tax cuts – few of which the liberal Tories would have been able to carry through otherwise. All these are substantive progressive achievements. Some are overdue reversals of Labour's unlamented authoritarianism at its worst.
Poll erosionThese are still, however, very early days. If the coalition's introduction of fixed-term parliaments (unnecessarily rushed like much else in the reform agenda) goes ahead, the government intends to have more than 1,700 more days to run. Uncertainties in the economy, the impact of unwise and unfair spending cuts, and the inevitable waning of the coalition's novelty will all shape the longer term future. If the AV referendum goes down next May, Lib Dem nerves will fray fast. Already, the ICM poll shows an eroding electoral position. Labour, under a new leader, may begin to set out the viable alternative about which it has been silent so far. The currently exaggerated charge that the coalition is ideologically hostile to the state may become far more credible if the government becomes too reckless. The wisdom of Tony Blair's recent warning to Mr Cameron, that a prime minister is at his most popular at the beginning when he is least effective and least popular at the end when he is at his most effective, may eventually be vindicated. Already, as the chancellor's new tone made clear yesterday, the coalition is worried that it is defined by a draconian approach to public spending which may lose its appeal once the cuts begin to bite. These have been a remarkable 100 days. The coalition deserved its chance and it is still entitled to show what it can offer. But the hard political pounding has barely even started yet.
