Progressives have a Senedd majority, but it counts for little when politics is reduced to partisan games and point-scoring

The Senedd, home of the National Assembly for Wales. Photograph: Senedd from Pixabay (License) (Cropped)

Following an election that left Labour one seat short of a majority, the Senedd sat down to vote in a new First Minister. A majority of votes was needed to appoint the new head of Wales' government, who was expected to be Labour leader, and current First Minister, Carwyn Jones.

Instead, the Senedd was left in deadlock, 29 votes to 29 (BBC, 2016). Apparently disliking the attitude of the Labour leadership, Plaid Cymru put forward their own leader, Leanne Wood, for the post - a nomination that received the backing of both the Conservatives and the newly beseated UKIP.

It was a move that almost produced the upset of Leanne Wood, as leader of a party with just 11 seats of 60 in the Senedd, being nominated to the post of First Minister. Wood's rise on the back of Tory and UKIP support was stopped by, the now sole, Liberal Democrat Assembly Member Kirsty Williams.

Williams said she opposed the 'ragtag coalition' that included UKIP, and nominated Carwyn Jones because Labour where the only party given something approaching a governing mandate by the people (Williams, 2016).

Another vote, to try and break the deadlock, will take place next week, with negotiations ongoing in the mean time between Plaid Cymru and the Labour Party. However, the two parties have long been known to have a difficult relationship, seen not least in Plaid voting against a public health bill because a Labour minister had insulted them.

The decision was criticised by health unions, who called on the assembly to stop playing games with the nation's health (BBC, 2016{3}). Whether because of bad blood, or Plaid seeing an advantage in Labour's obviously weak position, the Senedd has been again reduced to games. Plaid might even be tempted, as negotiations continue, to keep exploiting the situation to extract policy concessions (Servini, 2016).

That would be a dangerous move. Reducing politics to a game, to scoring points, to a language of wins, gains and losses, undermines a fundamental reality - that politics is supposed to be about representation. The 'any method so long as we win' mentality also ignores our methods always have consequences.

That is an idea that George Osborne and the rest of the Conservative establishment failed to grasp during the London Mayoral election. Osborne was quoted as saying the Tories offensive negative campaign was just the 'rough and tumble' of 'robust democracy' (Sparrow, 2016).

This is a fundamental misunderstanding of what it means to 'govern from the centre'. Without even a robust internal debate (Kuenssberg, 2016), the Conservatives attempt to bully their policy through using whatever tactics suit them and with little testing or consensus-building.

To truly govern from the centre, means having proper respect for the democratic method (Urbinati, 1994):

"...the method of pursuing a political goal through free discussion by replacing force and imposed consent with dialogue and the search for consent... a pact of civility through which citizens and groups defend and develop their ideas - their diversity - without losing the attributes of their common humanity."

In Wales, progressive parties have been handed a comprehensive majority of votes and seats. That presents an opportunity for Labour, Plaid Cymru and the Liberal Democrats to get to work on moving Wales forward over the next five years.

But first Labour and Plaid Cymru have to get past their differences. In refinding the capacity for civility, they may find a renewed progressive political strength and will - and through cooperation achieve far more than they might with petty divisive squabbles and cheap tactical gamesmanship.

Local Elections: Conservatism is far from dominant in a divided Britain, but people still await an alternative

Yesterday saw local council elections across England and assembly elections in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, that emphasised how varied the politics of Britain's provinces is becoming.

With so many pressures, on so many parties, from so many directions, the local and assembly elections were always going to be a fraught and complicated affair. As it happens, the changes forced were in small increments and, in broad context, left matters largely as they were (Kuenssberg, 2016).

But the biggest story of the night is really the way in which politics has taken on different shapes in different parts of Britain. In its different provinces, politics is being reshaped to fit provincial rather than British themes (Mason, 2016; Mason, 2015). Old divisions are being broken down, new ones are springing up and some groups are adapting while others are not.

The broad picture showed the Labour Party largely hanging on, with inconvenient losses matched by surprising gains and holds. However Corbyn still finds himself wrestling with the internal contradictions left to him by previous leaders, who failed to solve the fundamental disconnect between the party and its supporters. The Conservatives too managed to broadly hang on and even made the publicity friendly gain of becoming the official opposition to the SNP in the Scottish Parliament.

The Liberal Democrat slump also seemed to have hit bottom, with the party's vote mostly stabilising at about 8%. Yet there were also signs of life, with some gains won on the back of astounding swings of around 10-15% - an increase in supporters in the thousands - that will provide some useful fuel for their #LibDemFightback narrative.

UKIP's night was largely devoted to establishing themselves, securing their bridgeheads rather than breaking new ground. Their results matched 2015 and followed suit by again paying off in second places, and this time with both council seats and seats in Wales' Senedd.

Yet this broad, federal, party picture hides a much more complicated set of movements beneath the surface.

The results in Scotland redrew political lines to reflect the new reality of debate in the country. The SNP, now without a majority but still in position for a strong minority government, have set out Scottish separatism as the movement with the momentum. The Conservatives are the opposition, and Unionism is their opposing force.

In that debate, other issues are being sidelined and with them the other parties. Labour, who are really struggling to distinguish themselves in the separatism-unionism debate, look the most lost. The social democratic Centre-Left have seemingly rallied around the SNP, while the those following the Unionist cause have unsurprisingly gathered about the Conservatives. The principled opposition to the SNP approach to governing, on issues of civil liberties and the environment, has gathered around the Greens and the Lib Dems. That doesn't leave much room for the Labour Party.

The Liberal Democrats night in Scotland lays out their own particularly strange journey. While across Scotland their support seemed to settle to the national average of around 8%, in particular constituencies they won huge victories, even against the SNP, with 15% wings bringing thousands of voters. That was enough to give Will Rennie a constituency seat with a 3500 vote majority in North East Fife, along with gaining Edinburgh Western.

By contrast with Scotland, the election in Wales almost felt like a delayed continuation from the 2015 general election. The Lib Dem vote levelled out at around the 8% margin seen elsewhere, and in Wales, last year, but in this situation that meant Lib Dem seat losses suited to the 2015 slaughter. And yet, party leader Kirsty Williams won her constituency with a 10% swing to increase her majority by thousands of votes.

Meanwhile UKIP gained representation in Wales through the regional list vote, taking seats at the expense of the Conservatives and the Lib Dems, thanks to 13% of the vote gained mostly at the expense of Labour. That number reflected their Britain-wide 2015 performance, and seemed to confirm the Senedd election as almost a rebalancing - representation adjusting to match their performance.

In the local council elections in England, Labour lost seats but - again - largely held their ground. The Lib Dems showed more surprising resilience, taking a projected 15% of the national vote share and even an overall gain of more than forty council seats and control of a council. As in Wales, UKIP appear to be rebalancing, losing votes but claiming some council seats, in seeming redress from a year ago. The Conservatives lost almost fifty seats and control of a council, but for a sitting government the results are as undramatic as could be hoped.

That stands in contrast to London. After eight years of Boris Johnson, with Labour struggling, the Conservatives must have thought that this was a clear cut opportunity. Yet it was Sadiq Khan's campaign that has had all the momentum, despite the dirty tricks and negative campaigning of the Conservatives - run not only by Khan's opponent Zac Goldsmith, but endorsed from on high by Conservative leadership (Hattenstone, 2016).

As the dust settled, Sadiq Khan had become the new Mayor of London and Labour hold a commanding position in the London Assembly. Presented as the candidate representing a diverse and inclusive London, his election confirms the stark contrast between the politics of London and the Conservative majority in Southern England won in May 2015.

