What next for Merkel and Germany?

Photograph: Bundestag by Hernán Piñera in 2011 (License)

When the exit poll for yesterday's German Federal Election was released, it provided a lot of expected answers. Angela Merkel will be Chancellor for a fourth time and the far-right has managed to be elected to the Bundestag for the first time since the war.

The numbers where not quite as expected though. Merkel's CDU and their traditional opponents, the social democratic SPD, both managed to underperform polls that had already suggested losses were to be expected. The CDU fell nearly 9%, the SPD 5%.

There were gains though for the Left and Centre parties. Die Grune and Die Linke, the Greens and the Left, both gained half a percent, while the market liberal FDP did better than expected to reach around 11% and will return from losing all their seats in 2013.

The far-right also made larger gains than expected, though they failed to breach what seems to be the West European threshold of 13% - in Britain, Netherlands, France and now Germany no far-right party has managed to get beyond that number.

What Next?

Once the calculations of seat numbers are completed, the next step will be to form a government. The most likely combination at the present time will be a Black-Gold-Green combination: CDU-FDP-Grune.

It has been said that the great difficulty there is in pinning down what Markel and the CDU actually stand for has played largely to their benefit. It will help them again in trying to form a government uniting conservatives, liberals and greens.

While the CDU and FDP have previously formed coalition governments with distinctly pro-market, pro-business, centre-right leanings, the presence of Die Grune in government would likely force the parties to at least stick in the Centre ground that the SPD and CDU grand coalition had navigated.

What that opens up if the possibility of progress on social issues. Both the FDP and the Grune care about sustainability, about human rights & civil liberties, and about Europe (though not without some Eurosceptics in the FDP fold).

With the social democrats and the radical democrats of SPD and Die Linke in opposition, socially progressive parties will have strong presence in government and hold a narrow majority in the Bundestag - not counting those numbered among the CDU.

Things will be unlikely to be that simple. The FDP has been somewhat erratic on policy in recent years - likely a result of their collapse after coalition with Merkel's CDU - and have been trying to find a distinct voice.

As far-right success in the UK - in the polls and at the ballot box though not in terms of seats - spooked the harder right of the Conservative Party, the predominantly conservative CDU may have the same struggle ahead of it.

Die Grune will also face a difficult few weeks ahead. Presented with the opportunity to push, a possibly very strong, environmental and sustainability agenda from government will be weighed up against the damage that an alliance with conservatives and pro-business liberals may do to their image in the long term.

Resist the Far-Right

As for the far-right, the narrative of a rising tide has failed to produce the sweeping victories predicted. The return of the far-right in Germany is significant, but it fits better with a broader Western European context than with an historical German context.

And that can be seen in where their support came from. Mirroring patterns elsewhere, three quarters of the far-right's voters came from other parties or where previously non-voters: disaffection, disillusionment and lost trust that follows a broader pattern.

It is also unlikely that the full 24% of those who are not first time voters for the far-right (approximately 1.5m) will be racists, fascists or otherwise broadly intolerant. As elsewhere, the far-right in Germany is visciously, bitterly, internally divided.

In the Bundestag they will be frozen out and they will face protests and public outcry everywhere they go. The far-right remains a long, long way from power and influence.

There is a chance in Germany to make progress in the next four yearsand a chance to repair the hurts born of a decade of crisis. Getting on with salving those wounds will sap the far-right's appeal. Greater exposure and scrutiny may do the rest.

References

'German election: Merkel wins fourth term, AfD nationalists rise'; on the BBC; 25 September 2017.

Alberto Nardelli's 'Germany – #BTW17 election – ARD exit poll'; from Twitter; 24 September 2017.

'German elections 2017: full results - Angela Merkel has secured a fourth term as German chancellor after Sunday’s election for a new Bundestag, the federal parliament. However, her authority has been diminished. Meanwhile, the radical rightwing AfD has entered parliament as the third-largest party. We analyse the official results'; in The Guardian; 24 September 2017.

Jefferson Chase's 'What you need to know about Germany's liberals, the Free Democratic Party: After four years without representation in the Bundestag, the FDP is back. Here's what you need to know about the small party that could hold the keys to power'; from DW; 24 September 2017.

