Widening rifts threaten Britain’s first coalition government since WWII

The first coalition government in the UK after the World War II, comprising the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats, appears to be breaking up, despite pledges that it would last until the next general elections in 2015.

As the leaders of both parties try to stabilize a coalition beset by infighting and rifts, a recent poll has found that only 17% of the public believes that the coalition will survive until the next elections.

According to the survey carried out for The Guardian only one in 6 voters believes the coalition will be in office until 2015.

The coalition’s rifts include disagreement over reforming the House of Lord, redrawing constituency boundaries, welfare reforms and the public finances, budget deficit issues, economic hardship and unemployment, differences over taxation and how to fix the poor-rich gap, introducing the bedroom tax and many other issues which have led the coalition partners to reach table-thumping stage.

Prime Minister David Cameron of the Conservative Party and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg of the less popular Liberal Democratic Party are logged in an expanding infighting between their ministers and more importantly among backbench members of the parliament, who consider compromise on thorny issues as a degrading defeat for themselves.

The coalition partners appear to be increasingly leading separate lives with some departments featuring open rows between ministers.

On the issue of the Upper House’s reform, which the Lib Dems were seeking to change the law in order for the Lords to be elected through popular voting, Nick Clegg accused his Tory partners of breaking the coalition contract by failing to back the measure.

In retaliation, the Lib Dems did not support a bill introduced by the Tories to redraw constituency boundaries.

In addition, Tory and Lib Dem MPs have come to openly loathe their supposed allies-and often hold their leaders in contempt for compromising with the other side.

A leaked memo from Clegg to his party urges sustained attacks on the Conservative Party as a heartless rich man’s club.

There is a devastating perception that the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats have run the country poorly. This perception has its root in the differences between the two governing parties.

Rows between the Tories and the Lib Dems also include areas such as taxation, spending cuts’ measures, press regulation, Europe, welfare cuts, green energy and departmental spending.

Furthermore, Conservative intellectuals and policymakers have almost totally let down this government and are preparing the ground to win a workable majority in the next elections. Taking advantage from the Lib Dems’ terrible poll figures, they are now targeting their seats. On the other side, the Lib Dems are more focusing on fighting off Conservative challengers than running the country’s current affairs.

Actually, earlier than anticipated, the parties have begun distinguishing themselves from the coalition in a process that they call “differentiation”.

Lib Dems are telling voters that unlike their Conservative colleagues, they support a “mansion tax” on expensive homes.

An internal memo leaked in December revealed that “the party plans to present itself as the conscience of the coalition, restraining Tories from looking after the super rich while ignoring the needs of normal people”.

In return, the Conservatives accuse Lib Dems of opposing deregulation and further spending cuts, which they claim have caused the sluggish economic recovery.

The launch of the coalition was accompanied by ambitious talk of a grand realignment of Britain’s political centre. Cameron hailed “not just a new government, but a new politics”, one in which “the national interest is more important than the party interest” and “where co-operation wins out over confrontation”. The partners declared the coalition agreement “more radical and more comprehensive” than their own electoral manifestos. The coalition, some suggested, was not a compromise, but an ideal. This brave new politics has given way to a cold war between the two sides.

Backbench MPs are criticizing the decision-making process in which decisions are “handed down from on high by the four or six people who hold the reins of power”.

Senior Lib Dems also believe that their party may have to leave coalition government early to avoid being wiped out at the next general election in May 2015.

Coalition ministers are also logged in an in-fighting over whether the first UK’s coalition government since the World War II could survive until the next general elections.

Vince Cable, the business secretary, had suggested that there was a “highly sensitive” possibility that the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition could break up before the next election.

Cable’s remarks drew fierce backlash from his co-party member, senior Treasury minister Danny Alexander, who stressed the Lib Dems’ commitment to the coalition.

Alexander told the ITV’s Daybreak that the party was completely committed to seeing the coalition through.

“We are proving our track record in government and we are going to stay in the coalition government right up until the election in 2015,” he said.

Some of Cable’s supporters hope he could replace Clegg as Liberal Democrat leader and move the party further left, into coalition with Labour, if the 2015 election is inconclusive.

This is while that polls suggest no party may gain an outright majority and another coalition government – rare in Britain’s history – is possible.

A YouGov poll in the Sun newspaper put Labour on 37 percent, the Conservatives on 34 percent and the Liberal Democrats on 10 percent.

“The Coalition was meant to last for a five-year parliament. It has run out of ideas after three years. The people who will suffer are the British public, who are seeing no action on jobs and growth as the economy flatlines”, said a Labour source.

Both parties have slipped in the polls and their leaders are under pressure from MPs and activists to assert themselves. And in the upcoming elections, the coalition partners will be judged by voters on three things: the economy, their leaders and the government’s overall competence.