The sum of these results is to say that Conservatism is far from dominant in the UK because Britain is, beyond the simplistic divisions of Westminster majorities, composed of a number of different provinces over which Conservatives do not hold sway. London is a progressive beacon in the conservative South. Scotland is dominated by a fundamental question of its identity, while Wales seems to be struggling to find its own in a post-industrial world. Across the North, Labour's former heartlands, that post-industrial world has left Labour increasingly locked in a struggle with UKIP for its soul.

The results show conservatism to be an ideology ruling others from outside, at arms reach. But they also suggest that people are still waiting for a real and clear alternative to be put forward - and for someone to stand behind it. At the moment, progressives do not have a clear alternative pitch to offer and they are too divided into factions, and parties seemingly incapable of cooperating.

There are sparks here and there that show a pitch might be formulated in time for the 2020 general election. Support for Proportional representation is widening. There is growing acknowledgement of the need to tackle the housing crisis, including the rental sector. Welfare, inequality, austerity, basic income - these are all showing up on the public radar.

The future of these ideas, of turning them into policies, will require progressives to recognise the necessity for an alliance backing a clear positive alternative. An alliance internally within Labour, an alliance between Labour and other parties, an alliance between different parties in different provinces. Britain is divided, but progressives can do what conservatives can't and unite it behind a common cause.

Election 2015: Economics - Austerity, Austerity Lite or an Alternative

The big question facing voters on 7th May is how should the UK's fiscal policy and public debt be managed over the next five years. That is to say: how much tax should be raised, and from who? And, how much of the deficit and debt should be paid off, and when?

As of April, the deficit - the amount of government spending in excess of revenue from taxation - was at around £90bn. Over the last five years the deficit has been reduced from £154bn. However, because there is still a deficit, the overall debt has continued to climb - from around £1 trillion up to around £1.5 trillion (Ashworth-Hayes, 2015).

Those are, admittedly, pretty scary numbers. But what is the reality behind them?

What are the parties offering?

There are two main groups of parties taking opposing positions: the Conservatives and UKIP on one side (BBC, 2015), Labour and the SNP on the other (Phelps, 2015). While the Conservative side is focussing heavily on bringing down the deficit and the debt substantially through further cuts to public spending, the Labour side has focussed instead on much shallower cuts, ostensibly to protect the economy from the shock of further public sector cuts (Peston, 2015).

In order to achieve their deficit reduction, the Conservatives will have to make massive cuts to public services (Robinson, 2015). They will need to cut as much as a third from the budget of each of the unprotected areas of public spending, plus £12bn from non-pensions welfare spending - of which jobseekers allowance only makes up £3bn of £74bn, with housing benefit taking up £18bn (Elliott & Wintour, 2015).

All of these Conservative efforts are aimed squarely at tackling, and eliminating, sovereign debt. By contrast, Labour believe that the way to cut the deficit is to improve the economy - encouraging growth and so increasing government revenues (Robinson, 2015).

With two potentially viable means to achieve the same end, the judgement as to who is right would seem to depend on outside factors (Peston, 2015{2}).

"...your judgement about who is right depends on your assessment of how big you want the public sector to be, and how likely you think it is that there is another economic crisis around the corner - because the more imminent such a shock may be, the more haste is appropriate for debt reduction."

That brings us to the question: how much of a risk is sovereign debt?

Keynes and cyclically balanced budgets

To answer that question it is worth revisiting the work of John Maynard Keynes. Keynes was an Eton and Cambridge educated economist and member of the old Liberal Party. He had worked for the treasury, but his experiences during negotiations over German reparations at the end of the First World War led to his resignation.

He then wrote The Economic Consequences of the Peace, which roundly criticised, on economic grounds, the process by which the German people were being punished with reparations for the actions of the German State and warned of the dangers inherent to that course. The work established his credentials as an economist.

In later works - such as the The Means to Prosperity and The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money - Keynes' ideas went on to focus on the important economic role played by demand. Economics, of all stripes, is centred on the relationship between supply and demand. In a change from classical economic attitudes, Keynes saw demand as the one that drives the other - and so saw it as necessary for something to be done about making up for the slump in demand that occurred during contraction periods in the economic cycle.

The means to achieving that would be government debt and deficit spending. By borrowing and sending more on public services and public works, the government could keep people employed, thus keeping money in their pockets and so keep demand at a level that can support supply until the economy recovers. In a failure to do this, Keynes saw potentially catastrophic problems caused by the collapse of demand, as unemployment led to recession which led to more unemployment (The Independent Report, 2012).

However, the role that sovereign debt and deficit spending played was only intended by Keynes to be part of a more comprehensive fiscal strategy of cyclically balanced budgets - with surpluses created during the good times to allow for the deficit spending needed during the slumps.

Yet public debts have, over the past seven years, gone a long way beyond that. Sovereign debt has piled up thanks to governments taking private capitalist debts into their own hands to save the private business, and particularly banks, from catastrophe (Filger, 2010) - although the IMF estimates that only 40% of the total debt is the result of stimulus efforts and bail-outs, with 60% coming simply from lower tax revenues due to higher unemployment and lower profits (The Economist, 2013).

Further, the IMF has suggested that while public debt isn't helpful - compounding problems by questioning solvency, so driving up interest rates which makes borrowing and repayments more expensive, and undermining the freedom for governments to spend to stimulate the economy - austerity cuts aimed at tackling the debt have actually hindered growth (The Economist, 2013).

What may seem a fairly cavalier attitude towards public debt seem to be justified by analysis. Historically, it appears, sovereign default - where a country is unable to meet its debts and so is forced to restructure repayments - does not come with the risks generally associated with it. The effects on economic growth of default are a drop of around 2.5% in the short term, but are quickly overcome and recovering is relatively fast (Panizza & Borensztein, 2010).

The real dangers appear to be the political effects.

Back during Great War reparations negotiations, Keynes had argued that there was a limit to the capacity of a state to manage its debts. To pressure a state into pursuing repayments it could not afford could have dangerous ramifications (Miller & Skidelsky, 2012). Policies by creditor countries regarding debts would have to be handled in a way sensitive to both economic and political outcomes. The failure to do so would be expressed in the rise of extremism - as people turn to simplistic and drastic solutions in the face of the powerlessness of the centre.

So how does all of this answer our key questions: how much tax should be raised and from who? How much of the deficit and debt should be paid off, and when? How much of a risk is sovereign debt?

Conclusions with reservations

For Keynes, the moment for austerity cuts was during the good times, not during the bad. If debts became unmanageable, then it would eventually be better simply to cancel those debts and have everyone benefit from the renewed growth. However, debts and deficit spendings should be purposeful, with deliberate productive outcomes that will ultimately help balance out spending when the economy returns to expansion.

Taking all of these things into account, it should not be a huge surprise that Keynes would be unlikely to agree outright with either the Labour or Conservative side of the argument, but rather with the Liberal Democrats - the heirs of the old Liberal Party of which he was a member.

Of the mainstream parties, the Lib Dems are the most openly committed to what they call a middle course - to cyclically balanced budgets, tax rises rather than increasingly deep cuts to tackle the deficit more immediately than Labour and then keeping spending increases in line with revenue increases to spend more than the Conservatives (Crawford et al, 2014).

However, all of this analysis presumes the continued validity of the mainstream economic system - something about which questions have been raised in the last five years. Therein lies deeper questions of values that are much harder to answer: does the mainstream system still reflect what we expect from our lives? And, is anyone actually offering a real alternative system?