'Also for context: far-right in WEur take votes from most parties & mix it with (usually) non-voters. Disaffection/lost trust factors. #BTW17'; from The Alternative on Twitter; 24 September 2017.

General Election 2017 - A hopeful night for progressives: It's time to do opposition right

The provisional results, that give the Conservative-Unionist pact a very slim working majority.

The aim for progressives going into last night was supposed to be damage control. As it happened, they'd gone above and beyond - in fact, as the night went on, matters so very nearly tipped the Conservatives right out of government.

It will be interesting to see as the turnout is broken down to see how much of it came down to tactical voting among progressives - not organised by the parties, but voters themselves taking the lead and making their presence felt.

In the end, progressives had to settle for seeing off the Tory advance - a goal achieved with surprising comfort in the end. It came with the cherry topper of handing Theresa May an embarrassing rejection. She demanded the country unite around her and the country said no.

So much for strong and stable.

Theresa May has lost the Conservative majority and is now left dependent upon Arlene Foster and the Democratic Unionist Party - very recently hit by scandal and criticised over mismanagement in government at Stormont - to form a government.

Despite the Conservatives constant criticism of coalitions and relying on regional parties, Theresa May showed no hesitation in cobbling together a government that relied on the support of a narrowly focused regional party with some extreme views.

While the Conservatives deal with despondency, Labour are in a jubilant mood. Although celebrating and calling this a victory might be a little loose with the truth, it's a clear step forward.

In fact it is plenty enough for Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell to be justified in their stance that Labour are right now ready to govern as a minority government. It is a strong and confident stance they need to push and Labour MPs need to echo and reinforce.

You have to wonder if Corbyn and McDonnell always understood that Labour's route back to government would always take two elections. Last night they defied a threat of Tory advance, and revitalised themselves at home in their own seats.

Much criticised from within the party or focusing on boosting the party itself, in its own constituencies and ranks of members first, the strategy paid off. Labour's heartlands remained so and young turned out in droves.

Labour even expanded threateningly into Tory country. They took down junior ministers and established a following in the seats of senior ministers, that ran their incumbents very close and place them well for the next big push.

That will be at the next election. It will be a big moment for Labour. They've placed themselves breathing down the necks of the Conservatives and there will be no excuse next time. The platform is now there to launch Labour are into government.

However, Labour winning an election these days requires more than just Labour wins. It needs Liberal Democrat wins too. Last night the Lib Dems showed that they could win, but their performance was otherwise absurdly erratic.

From the nine seats they began the night with with, the party held four seats, lost five seats and gained eight seats. The Lib Dems also had a number of close calls either way - they really could have ended with anything from eight to eighteen seats.

The party largely held up its share of the vote - likely losing some to tactical voting, while gaining a little too. But the party could have hoped for a lot more and there will be some introspection among liberals in the days to come.

Honestly, considering the party's whole campaign at a distance, it's hard not to see Tim Farron's leadership as being compromised, despite the overall slight improvement in the party's position.

The leadership seemed to misjudge the public mood, unwaveringly focusing it's campaign on Brexit and rerun referendums, when many who the Lib Dems had to pitch to appear to have either gotten passed or not cared about in the first place.

And then there were the blunders Farron himself made, that were just plain ridiculous. No leaders of liberals should find themselves getting stuck with the label of intolerance on questions of support for LGBT and abortion rights.

The party's messy night speaks to the lack of clear message that connects values to policies to people, and resonated with an audience - as if the party simply wasn't sure to who exactly it was pitching it's ideas.

The return of Jo Swinson to the Commons for East Dunbartonshire on a clear majority perhaps presents the Liberal Democrats with a viable alternative leader - a woman, not least, outspoken and capable. All things the Lib Dems need to put at the forefront.

The SNP also had a dramatic night. While it is obviously on the one hand a tactic of media management to play down seat losses as best as possible, it was not unreasonable in this case. There really wasn't anywhere for the SNP to go after they swept Scotland last time out and the monopoly couldn't last.

The drama came from who the Lib Dems lost seats to: the Tories. Before the independence referendum that would have been, nearly, unthinkable. But last night, the Tories pretty much saved their political skins with gains in Scotland.

