By Maggie Palin
I’ll admit—I’ve personally been a bit skeptical of the new Coalition government since its inception last month. As a Conservative at heart, it has been exciting for me to see David Cameron become Prime Minister and watch the Conservative MPs in Westminster sit once again on the Government benches. But as a follower of Adam Smith’s laissez-faire economic philosophy, the tax reforms and proposed reductions to the size of Government that Cameron needed to cede to Nick Clegg and his Liberal Democrats to form a coalition does worry me. And if I’m worried about this, I can only wonder what other Tory voters from the mold of Maggie Thatcher think as well.
It’s probably too premature to discuss this, and hopefully it turns out to be just an image in the back of my mind and not actual reality, but I have to ask myself—and you alike—what would happen if the Coalition government does fail. Yes, we’re just in the early days of the new government and Cameron’s just had his first PMQs merely a few hours ago. But we do have to remember that history has a funny way of repeating itself. If the coalition fails, and another election is called, it will leave a blemish on David Cameron and the Conservative Party’s legacy in the twenty-first century that may not be insurmountable in another poll.
Let’s flash back a year in time when the Conservatives were winning 45 percent in the polls. Had a snap election been called back then, the party would have then had the requisite seven percent swing to win 325 seats in Westminster and control the Government outright. Yet this did not happen. And instead, while the Conservatives managed to win the largest share of the vote in last month’s election, they were forced to share power with the Liberal Democrats in order to form a Government.
So if this coalition does not work, will Cameron have to relinquish his title? How will the swing fall—will it fall in favour of the Tories, or perhaps bring Gordon Brown’s successor to 10 Downing Street. Now that Clegg and the Liberal Democrats have some power, what impact will they have on the electoral landscape in future elections? All of this is yet to be seen, but I can say with some certainty that for a party that had hoped to coronate its fearless leader in style last month, this Coalition Government is not the outcome for which we hoped and will hopefully be the start of a new era in British politics, and not the end of the Conservative party as we know it.
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