Anti-austerity parties, from the more mainstream Greens to more fringe groups like Socialist Labour, offer alternatives consisting of higher taxes and more public spending. But they not do not offer a comprehensively different system (Whale, 2015; BBC, 2015{2}).

There is the choice. Do we look now to the alternatives, that may not be ready or fully realised, or do we try to make the best of the present system, with as much fairness as possible, according to our best understanding of how it functions?

Yanis Varoufakis, Greek radical left economist and Finance Minister under the Syriza government, addressed that choice by stressing the need for progressives to be pragmatic during these times of crisis (Varoufakis, 2015). From his perspective the Revolutionary Marxists were wrong - crisis would not benefit the Left, but rather the Right. For Varoufakis, the priority is a 'modest agenda for stabilising a system that I criticise', in order to 'minimise the unnecessary human toll from this crisis'.

The rising cost of servicing debt, along with austerity applied during tough times, can damage the general wellbeing and lead to rising extremism. Progressives need to decide on which course they believe to be best able to protect the common good in the present, and will set us up for moving towards greater prosperity in the future.

Election 2015: Healthcare, public funding and the future of the NHS

One of the central issues for voters as they cast their ballot in the 2015 UK general election will be the future of the NHS. All the parties have made their pitch, each party setting out their position by juxtaposing it with the plans of their rivals. The trouble is, upon closer inspection, all of the parties are making very similar promises (Triggle, 2015).

The choice between very similar sounding options on 7th May is the product of the development of the NHS over decades. The NHS was established by the Atlee's Labour government in 1948 to be free at point of use and funded by taxation. Based on the report of the liberal William Beveridge, it represented the next step in the reform and modernisation of social welfare begun by the Liberal Party just after the turn of the century.

The free at the point of use principal was soon put to the test. With funding the service proving expensive, it was not long before charges were introduced - beginning with prescription charges. Over the years more costs have been gradually pushed away from the public purse - road accident charges to car insurers, and dental care charges, eye care charges, hospital car parking charges all to the service user.

Toward the end of her time as Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher introduced a new 'internal market' system, where the state would not directly provide the healthcare. Instead it would procure it, on behalf of the service user, from independent hospital trusts that would have to compete to provide the service (Laurance, 2013).

Those changes initiated a direction of travel arguably continued in the Labour Party's embracing of Private Financial Initiatives (PFIs) under Blair and Brown. The benefits of the system to which Labour clung were that it opened up a short term source of funding to get hospitals built (BBC, 2002). But in the long term it has led to a huge build up of debt for hospital trusts, while allowing the private companies to profit massively (Cooper, 2014).

As for the Lib Dems, there has long been a broad party consensus on finding ways to increase choice and to ensure oversight and to devolve power (Brack et al, 2007). That made the Health and Social Care Act 2012 a complicated matter, with strong campaigning opposition to elements of the reform from within the party led by the likes of Dr Evan Harris (Harris, 2012).

Yet even with these ways of extending the means of funding the NHS and trying to find increase in service 'efficiency', the NHS is still falling short and there are fears that it will affect services (Campbell, 2015). There is little belief that Andrew Lansley's reforms have helped to ease the pressures. NHS chief executive Simon Stevens has said that the institution needs an extra £8bn a year to meet an expected £30bn shortfall by 2020 (Baker et al, 2015).

In response, all of the main parties of offered more funding, each with their own priority (Wright & Moodley, 2015).

Labour's primary position has been to distance itself from, first, the coalition's policies, and then, second, from those of New Labour. This means promising to repeal the Health and Social Care Act 2012 and introducing a cap of private profits from NHS contracts (Wintour, 2015). With NHS funding a major issue, Labour have also promised an increase of £2bn by 2016, and a £2.5bn fund for recruiting more nurses, GPs and midwives.

The Conservatives have promised to ringfence healthcare spending to protect it from cuts and to increase the budget by £2bn each year of the next parliament. However, that increase in funding is tempered by Cameron's announcement that his party would also be extending NHS services to full 24 hour coverage (Channel 4, 2015). They also later announced - to criticism of making unfunded pledges - that they would match the £8bn increase called for by the NHS (BBC, 2015).

By contrast to the other two main parties, the Liberal Democrats were initially the only party to pledge to increase NHS funding each year through to 2020 to ensure it will be, in real terms (adjusting for inflation), £8bn more than today - the amount that the NHS has stated is needed. Their main priority will the treatment of mental health, which they would put on parity with physical health and for which they would provide more funding (Perraudin, 2015).

UKIP have once again shown their chameleon-like skill at identifying the most popular mainstream policy and jumping on board - being sure to propose funding the NHS through their usual obsessions (Mason, 2015). However the personal views on the NHS of their leader Nigel Farage have been criticised by Dr John Lamport of the National Health Action Party (Lamport, 2015). He criticised Farage's praise for the Dutch and French style insurance-based system as an expensive doorway to privatisation.

However, despite their differing priorities, the similarities between the main parties and the general direction of travel towards privatisation has, for many, been a long term concern (BBC, 2003). Senior health professionals have criticised the coalition (Boseley, 2015), and others have called for whoever forms the next government to provide the funding that the NHS needs (Baker et al, 2015). These calls come with fears amongst medical professionals that after the election, charges may be introduced for basic NHS services (Campbell, 2015{2}).

Smaller third parties have taken up the fight against this perceived drift into privatisation. The National Health Action Party (NHA) represents a broadly Left-wing vision of rolling back privatisation. The NHA supports 1p rise in tax to pay for an increase of funding of £4.5m a year, phasing out prescription charges and repealing the Health and Social Care Act 2012 (BBC, 2015{2}).

However, regardless of who wins the next election, the closeness of the main parties' policies makes it likely that there will be some sort of cross-party commission to figure out the future of the NHS (Triggle, 2015). That commission will have to face the same questions that the public will at this election: do we want lower taxes or well funded public services? Because trying to have both means stretching those services ever more thinly (Toynbee, 2015).

When considering that question it's worth noting that the UK has comprehensive healthcare for which it spends far less, as a share of GDP, than most other comparable countries (Campbell & Watt, 2014). The NHS also remains an overwhelming popularly supported service (NatCen, 2015). In order to keep that service functioning, we need to understand the choices on offer about its future and to ask ourselves: when the future of the NHS is being debated, what values do we want to be represented and to underwrite its future?

Election 2015: Party manifesto commitments and the values behind the policies

The traditional view of electoral politics in the UK is of two parties, one of the Centre-Left and one of the Centre-Right, who struggle with one another for control over the establishment. The one that succeeds is expected to implement their manifesto, a vision of the policies for the coming years - diametrically opposed to those of the opposition.

Yet the reality is that there has been - for some time, and accentuated in this election campaign - a lot of pretty obvious similarities between, and almost imitation of each other by, the supposedly fundamentally oppositional traditional Left and Right parties, Labour and Conservative (Robinson, 2015; Peston, 2015).

In many ways, though, that is kind of the point of majoritarian electoral competition. If the parties are competing for votes, rather than purely representing them, then by necessity they must appeal to the broadest possible audience. That broad vision, for which both parties try to sell their manifesto as the best representative, is called the political consensus. In the UK, that consensus has leaned slightly to the Right-of-Centre over the last five years - in response to thirteen years of Centre-Left government (NatCen, 2015).