Their gains brought a particularly sad loss: Angus Robertson has lost his Moray seat. Sadly, Robertson will no longer bring his impressive performances to bear from the opposition benches in the Commons.

The big question going ahead now will be who can maintain their vote share and move forward. On several fronts, the Tories seem to have hit a wall that suggests they've maximised their reach. Labour, in contrast, broke new ground.

For Labour, this is a platform to win from. However, to turn that potential into a reality will depend upon keeping young voters, particularly first time voters, engaged and coming back time and again - and that will mean rewarding their engagement.

Labour also has to make a big pitch to Wales over the next five years. Voters in Wales shielded Labour last night, but the party hasn't really earned it - even with Corbyn's bright new manifesto. It has to start delivering.

There is a progressive majority. Seventeen million voted for the Centre-Left, while fifteen million went for the Right. Yet there is a Conservative government - a Hard Right Blue-Orange Loyalist coalition, no less.

It's mandate and majority are thin. Labour has a platform to fight and overturn that now, but first things first. All of the progressive parties have to get opposition right. There can be no messing around this time.

All progressive parties - Labour, the Liberal Democrats, the SNP, Plaid Cymru, the Greens - have to start coordinating. And right now. Right from the start. The infighting must stop. The progressives turning fire on each other must stop.

All focus now has to be on holding the government to account, to prevent its Hard Right nature from getting out. On LGBT, on abortion, on human rights, on welfare - there are so many crossovers for progressives were opposition will be needed.

Corbyn's result has restored hope to progressives. It has trammelled the Conservatives. The time to make that count is now. The next election campaign starts now - and this time it'll be a fight progressives can win.

Relief as Far Right falls short in Dutch election, but there's no future in that feeling: Progressives need reasons for optimism

Elections to the Dutch House of Representatives, seated at the Binnenhof, saw the Far-Right fall short of power. Photograph: Binnenhof from Pixabay (License) (Cropped)

The "Wrong Kind of Populism" had been defeated claimed Mark Rutte, leader of the governing liberal conservative VVD (BBC, 2017). Rutte celebrated the defeat of Geert Wilders and his Far-Right PVV, despite his own party's loss of 8 seats, and called the Netherlands the breakwater of the populist tide.

Despite Rutte's good cheer, the results will bring progressives relief but little optimism. Yes, the Far-Right was prevented from claiming a victory, but the debate has already been affected by them. Policy has lurched ever more into their prime, exclusionary, territory (Henley, 2017).

It was also a defeat of the Far-Right that will only be finalised when a broad spectrum of parties are rallied together into an effective coalition - that will have to include perhaps everyone from staunch conservatives to the Left-Greens.

That pattern that has been followed everywhere that a far-right challenge has emerged. The results have not been good. Look, for example, at the Brexit referendum and the US Presidential Election.

The Remain campaign needed support from a broad spectrum if it was to fend off the Leave challenge, but it did little to inspire the radical Left to get on board - in fact there were Left Exit groups. In the US, Hillary Clinton fell short in the face of the same challenge. In both cases, working class men walked away from the Left and the Centre in disillusionment.

As the nationalist tide rises, it pressures the Left to rally behind the uniting of all the mainstream forces. And, further, to accept some bad policies to head off worse. The result has been confusion and despondency about alliances and policies that leave a bad taste in progressive mouths.

It was the kind problem that came between the Remain Camp, and Hillary Clinton, and the Left. How could the Left, radicals, progressives, stand behind parties and institutions that backed the neoliberalism that had helped create the inequality and austerity that had fostered the Far-Right?

Such alliances are not a realistic basis for building a progressive future. The Left, and even the Centre, have conceded too much to Conservatives in the scramble to fend off the extreme Right - accepting too much of the Right-Wing narrative, letting politics be defined by it.

The existential threat that the far-right poses must, however, be faced and opposed by radicals and moderates alike. And if the need for opposition inspires a new period of cooperation and collaboration in Western politics, then all the better. In bitterly partisan times, it would be refreshing to step outside the bounds of narrow party interest.

But these broad coalitions must be formed on the basis of inclusion and not concession. They must form an open dialogue and take representation seriously: too many people have been left feeling excluded and ignored.

