On
Monday morning I settled down to breakfast in a rural hotel in Olvera in the Sierra
de Cádiz. I had found a copy of Sunday’s El País in reception and flicked
through the pages as I munched on my mollete. I stopped at a page on which
there was a picture at the top of a grim David Cameron and Nick Clegg facing
away from each other and decided to read intently.
My
main reason for doing so is I believe there is a lot to be learned from how others
see us. However having read the lengthy piece I was rather puzzled. There was
nothing wrong with the report indeed it was a very British review of the state
of the coalition two years on from the last general election. Yet there was no
Spanish angle to it. I checked the by-line in case it had been written by a
British journalist: by the name I suspect not. Perhaps the plight of the Lib
Dems is plain for all to see whether you are British or Spanish.
One
key point the article made is that the next major challenge to be faced by Nick
Clegg will not be in parliament or at the polls but before his own party. In
September he will have to address the Lib Dems party conference. He will do so
with the Lib Dems two flagship policies in the bin. The changes to the voting
system were kicked in to touch by the electorate in a referendum and the plans
to reform the House of Lords have been dumped by Cameron because he can’t
deliver the required votes amongst his Tory MPs. So Clegg will have to stand
before his party to defend the coalition but with nothing to show for it. The
leader will have no clothes.
In
all likelihood at that conference will be the Leader of Gibraltar’s Liberal
Party Dr Joseph Garcia. He has attended before but never as the Deputy Chief
Minister of Gibraltar. Like Clegg he is the leader of a junior partner in a
coalition government but the differences between the two could not be more
marked.
In
Britain the centre left Lib Dems are in government with the centre right
Conservatives whereas we have a coalition formed by two parties of the left.
The Lib Dems in their grab for power could have sided with either the Tories or
Labour and probably backed Cameron due to the national loathing of Gordon
Brown. Yet in Gibraltar the GSLP and Liberals went to the polls as long term
partners on a joint manifesto. The Lib Dems manifesto still haunts them.
The
Lib Dems are not just in trouble with the Tories but the electorate. Those MPs
who were elected, some of whom now sit at the cabinet table, won their votes on
promises they never expected they’d have to keep. My niece voted Lib Dem. A
graduate just out of uni she believed Clegg and his cohorts when they pledged
they’d oppose any rise in university fees. She feels betrayed and won’t be
voting for the Lib Dems again. The next UK election will be fought out between
Labour and the Tories: if the Lib Dems are lucky they will be reduced to a
rump.
If
our Liberals have a problem it is one of identity: just what in the GSLP
Liberal manifesto is theirs? I know for a fact that Dr Garcia worked hard on
drawing up the document with Fabian Picardo with input from both parties but
what measures are socialist and what are Liberal?
We
had a united GSLP Liberal opposition and now we have a very united GSLP Liberal
government. Apart from the obvious names do you know which ministers represent
which party? In the UK the differences between the coalition partners are all
too plain to see.
The
GSLP is of the socialist tradition, a sister party of the Labour Party in the
UK. The Liberals are closely aligned to the Lib Dems in the UK and to the
Liberals internationally. Unless the parties are to merge I believe it is
important they still maintain distinctive identities for I suspect for many
Gibraltarian voters the GSLP Lib Dems are already one party.
Perhaps
the political miracle was that the then younger Dr Garcia was able to marshal
his forces alongside the old political war horse Joe Bossano to deliver an
effective GSLP Liberal opposition through several parliaments. The job in government
is far easier as after all Fabian Picardo cut his political teeth as one of Dr
Garcia’s troopers. Picardo now leads and when Dr Garcia attends the Lib Dem
conference Nick Clegg should ask him for a tip or two on how to follow but more
importantly how to make a coalition work.