So when both of 2015's main parties offer to be tough on immigration, harsh on welfare, and efficient with the public finances - particularly in needing to find £30bn to balance the budget (Peston, 2014), and when they talk about working people and families, they are trying to appeal to what they believe to be the issues that reflect the hopes, fears, concerns and values of the broadest possible audience.

With the expansion of Britain's political system over the last five years, from a two-party system to a multi-party system, a new element has been added to what a political manifesto has to achieve. As the number of parties represented increases, the chances of a major party claiming the number of seats needed for a majority decreases. By making one-party majorities difficult to achieve, alliances become essential. The manifesto becomes a means of communicating with other parties as well as with voters, as the starting point for future negotiations (Rawnsley, 2015).

To fully comprehend the manifesto released by any of the parties in 2015, the reader now has to consider all of these factors.

The problem is that, for many, it is hard to distinguish between the message being sent out to voters by each of the different parties. The protected and increased funding for the NHS, the clampdowns on immigration and on working-age welfare, an increase in house building, and a commitment to balancing public expenses and revenue: the four largest parties - in terms of support in the popular polls across the UK - all fall clearly within these parameters.

But it would not be right to say, however, that there are no differences.

Conservatives and UKIP

Conservative and UKIP plans have both been criticised for offering all sorts of tax cuts, alongside additional spending, even as they commit to going further and deeper with austerity cuts than has already been seen.

The Conservatives have been singled out, in particular, for repeatedly failing to address what will be targeted for spending cuts (BBC, 2015). David Cameron himself has even gone so far as to say that voters should simply trust the Conservative record (Gage, 2015). Aside from cuts, the Conservative manifesto places a hard focus on convincing people that the party cares about working people - from extending Right-to-buy to housing association tenants, and offering some discounts; to taking minimum wage workers out of tax, raising the minimum wage and creating more apprenticeships. But all of these are offset by other policies. There is a commitment to cutting taxes on businesses, increasing the legal threshold required for strikes and taking welfare away from young people.

UKIP seems set upon tax cuts as well - acting as little more than the extreme-wing of the Conservative Party. Their plans include what Nigel Farage termed an £18bn tax give-away. Their manifesto also contains a greatest hits compilation of the other parties' most popular policies, their own obsessions like anti-immigration, and plans to cut funding to the EU, to international aid, to Scotland and Wales, even to axe infrastructural projects like HS2 - seeking to save some £29bn in the process. But all the talk of saving money from withdrawing and scrapping all seems very short term and short sighted (Elliot, 2015).

£29bn in cuts to address the deficit and fund the NHS, plus another £18bn to be found in tax cuts, constitutes a lot of money to be found without taking into account the fact that these cuts could result in damage to Britain's economic and financial interests. The money spent on the EU and International Aid in particular go to facilitating better conditions, here and abroad, for ourselves as well as others. Much of the EU spending notably returns to the UK, in the form of grants to support local councils and scientific research.

With Conservative plans to take less revenue - a reduction on inheritance tax, more spending on opening free schools, more funding for the NHS, a doubling of the free childcare allowance, taking minimum wage workers out of tax, building 200,000 homes, extending right-to-buy for tenants of social housing, keeping museums and galleries free to enter, freezing the BBC license fee, and, on top of all of it, finding around £30bn in order to eliminate the deficit - it is a glaring omission that we do not clearly know where the money will come from. While some Conservatives have offered the vague answer that a recovering economy would increase tax revenue and so offset any tax give-aways (Ridley, 2015), it would seem that a voter would be gambling on quite a lot with a vote for a Conservative government.

Labour

The traditional alternative to the Conservatives would seem to be offering a different kind of gamble. While Labour have consistently rejected the suggestion that they will cover spending commitments with borrowing, their slower and steadier approach to lowering the deficit and debt would certainly leave them room for a little greater flexibility (Peston, 2015{2}). The party appear to be aiming to use their focus on raising living standards, by doing things like raising the minimum wage to £8 an hour by the end of the next parliament and promote the living wage, to ultimately increase tax revenues - in a manner parallel to Conservative plans dependent upon economic growth - and offset any spending commitments.

This kind of attention to the fiscal details is all part of Labour's attempt to rebuild its credibility (Elliott, 2015{2}). After the economic crisis began on the party's watch, there seems to be an understanding that Labour needs to re-establish its credentials. Yet that determination to be seen as credible has meant the party has signed up for an economic orthodoxy run very much according to a conservative narrative (Eaton, 2015), and faces accusations from other parties, such as the SNP, of offering little more than austerity-lite (Wintour & Mason, 2015).

That means trying to find different ways of doing what Labour previously relied upon the state to do. Promises to reinstate the 50p tax rate and to end Non-Dom tax status signal a move away from New Labour, but the commitment to austerity refrains the party from moving to the traditional ground of taxing, borrowing and spending (Peston, 2015{3}). Instead, by increasing the minimum wage, proposing ways of tackling rising rent and energy costs, and capping private profits from NHS contracts - rather than simply replacing market solutions with public control - Labour seems to be suggesting that it has learnt its lesson when it comes to trying to micromanage everything from central government.

Liberal Democrats

For those that agree with the mainstream consensus, the safe option would seem to be the Liberal Democrats. The party has reduced its need for particularly deep cuts, as they try to balance the books, by promising to raise taxes on the wealthier, to restrict some of their benefits, and to introduce new levies like the Mansion Tax on their homes. Meanwhile they still leave themselves free to expand spending later in the Parliament, once the deficit is eliminated and the economy is growing - particularly on the NHS to which the Lib Dems were the first to commit to funding by a full £8bn more per year by the end of the next Parliament. Yet beneath the surface of the Lib Dem manifesto policies themselves, there is the appearance of an interesting division.

In some ways it would seem to be a revealing tale of two liberalisms. The manifesto was prepared by a group headed up by David Laws and constructed with the help of the party's usual process of democratic policy creation. The overall content of the manifesto itself represents the Centre-Left social liberalism of the party membership at large - protections of rights and liberties, combined with action to ensure an 'opportunity for everyone' - and contains many policies green in colour and libertarian in flavour (Wintour, 2015). Priority is given to investments in industrial regeneration - particularly digital and green energy based - and to the introduction of their 'Five Green Laws', along with indulging the party's love for rights and liberties - this time with protections for digital rights and for the rights of journalists (Elliot et al, 2015).

However the priorities from that manifesto, and the tightly controlled message constructed around it (The Guardian, 2015), are right out of Laws' Orange Book Market Liberalism, seen by many as the Lib Dems' Right-wing. The presentation of the Lib Dem manifesto - which sets it aside from the two traditional political powerhouses by having their coalition negotiation priorities on the front cover - focus heavily upon the narrative used to justify the coalition and represent the party's main policy successes therein. The fact that the majority of the front cover commitments have been copied by the Conservatives - and the absence of a mention of the UK's membership of the Europe Union - is notable.

Yet there is still plenty of common ground to which Ed Miliband can pitch - his main compromise will be meet the Lib Dem priorities already co-opted by the parties of the Right. The rest of the Lib Dem manifesto looks like it would integrate with that of Labour quite neatly. From a commitment to staying in Europe, to the introduction of a Mansion Tax and increasing taxes on the wealthier, there is much that a Lib-Lab accord could agree on without a fight. Labour action on letting agent fees and the Lib Dem policy of help-to-rent tenancy loans represent what might well be easily integrated, pretty comfortably, with a Labour system.