It is doesn't feel good to cheer when the Far-Right doesn't win. It feels more like the relieved sigh of the battle-hardened, weary and despondent, at keeping Rome standing just one more day. We need something more. Hope and idealism. We need inclusive alliances that aspire to something better.

Ideology in politics is unavoidable, but transparency should be as well - we need the facts to scrutinise policies and the societal ideal they are designed to build

As Romano Prodi, former President of the European Commission and Prime Minister of Italy, put it: the incorrect way to use facts is as a drunk uses lamp posts - more for support than for illumination. Photograph: Lamp Post in Rome from Pixabay (License) (Cropped)

Yesterday, George Osborne went before the Commons Treasury Committee to answer more detailed questions on the budget he announced last Wednesday (Sparrow, 2016). The Chancellor and his budget came in for some difficult questions.

During the hearing it was disclosed that, since the Coalition ended, the Chancellor had stopped analysis that would have showed, as the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) analysis shows, that the budget appeared to be redistributing money from the poorest to the richest (Stone, 2016). The Chancellor's defence was that he believed that the statistics provided could be misleading, and make deficit reduction look like "a bad thing".

According to both Iain Duncan Smith and the IFS, the welfare changes will disproportionately - for the obvious reason that welfare is mostly needed by those in lower incomes - hurt the poorest 20% (Inman, 2016). It was this fact that Osborne was accused of attempting to hide by changing the way the Treasury analysed the budget impact.

Playing with facts to suit political purpose is bad enough on its own. But this was also the suppression of facts - showing austerity and deficit reduction, at the present time and by the present methods, appear to be disproportionately damaging to the poor - in order to protect an ideological political project (Dudman, 2016).

Yet the problem is not so much the ideological motivation. As Romano Prodi put it, the incorrect approach to using facts is as a drunk uses lamp posts - for support rather than illumination.

In order to reduce so called 'welfare dependence', Osborne has ignored the data in order to treat welfare as the problem in and of itself - rather than a symptom. That means ignoring the fact that high welfare bills are the result of its corrective role.

In reality, welfare at its best is a safety net that helps to guarantee basic freedoms and at worst can be criticised as a form of corporate welfare, when policies like tax credits or the personal allowance subsidise companies paying low wages - but either way it is a redistributive mechanism that anchors the affluence of the rich to the wellbeing of the poor.

In both cases a high welfare bill is a symptom. It represents people struggling with low or no incomes, a lack of access to affordable housing and a lack of opportunity (Johnson, 2015). But as conditions improve, as the low incomes turn into living incomes, housing becomes more affordable and greater opportunity spreads, the welfare bill decreases.

Ideology is an inescapable aspect of politics. It is the philosophical view of what the world is, the ethics of how to behave on a personal level and the shaping of society around those beliefs to enhance them and produce the ideal outcomes. But that is no excuse for a lack of transparency.

If the Chancellor believes that there is a positive outcome in the changes he is making, he should have no fear in these statistics. He should be able to explain how his changes fit his ideological narrative, and produce, from his perspective, a positive outcome.

Instead of trusting people with the facts, the people are shown fragments designed to fit a narrative. If people are to hold those in public office to account they need the facts. Vigilance can only do so much, without access to the facts and openness from public office holders and parties as to the big picture, broad context narrative, that they see written in the data.

In Argentina, Macri's broad Centre coalition secured the Presidency. Yet the question remains: when can the Left cut ties with neoliberals to pursue truly radical reforms?

Mauricio Macri, pictured casting his vote in the August primaries, united the Centre-Right and Centre-Left opposition to defeat the Kirchner candidate and become the first non-Peronist, non-UCR President. Photograph: Mauricio Macri vota by Mauricio Macri (License) (Cropped)

After twelve years in power, the Kirchnerist faction of the Peronist movement, in the form of the Partido Justicialista, lost their grip on the Presidency of Argentina (Watts & Goni, 2015). In the second round of voting Mauricio Macri, leading the broad centre coalition Cambiemos, defeated the Justicialista, and former President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, backed Frente para la Victoria candidate Daniel Scioli (BBC, 2015).