While the the priorities and message make it easy to see another term with the Tories, the manifesto at large appeals to a coalition with Labour. Sitting between the two, Clegg's team are working hard - favouring a controlled strategic message over openness and idealism (Green, 2015) - to present the Lib Dems as the more attractive prospective governing partner to all sides, when compared to the SNP or UKIP (Robinson, 2015{2}).

Greens

Yet not everyone is convinced by the conventional wisdom, however balanced and reasonable it may be presented. The Green Party represents the progressive alliance group of parties - including Plaid Cymru in Wales and the SNP in Scotland - in its opposition to the dominant pro-austerity, deficit-reduction narrative.

The Green Party's pitch to voters represents the Left-wing ground that some feel Labour has abandoned (Behr, 2015). Renationalisation of the railways, completely excising privatisation from the NHS, the introduction of a £10 living wage, a 60p top rate of tax, an expansion of the public sector, the abolition of tuition fees and the abandonment of the economics of austerity, growth and balanced budgets - these all represent an occupation of political ground Labour clearly feels it cannot win from.

The problem facing the Greens is that their pitch also means far more spending and far more borrowing to pay for a complete change of direction in terms of the size of the state. As the election gets closer and gaps get tighter, they will probably be squeezed out in favour of a safer option. That will mean a best case scenario of picking up only a very few seats, with which they can do little but pressure a minority government. That means deciding how to balance their idealism against the reality of what they can actually achieve (The Guardian; 2015{2}) - the very thing upon which the Lib Dems ran aground in 2010.

'Sooner or later, idealism and realism have to come to some sort of accommodation.'

For the Greens, according the MP and former leader Caroline Lucas, that means crafting a set of priorities that can at as an anchor to restrain Labour's move to the Right (Mason, 2015). Yet it is the commitment to some deeply idealistic policies found in the Green manifesto that will be the main attraction for many - chief examples amongst them being the Citizen's Income with its promise of an end to poverty and the abolition of tuition fees. But those are not the priorities of all supporters and members, many of whom put their vision of environmental sustainability first. Managing those tensions will be key to this manifesto, and how it is applied in the next parliament, not pulling the party apart.

The Underlying Values

Those ideals, lying beneath the often fairly similar priorities and policies, are an important part of manifesto. They can be woven in a co-ordinated into the fabric of the policies contained within it, or for parties like UKIP, remain hidden beneath a deflective surface of popular policies taken from other parties.

For example, behind the Conservative expansion of Right-to-buy - on its surface increasing the supply of houses to help ordinary people onto the property ladder - has been criticised as a Thatcherite sell-off of public property that does little to address the actual problem. It has been accused of instead furthering the lack of access to affordable shelter for the less well off, by depleting reserves of social housing (Jones, 2015). That policy chimes consistent with the Conservative emphasis upon reducing the size of the state, putting the burden of welfare upon the shoulders of the individuals themselves within the private market.

Both of the two main parties share similar approaches to both immigration and welfare - likely reacting to cover political ground opened up by the campaigns against immigrants, and those receiving working age benefits, led by UKIP and the Right-wing press (Greenslade, 2015). But their reasons for doing so are different.

Labour, caught between the arguments of Blue Labour - that the party needs to recapture working class voters by appealing to their conservatism - and their own attempts to divert attention away from immigration and on to low pay and falling living standards, seem reluctantly to have taken a cynical position as a qualified concession. The party have spoken of some controls on immigration as a campaign priority, but have kept their focus on low pay and living standards.

On welfare the matter seems even less clear. While the Tories talk of rewarding hard work with a plan seemingly based on relative comparison - cutting taxes for low paid workers and punishing those in need of welfare with more and heavier restrictions (Peston, 2015{4}) - Labour have moved to the Right to cover the Tories almost blow for blow in restricting benefits. Young people face particularly severe cuts in support. That move, along with the shift on immigration, is causing some confusion as to what the party is actually standing for (Perkins et al, 2015).

Multi-party politics

Amongst the positives of a shift to multi-party politics is that it allows for the possibility of parties as representatives - if the biggest parties could let go of their lust for power. Parties representing different ideals would represent their supporters in finding alliances and common grounds for co-operation that do not depend everyone being forced under one big tent.

The parties could focus upon representing a consistent set of values or priorities, like those found in the Lib Dem or Green manifesto, values like a free society or a sustainable society, and less on trying to appeal to all audiences. A centrist balance between idealistic visions is then achieved by a coalition after an election, where as broad a group of parties as possible agree to work on achieving their common or compatible ideas.

Right now, though, we are still bogged down in the practicality of majoritarian politics. The Tories and Labour find little room for an idealistic vision, and policies that reflect those values are watered down before they even reach the pages of the manifesto. Their concern is to gather as many voters as possible in order to claim control over the establishment and its power - the same old story.

While the Lib Dems remain the most well adapted to the realities of multi-party politics, with a manifesto that finds room for their ideals but sets them beneath the priorities for post-election negotiations - a mixture of ideals and practicalities - it is likely that only the Greens who have presented a vision of a society, in their manifesto, that truly represents an uncompromising pursuit of their values.

At this election, the absence of major concessions to practicality will likely count against them. But in the future we might possibly, hopefully, see it a little more often - if the traditional parties cannot reimpose their system on 7th May.

Election 2015: The BBC's opposition leaders debate sees Farage cornered by the Left and lash out at the audience

David Cameron's refusal to engage with debates has led to some very awkward arrangements, one of which was tonight's debate. The leaders of the opposition present - Ed Miliband for Labour, Nicola Sturgeon for the SNP, Leanne Wood for Plaid Cymru and Natalie Bennett for the Green Party - but not Nick Clegg for the Liberal Democrats, who by virtue of a deal between broadcasters and the Prime Minister ends up left out (BBC, 2015).

With no place in the previous Prime Minister's debate, and no place at the opposition debate, its hard not to think that the Lib Dem have been unfairly excluded. Yet the debate itself was lopsided enough without another party of the Left or Centre taking to the stage.

With the leaders of four broadly progressive parties lining up against the leader of one Far-Right party, it was always going to feel like they were ganging up on UKIP's Nigel Farage. Farage was clearly feeling cornered - going so far as insult the entire audience and the BBC for being too Left-Wing.

The fact is though that the parties on the stage, not only the independently selected audience, were fairly representative of national polling - 13% for the Far-Right UKIP, 39%+ for the Centre-Left parties, a difference of at the least 3-1, before you even add on the numbers for the SNP and Plaid Cymru.

That was reflected throughout the debate. Nicola Sturgeon, Leanne Wood and Natalie Bennett regularly ganged up on both Nigel Farage and Ed Miliband - challenging the Far-Right anti-immigration narrative of Farage on one side and calling for Miliband to join their anti-austerity progressive movement on the other.

That three-way alliance seemed to be a clear precursor of what Sturgeon hinted about at one stage: a Progressive Alliance bloc in the next parliament formed by MPs from the SNP, Plaid Cymru and the Green Party (Mason, 2015). On the present polling that would mean a 57 seat bloc pressuring for Left-Wing anti-austerity policies.

Once more, there was less discovered by the debate than many would have hoped. However, it did provide a platform for a challenge to Farage and UKIP's anti-immigration, anti-EU, narrative that has been contested far too little over the last five years. And, once again, it showed the UK's voters that there are alternatives, and that multi-party politics is a very real possibility. Those, at least, are some positive in favour of the debate format.

Election 2015: UKIP and the Right

UKIP - the United Kingdom Independence Party - are not likely to receive an endorsement from progressives. National conservatism, social conservatism, and economic conservatism are hardly a mix likely to attract those looking for a radical alternative.