Macri's victory has been received positively as, possibly, the beginning for a new moderate Argentina (Cottle, 2015). And yet, while neoliberals, in particular, rejoice in a pro-market victory, Macri's Presidency has only come with the complicity of the centre-left, specifically the Union Civica Radicale (UCR, Radical Civic Union).

That tentative alliance raises the question of whether, sooner or later, those with Left-wing tendencies, particularly within UCR, will feel the need to go their own way - though there is a lot of work ahead before a progressive slate could win without some sort of agreement with, or against, the Peronist movement.

Not the least consideration is that the election of the conservative liberal Mauricio Macri will not, alone, be enough to change the direction of Argentina. Although, the defeat of Kirchner's populist Peronist candidate - which has brought a positive response from neoliberal pro-market voices - has been regarded as a new turn for Argentina and, possibly a little optimistically, the overthrow of populism (Rodriguez-Brizuela, 2015).

While the Peronists are still the largest group in the Congress, that may shift over the course of Macri's term as half of the Chamber of Deputies is elected every two years in legislative elections. And the efforts already launched by Macri at tackling Argentina's immense economic challenges have received praise (The Economist, 2016). So, for the moment, the momentum is with Macri.

However, Macri's support came from a coalition primarily divided between the Centre-Right party Propuesta Republicana (Republican Proposal, PRO) and the Centre-Left party Union Civica Radical - backed by a mix of supporters from across the centre (The Argentina Independent, 2015). So what of Macri's Radical partners?

Despite the party's name, the UCR is a moderate centre-left party, seen by the harder Left as bourgeois, that has for decades been caught between other factions. The traditional opponents of the Peronists, some internal and breakaway factions such as the Radicales K have nonetheless found themselves sometimes allies with Peronist factions, in pursuit of reforms that promise social justice and improvements to the lives of citizens (La Nacion, 2006).

Yet the authoritarian character of the Justicialista - with fears ranging from electoral fraud to intimidation and suppression of the press, along with policies like the confiscation of pension funds to plug financial holes (Marty, 2015; Crandall, 2012) - seems to have helped align the UCR with the opposition. That has led the UCR on the path joining Cambiemos, despite its mainstream, globalising, neoliberal approach (Rodriguez, 2015).

Now, it would not be a surprise to see the election of 2015 presented as a contest between the market and the state. Yet in reality, it was more after the fashion of the statist, populist and nationalist Peronists, holding a long-term authoritarian grip on power, versus a broad opposition, that Macri has succeeded in rallying around his open and 'neoliberal' way - that embraces the global system.

That is a story replicated across Europe in different shades - liberals and social democrats shackled to the neoliberal mainstream, in the face of rising fear and nationalism, rallying to protect positive gains embodied in the the establishment institutions. So why, the question might well be asked, would or should the Centre-Left consider breaking away from the Centre-Right? It is certainly clear that the global economic crisis is not over and that populist nationalism has not retreated - even in Argentina after its defeat.

The answer is because, ultimately, neoliberalism is no friend to social progress.

For all his moderate liberal credentials, as Mayor of Buenos Aires Mauricio Macri behaved in a typically neoliberal way - defunding social programs in search of competition at the expense of social security (Esperanza Casullo, 2015). And Argentina's Macrinomic path out of its present crisis will likely follow the same austerian path as many countries in Europe - particularly the UK under George Osborne Chancellorship.

But that doesn't mean that some overnight, clean break is imminent. Progressives in Argentina must build gradually towards an unshackling, because the election demonstrated that there is not yet much of a political space for a radical alternative to Peronist statism or the neoliberal market. Yet Macri's election has levered open the door and progressives must step into that new space to develop a fresh consensus around a just, sustainable and liberating alternative, amenable to the building of broad Left movement.

Tory government back down on Foxhunting exposes the lie of the stable majority

For now at least, the Foxhunting ban remains. Photograph: Fox Grooming via photopin (license) (cropped)

In response to the SNP making clear that it would opposed a relaxing of the laws on foxhunting, the Conservative government has withdrawn the vote it set on the issue (Mason, 2015). A vote had originally been scheduled for Wednesday (BBC, 2015), with the government accused of attempting to bring back foxhunting by the back door (Mason & Brooks, 2015).

The Conservative response in the media will likely be to cry foul on the SNP involving themselves in 'English affairs' (Mason & Brooks, 2015{2}; Jenkins, 2015). But the reality is that internal division is what has stopped this vote from going ahead - divisions that expose the lie of the stable majority.

With a majority in the Commons, the Conservatives should have been able to pass their 'relaxation' of the law. However they faced opposition from both backbenchers, and even ministers, within their own ranks (Helm, 2015).

Foxhunting is just the latest issue to expose the lie of majority rule, with a fragile Conservative government facing constant risks of internal rebellion. What is particularly notable, is that it is the more moderate Conservatives who are causing them so much trouble.

Under the Coalition, many of the more extreme Tory policies never even saw the light of day. The issues on which moderates are rebelling - including a threatened withdrawal from the European Convention on Human Rights Convention (Watt, 2015) and misrepresenting Britain's relationship with Europe (May, 2015) - were all options opposed and suppressed by the Liberal Democrats.

In fact, most of the struggles Cameron's Ministry have faced over their first two months in office have, seemingly against expectation (Cowley, 2015), come opposition from their moderate wing. The moderates seem to be working overtime to make up for the absence of a liberal influence in restraining the reactionary Far-Right.

Is it possible that they now feel that they took the Liberal Democrats for granted? Are they maybe beginning to regret the electoral strategy of directly assaulting their former coalition partners?

The compromises of the Coalition served the Conservatives well in allowing them to portray themselves as reasonable and responsible. Foxhunting is one of the issues that could undo all of that very quickly and return the toxicity to the Conservative 'brand' (Platt, 2015; Gosden et al, 2015).

Between the toxic nature of extremism and the internal factional divisions, here, exposed, are the flaws of majority government. Handed a virtual five year dictatorship - as long as they can keep their numbers together - there is nothing but self-restraint to prevent parties veering into their own extreme corners, and alienating the usually large proportion of the population who did not vote them into to power.

That power is on display in the matter of foxhunting, which the Tories apparently plan on returning to again in the autumn, once they have introduced their plans for Evel - English votes for English laws (Mason, 2015). The majority party hasn't gotten its way, so it is changing the rules.

Even if you accept the inequality of majority rule on the basis of 36% of the vote - and less than 25% of all eligible voters - internal divisions afflicting the Conservatives show that the system reflects no unanimity..

With electoral reform there might at least be a more honest exploration of beliefs through smaller parties, than found in squabbling big tents. There would also be hope for governments that would be based on a compromise that is representative of the views of broad parts of society - not simply imposing the will of a loud minority on everyone else.

Election 2015: Liberal Democrats

For Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats, the 2015 general election has to come with extremely low expectations. The party is polling at only a third of those that voted for them in 2010, a measly 8%, and Clegg himself seems to have been made a scapegoat for all of the failures of Britain's political system.

On 7th May the Liberal Democrats look like they will be held responsible, for better or worse, both for the impact of the coalition and for the compromises made in the forming of it. While the Conservatives look set to be judged on austerity, how much support - and how many seats - Clegg and the Lib Dems are able to retain will represent whether or not the decision to enter coalition has been accepted by voters - regardless of any proposals that the party puts forward.

If the public's judgement should run against them, as polls suggest, the party looks like it will still survive in some seats where it is, ironically, protected by the first-past-the-post system against which they have campaigned for decades. That campaign for political reform was one of the party's biggest hopes for the coalition, and also their biggest disappointment. Their already compromised proposals for changes to the electoral system were rejected at a referendum (BBC, 2011), and attempts to reform the House of Lords into an elected chamber were put to an end in cross-party talks, with the Conservatives and Labour both blocking Lib Dem efforts (Clegg, 2012).

The Lib Dems have, however, managed to get quite a few policies through. The rise in the Personal Tax Allowance (Liberal Democrats, 2014), the Protection of Freedoms Act (Liberal Democrats, 2012), and the Pupil Premium (Vasagar, 2011). While they have been charged, by association through coalition, with culpability for allowing the Tories to govern, the party has argued that they have held the Conservatives back from doing their worst.