It doesn't help that the party's Euroscepticism clings close to an anti-internationalist position, deeply contrary to the ideas that run through the liberalism and socialism of the Left. While UKIP talks of national values, national services and national sovereignty, the Left have historically looked out at the world with broad visions: to unite people in grand communities across cultural borders and to find consensus for the protection, whoever or wherever people might be, of individual civil liberties.

So UKIP's aggressive campaign - rocking its way through scandal after scandal, from racism (Stockham, 2015), to sexism (Newman, 2015) and homophobia (McCormick, 2014) - presents pretty much the antithesis of the ideals of those across the political Left and Centre. According to its founder, however, it was not always supposed to be like that.

UKIP was founded in opposition to the 1993 Maastricht Treaty that created the European Union. Alan Sked, the founder, was in origin, a member of the old Liberal Party who opposed what he saw as a Union that was undemocratic and flawed. He later left the party he founded feeling it had become Frankenstein's Monster, and a harbour to racists (Jeffries, 2014).

He and other originators of the party left after an influx of new supporters to the party who had broken away from the Conservative right-wing, and from other right-wing groups, including the National Front. Since that point its main figures have been Conservative Party breakaways and rich businessmen.

UKIP became the vehicle for pressuring the Conservatives from the Far Right on the one hand, and on the other opposing the existence of the European Union and Britain's membership. Yet it has consistently had members sitting in the EU Parliament and claiming expenses - and not without controversy (Jeffries, 2014). Nigel Farage, the party's very visible leader, himself was criticised over his boasts of claiming millions in expense from the EU to fund UKIP (Helm, 2009), and other MEPs were variously criticised for poor attendance and jailed for fraud (Randall & Brady, 2013).

"The party I founded has become a Frankenstein's monster. When I was leader, we wouldn't send MEPs to Europe because we didn't want to legitimise it. My policy was that if we were forced to take the salaries, we would give them to the National Health Service – they wouldn't be taken by the party or individuals. Now UKIP say they're against welfare cheats coming from eastern Europe, but in fact they're the welfare cheats." (Jeffries, 2014)

The party has not given a great account of itself. Mired in scandals involving bigotry, racism and homophobia, focussed on Europe and Immigration beyond the point of obsession, holding 'public' meetings that are closed to the public and the press, and having political campaigns run by former National Front organisers (O'Loughlin, 2015).

The party is fueled by scapegoating (Milne, 2014). They even scapegoat their own supporters, making excuses for them when they can, or cutting them loose when they get caught with their intolerance out in the open (Mason, 2013). It seems even HIV sufferers are considered legitimate targets (Mason, 2015{1}).

And yet the party has seen its support expand. At the European elections in 2014 it claimed around 10% of Britain's voters, and polling has seen them stay steadily at that level. That has demanded a fleshing out of the party's policies. An earlier manifesto was threadbare, pushing low taxes for the rich, and a clearly conservative pro-business attitude - complete with opposition to the EU, immigrants and their rights (Randall & Brady, 2013).

In the quest to be taken more seriously, UKIP has revamped its policies for 2015. That process seems to have involved just skimming off the most popular policies of their rivals - in a way that has made it all that much harder to get to the core of what the party believes in. Yet there is a clue in the way this mimicry has focussed particularly upon the Conservatives - including a commitment to see through the Conservative Party's 'long term fiscal repetition' and the implementation of austerity (BBC, 2015).

The party's complicated position on healthcare gives an idea of the forces at work within the party. Farage admitted to having supported a system of privatised insurance (BBC, 2014), but that a different position was decided on within the party (Cook, 2014). Yet Farage has been challenged for his deriding criticisms of the NHS, and recommendations that people should go private if they can afford it (Lamport, 2015).

In reality, it is likely that UKIP realised that it could not get a privatised healthcare system past a public very fond of the NHS, and so just popular public opinion - with the de rigueur conditions that foreigners should be excluded (Mason, 2015{2}).

As for the party's predilection for clamping down on immigration and leaving the European Union?

Fiscally, immigrants are net contributors to the public treasury (O'Leary, 2014). And the real solutions when it comes to low pay aren't in locking people out, but in having proper minimum and living wages and enforcing them against those who would try to undercut workers' rights (Taylor-Dave, 2014). From a cultural perspective, nationalism and sectarianism do little to diffuse tensions. A happy, open and confident multi-cultural society is the better facilitator of the kind of 'integration' that UKIP claim to want (LBC, 2015).

As for the European Union, for a net contribution of about £6.5bn - £15bn (0.5% of public spending) contributed to Brussels, with £8.5bn being spent back in Britain through various grants for local government, farmers and scientific research amongst other things - the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) reckons a return for the British economy of £60-80bn, and access to a $24tn market with a say in the rules and regulations that govern it (Robinson, 2015{1}). All of that, before we even consider all of the good that EU regulations have actually done (Wallace, 2015; Robinson, 2015{2}), make clear that the problems of the European system - like the need for more democratic oversight of economic policy - are better reformed than abandoned.

When it comes down to, for all the attention poured over Farage's 'People's Army' - the right-wing insurgent - and UKIP's rollercoaster grand tour of gaffes, shouting, bigotry, racism, homophobia, apologises, retractions and excuses, the party is not likely to pick up many seats. Considering how much the party has come to rely on the public image of Nigel Farage, the party is likely very worried about his pledge to resign the party leadership if he fails to win the South Thanet seat (Mason, 2015{3}).

In the end the party will more than likely simply split support between themselves and the Tories, picking up a few seats where their opponents are weak - perhaps fitting. Then they will hope to be in a position to do a post-election deal with the Tories (BBC, 2015).

---

Prospects: 14%, 4 seats (gain 2).*

Coalition Partners: Conservatives (271 seats).

Verdict: Absolutely not progressive, not radical, and not an alternative. UKIP are Far Right conservatives, covering it up with populism - offering up whatever happen to be most popular policies that can be pinched from the other parties. Committed to Conservative economic policies and to cutting the UK off from Europe.

---

And the rest of the Right

Beyond UKIP, the visibility of right-wing politics has otherwise subsided - perhaps having been caught up in that party's nationalist wave.

Election 2015: A Shorthand Guide to the 2015 UK General Election

Welcome to our shorthand guide to the 2015 UK general election. This will also act as a master post, a hub from which you can reach our more detailed assessment of the main issues and the policies of the major parties.

• Conservative Party
• Labour Party
• Liberal Democrats
• Green Party and the Left
• UKIP and the Right
• SNP, Plaid Cymru and the Regional Parties
• Party manifesto commitments and the values behind the policies
• What history can tell us about the SNP's future role at Westminster
• Healthcare, public funding and the future of the NHS
• Economics - Austerity, Austerity Lite or an Alternative
• The European Union - is the UK's future in or out

For the first time since 1910, the UK looks like it will elect two consecutive hung parliaments. By denying the two traditional opposing parties the right to dominate, the electorate has opened the floor to a lot of new ideas, from a lot of new parties. Over the next seven days The Alternative will take a look at each of the challengers, in turn, that are hoping to get your vote on 7th May, and over the next month pick apart the big issues up for debate.

The election itself will be fought, once more, under the first-past-the-post electoral system. Voters had the chance to reject and replace the system in a Liberal Democrat backed referendum but - in a low turnout of 41%, about 19m people - the change was rejected by 68% to 32% (BBC, 2011). Voting will take place on 7th May. The votes will be counted as soon as the polls close at 10pm and the result will be announced in each constituency as soon as it is known.

After the counting, the leader of the obvious majority in the House of Commons will be called to the palace and asked to form a government. However, if there is no clear leader then negotiations will begin. There are a couple of options at that point. The first option will be a coalition government between two parties that between them is able to hold a majority. The second will be a minority government, where one of the parties - likely at this point to be Conservative or Labour - will go it alone on an issue by issue basis, with no guarantee that it will be able to pass legislation.

At present, the polls tell us that the Conservatives and Labour look to be stuck in deadlock - both holding around 270 seats, each about 50 short of a majority. With the Liberal Democrats looking unlikely to keep enough seats to tip the balance one way or another, a minority government looks at present to be most likely - for the first time in the UK since the Labour governments of Harold Wilson and James Callaghan in the 1970s. The other option would of course be a 'Grand Coalition', where the biggest parties representing the Left and Right formed a coalition with each - something not uncommon in Europe, seen from time to time in Italy and in Germany, where the present government combines the conservative CDU with the social democratic SPD. However, the historical differences between Labour and Conservative supporters would make such a deal almost impossible.

Before all that though, the parties will have to convince voters of their ideas, or - as is more often the case - defend their record.

David Cameron, with so many challengers waiting in the wings to contest his leadership, needs nothing less than to secure a majority for the Conservatives. Achieving that will depend, firstly, upon having convinced the public that austerity was absolutely necessary, and that, secondly, it will produce a competitive advantage in the long run that will be generally beneficial.

On 7th May, the electorate will also pass judgement on the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition, and on coalition government in general. The answer to that question will not come from the success or failure of Cameron, but rather from Nick Clegg and the Lib Dems. Whether or not the decision to enter coalition has been accepted by voters will be seen in how much support, and how many seats, the Lib Dems are able to retain - likely regardless of the policies they put forward.

Ed Miliband, meanwhile, has found himself having to answer to the legacy of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. Labour's results under his leadership will go some way to showing us if his party has managed to shake off the disaffection that saw Labour finally lose its majority in 2010, after thirteen years in office. Votes for Labour will also likely reflect a rejection of Cameron's policies - even if Labour have largely ruled out ending austerity (Whitaker, 2014).

These three, the traditional British parties, will this time be facing some new challengers who have a real chance to upset the established order. UKIP and the Greens, representing the Far-Right and Far-Left respectively, are both polling over 5% for the first time at a general election - making that five parties over 5% in England alone - and Scotland looks sure to be swept by the SNP, so comprehensively as to make them the new third party overall in the UK.

But the only reason any of this will matter is if you vote. Not voting is, as Nick Clegg put it on The Last Leg:

"It's like going to Nando's and asking someone else to put in your order, and then you get something you don't want. If you don't vote, you'll get a kind of government you don't want. So get stuck in there and vote."

If you want change, then you need to vote. Plain and simple. Not voting just leaves others to make big decisions for you, about your life, on your behalf. What will not be simple is figuring out who to vote for to get the change you want. Over the next week The Alternative will post a guide to each of the main parties competing in 2015, and over the next month on the NHS, the Economy and the European Union, filled with links to references, to help you make your choice on 7th May.

Election 2015: Seven-way debate sees the Left outnumber the Right to talk about ideals, fairness and being open to the world

Before tonight's ITV leader's debate began, the focus had been steadily upon David Cameron and Ed Miliband (Battersby, 2015; Hawkins, 2015). There are obvious reasons why. Polling continues to suggest either the Conservatives or Labour will be the biggest party come May - and that it will be close however the ballot papers eventually stack.

But the debate itself reflected the other thing that the polls have been saying: British politics has fragmented. There are now five parties that compete across the whole of Britain and are polling over 5%, and two regional parties with a large and growing presence within two of Britain's countries. For those smaller parties it was always going to be a major boost just to be invited to the show (Robinson, 2015).

Yet they did so much more. Natalie Bennett of the Green Party and Leanne Wood of Plaid Cymru talked about ideals like freedom of movement. Nicola Sturgeon of the SNP spoke of ending austerity. Nick Clegg joined in, on behalf of the Liberal Democrats, to challenge Farage over the need to be open hearted and fair.

Despite Farage's best obsessive anti-European efforts, he was repeatedly overshadowed by the three female leaders of the SNP, Plaid and the Greens. Their anti-austerity message and language of hope frequently stole his thunder and ensured that the Left outnumbered the Right in every round of the debate. Whenever he tried to push the anti-immigration and anti-EU agenda, there was a voice - as there has been far too infrequently in recent years - to speak of being Pro-European as being open to the world, positive and fair in how we treat other people.

The reality is that TV debates have been shown not to play a particularly useful role in analysing the ideas of the different parties (Cooper, 2015). But what this debate has done is to provide people with reassurance that there are other alternatives out there. There are different narratives to the mainstream idea of fiscal austerity. There is a will to be open and co-operate, rather just compete and alienate. As Natalie Bennett put it:

"If you want change, you have to vote for it. You don't have to vote for the lesser of two evils.

Italy shows the UK the dangers and difficulties involved in fixing a broken political system

The UK has once again been forced to let out a rather despairing sigh of exasperation as yet another politician is caught with a hand in the cookie jar (Toynbee, 2015). It is the third such scandal in only a matter of weeks that has called political funding into question. There is an obvious need for wholesale changes in Britain's political process.

The trouble is, changing a political system is a delicate task that is never straightforward. Italy has been caught in this particular trap for decades, and the UK can learn some important lessons from that country's struggle. In short, this kind of cash-for-influence exposé is at its worst only the tip of the iceberg, and at it's best the top of a very slippery slope.

Back in 1994, virtually the entire Italian political party system collapsed around a similar, though ultimately broader, cash-for-influence scandal, known as Tangentopoli (Carroll, 2000). The arrest of Mario Chiesa of the Partito Socialista Italiano in 1992, on charges of Bribery, triggered the tumbling of a whole house of cards. When the party distanced itself from Chiesa with accusations of his being simply a bad seed, he began to provide damning information to investigators regarding the activities of fellow politicians.

Over the next two years, as the Mani pulite ('clean hands') Judicial investigation spread across Italy, more and more politicans were implicated. To try and stem the crisis, the Socialist Prime Minister Giuliano Amato attempted to use the power of decree to alter certain criminal charges for bribery, only for it to be seen as an attempt to extend an amnesty to corrupt politicians (Moseley, 1993).

In the 1994 elections that followed, the four largest pre-scandal parties collapsed and all but disappeared. That year also saw the rise of Silvio Berlusconi and his Forza Italia party. Out of the ashes of the old discredited order rose the populist power that has since dominated the last 20 years of politics in Italy - with more than its own fair scandals.

As Silvio Berlusconi and Forza Italia were symptomatic of Italy's political sickness, so Nigel Farage and UKIP are a symptom the UK's, and Marine Le Pen and Front National are a symptom of France's (Peston, 2015). These kinds of scandals embed themselves within political systems and eat away at its legitimacy. When the cracks show through, and the rotten core is exposed, it leaves access open to an exploitable opportunity. These populist groups - with their simplistic message and solutions, and often scapegoats - seize the initiative.

Since the scandal, in response to the general public outcry, Italy has attempted to redraw its political system several times (Pastorella, 2014).