They resisted and tried to get a better outcome on the Health and Social Care Act 2012 (Harris, 2012), they resisted the Tory version of the Bedroom Tax (Watt, 2014) and they earned praise for standing up for public sector Trade Union members against the Conservatives (Syal, 2014; Watt, 2015). Nick Clegg and Danny Alexander, Chief Secretary to the Treasury, have both gone further and warned of worst to come from the Tories if they're left unchecked (The Guardian, 2015{1}; The Guardian, 2015{2}).

Their future plans have also been roundly copied by their rivals. Their Mansion Tax has been co-opted by Labour (Dominiczak, 2013) and their Personal Tax Allowance has been taken on by the Conservatives (ITV, 2014). The Liberal Democrats are also the first party to pledge an increase in NHS funding each year through to 2020, in real terms - adjusting for inflation - to the £8bn more that the NHS has stated it needs (Wright & Moodley, 2015; Campbell, 2015).

Despite all of this, there is one one policy that the party does not seem able to live down. The compromise too far was tuition fees. The party argues that, despite being a small party without enough influence and no parliamentary supporters, it got the best deal it could, rather than let something worse come about - specifically uncapped unlimited fees. The solution itself is, although achieved through what feels a lot like an accountants sleight-of-hand, higher education free at the point of use, to be paid back later in tax.

That outcome comes - along with the risk of non-payment being moved to government away from the universities in order to secure higher education funding for the present (Ashworth-Hayes & Sippitt, 2015) - with a shift in the burden of debt from universities to students. With repayment thresholds designed to protect the poorest, the tuition fee has turned into a de facto graduate tax. The problem is that the debt, though structured to lessen the burden, is still - on principle - a burden (Swain, 2015).

That goes against the radical principle the party had stood for, and it seems few want to hear the arguments about political compromise from weak bargaining positions - despite that being central to the party's political beliefs since before they were called Liberal Democrats. Their practical stances and readiness to compromise means that few would find it realistic for the party to present themselves as the radical alternative protest party that they were seen as in 2010 (Brocklebank, 2010). In that light the Lib Dems have had to take a new approach.

The new presentation is focussed on the party's belief in practical, balanced budget, Centrism. Fair and balanced is what they are presenting as the order of the day under a Liberal Democrat government - or, at least, a government under liberal influence. Fewer cuts than the Right wants, less spending than the Left wants. Cuts only to tackle the deficit, spending only what can be afforded, with a commitment to raising taxes on the wealthier to reduce the depth of cuts to public spending. Less harsh and more understanding on welfare than Labour or the Tories (Batchelor, 2014); a commitment to funding for mental health care (Sparrow, 2015); a commitment to Europe; a commitment to civil rights (Macwhirter, 2015); and a commitment to devolving power away from Westminster (Demianyk, 2015).

Despite their proposals, despite their achievements, the party is nonetheless in a precarious position. There are those, however, who are not so pessimistic about their chances on the 7th May (d'Ancona, 2015). Away from the mainstream polls, there is positive thinking amongst Lib Dems that 12-15% of vote and 30-something seats is possible, and that 40-something seats are not out of reach (Tall, 2015{2}). With annihilation predicted for them, even 30 seats would be seen as a huge victory - and maybe in some way vindication for taking the difficult decision to change British politics and go into coalition.

In that there is something from which the Liberal Democrats will ultimately take pride. Clegg and the Lib Dems have made compromise, coalition and a more grown up politics possible. They have made it possible to have, not only coalitions, but stable coalition government where both sides can openly, brazenly disagree and still work together - even if in doing so has damaged their own chances of ever playing that role again (Gibbon, 2015).

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Prospects: 8% for 28 seats (for a loss of 28).*

Potential Coalition Partners: Labour Party (273 seats), Conservative Party (273), SNP (51), Green Party (1).

Verdict: All of the reasons to vote Liberal Democrat in 2010 remain valid in 2015 - with the obvious exception of the tuition fee policy. Abolition of fees for Higher Education is now being considered a future aspiration the party, not something it can deliver in the short term. That alone may be enough to damage the party significantly. Keeping half of their seats would be seen as a major success.

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