The first major reform attempted to make individual politicians more accountable, and to introduce more stability to Italy's fractious parties and coalitions, by scrapping proportional representation in favour of first-past-the-post. The second was to give the largest party, in terms of the popular vote, a prize of 55% of seats regardless of the actual size of the majority they had won (Garovoglia, 2013). The first system, led to party fragmentation and frequently collapsing coalitions. The second was ruled unconstitutional in 2013 - essentially for misrepresenting voters by handing out a large electoral prize to the biggest party, or electoral coalition, even when it had won far less than a majority.

A third major attempt is currently under way, but that has already faced criticism across the Left - including from former Partito Democratico leader, and former Prime Minister, Pier Luigi Bersani (La Repubblica; 2015). It proposes to reduce the majority prize, but also to reduce the power of the Italian Senate - a move designed once more to address the fractious nature of Italian politics - and groups on the Left are objecting to this centralising of power and diminishment of oversight.

Despite these attempted reforms, despite the investigations and the political transformations, Italy is still mired as before in the same kind of corruption allegations (Barber, 2013). There are similar concerns about connections between private business interests and political parties, and with the government through the state held ownership stakes. There are even concerns surrounding some of the same figures who were connected to Tangentopoli in the 1990s.

Italy's struggle to reform, against the influence of a tight network of vested interests, is an important lesson for the UK. Failure to reform means feeding a rising populist anti-establishment feeling, that can and may be exploited in ways that threaten both justice and liberty. Attempting reform means taking on wealthy and powerful people, embedded vested interests who have a lot to lose from changes.

The first steps to reform are clear though, even if how to achieve is not necessarily as obvious. A realistic alternative needs to be found for party funding, and outside business interests for elected representatives has to come to an end. The example of Italy shows clearly: if the UK fails to pursue - as a first step - these ideals of political independence, with greater reform to follow, it could leave the country mired in populism and scandal for decades to come:

'The danger in all of this is that if sufficient people conclude that there is nothing in the conventional political process for them then they may opt for more simplistic and extreme options on offer. I remain an optimist. But across the mainstream political spectrum there is a candid recognition of the danger.'
(Mr Charles Kennedy, 2006)

The collapse of the political mainstream will mean more choice, but it will also call for more co-operation

With tomorrow, 27th January, marking one hundred days until the 2015 UK general election, polling figures are showing us something interesting. The main two parties are weakening, falling as low as 30% each, and the third parties, the Liberal Democrats, the Greens and UKIP, are all pushing 10% (Clark, 2015).

It is a sign of something seen in many other countries: the established political mainstream is fracturing (Nardelli, 2015). There is an upside: choice becomes a realistic possibility. People will, however, have to prepare themselves for what it will mean to be represented by many diverse parties. The parties they vote for will have to co-operate with other groups to form governments. Coalitions will be necessary.

The Liberal Democrats' choice to go into coalition with the Conservatives in 2010 has been seen by many as a controversial betrayal (Harris, 2011), but multi-party politics means multi-party governments. Those alliances often have to stretch across odd-parts of the political spectrum, working with what they find, and not everyone will get all of the things that they voted for, even if their choice makes it into government.

If we are to see greater choice between parties, all with realistic chances of governing, then people will have to get used to the idea of coalitions and the compromises that come with them. The alternative is to keep the partisan two-party system that divests all of the power upon one vision for the country, a method that can often exclude far more than half of the electorate.

The electoral battle ahead between the mainstream parties and the anti-establishment movements is already provoking fears about the impact it will have - fears that it will simply inflame the antagonism and polarisation that feeds nationalists and extremists (Behr, 2015). Fears that pluralism will bring instability, and that it will be exploited by one of the opposing factions, progressive or conservative, to crush their divided opponents.

The response of commentators has tended towards the same old framework (Jones, 2015), justifying the same old tactics: the mainstream parties (in particular Labour) need to head off and crush the small parties (in particular the Greens), and all of it to protect the position of the establishment party and its vague vision, in opposition to that of its old enemy.

But there has to be a better answer. Instead of crushing other groups on the Left, Labour could be co-operating on common issues, forming electoral alliances and creating a space on the Left for healthy debate. The alternative for the Left is more of the same old party system that has driven whole generations away from the political process.

"Political parties maintain their existence because they represent major cleavages which are persistent and long-lasting. These cleavages may be socio-economic, religious, ethnic or political. Political parties are, as it were, an institutional expression of a country's historical continuity, a mirror-image of the conflicts which past generations have found important...

...However, these traditional stances no longer coincide either with social reality, or with the natural division of opinion on political issues. The two major parties, therefore, appear less as cohesive agencies of political representation than as uneasy and incompatible coalitions held together as much by the needs of electoral survival as by common political beliefs." (Bogdanor, 1983)

When the two-party dynamic breaks down, the major parties survive by being big tents for all viewpoints, though none in particular, and dominate their traditional places on the political spectrum mostly through historical allegiance and fear-mongering about the dangers of vote-splitting. Their major concern becomes technocratic government, aiming to govern technically well according to whatever is the dominant economic system of the day, to justify their own suitability to govern. They become a refracting lens, directing and redirecting public political opinion rather than representing it (Bogdanor, 1983).

The Labour Party, as one of those mainstream, big-tent, technocratic parties, are finding themselves beset upon either side by these new political factions - UKIP, representing an older and more nationalistic crowd on the Far-Right, and the Greens, representing those younger and more liberal upon the Left (Helm, 2015; Ford, 2015).

These two parties, UKIP and Green, have two things in common: they represent a general discontent with the old system, and a fracturing of the old dualistic system into a number of separate factions of varied agendas. The old system is losing its grip. Top down control of policy and priorities is no longer in the hands of a single-faction government.

This is a function of a more open and representative democracy. It means many more viewpoints being brought into political debate, with new third parties emerging to drive change on new issues. The victory of the radical left-wing party Syriza in the Greek elections is a testament to what can be achieved in a multi-party system. However, the need of that party to form a coalition with a small right-wing anti-EU party in order to govern is a strong reminder of the compromises that follow.

The collapse of the established status-quo, and the fracturing of the system into a more open form, is far from complete. But more parties, with realistic chances of governing, and the possibility of electoral reform (Jones, 2015), mean that a more representative politics isn't far away. In that new form, the political Left - particularly the Labour Party - will have to adapt and rid itself of its own top down, patronising tendencies inherited from the present system.

The Left will need to find a way to co-operate, and to facilitate the presence of diverse views and fragmented factions. Those diverse groups, divisions and debates have always been a part of how the Left works, and that's fine. Its natural diversity is a positive, not a weakness. Openness to debate and the divisions that come with it are the lifeblood of progress.

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References:
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+ Tom Clark's 'Labour lead falls as Greens hit 20-year high in Guardian/ICM poll'; in The Guardian; 20 January 2015.

+ Alberto Nardelli's '2015 election: five key themes'; in The Guardian; 23 January 2015.

+ Evan Harris' 'The myth of Lib Dem 'betrayal''; in The Guardian; 6 May 2011.

+ Rafael Behr's 'The general election could unleash a new wave of contempt for politics'; in The Guardian; 21 January 2015.

+ Owen Jones' 'How Labour should respond to the ‘Green surge’'; in The Guardian; 22 January 2015.

+ Vernon Bogdanor's 'Multi-party politics and the Constitution'; Cambridge University Press, 1983. [Buy Now]

+ Toby Helm's 'Green surge could hit Labour in 22 election battlegrounds, new study finds'; in The Guardian; 24 January 2015.

+ Robert Ford's 'How Green party surge threatens Labour’s election hopes'; in The Guardian; 24 January 2015.