The Virtual Stoa

From “William, Prime Minister”, by Richmal Crompton (1930):

“Do shut up int’ruptin’, said Henry, “I’m tryin’ to tell you ‘bout this gen’ral election. There’s four sorts of people tryin’ to get to be rulers. They all want to make things better, but they want to make ‘em better in different ways. There’s Conservatives an’ they want to make things better by keepin’ ‘em jus’ like what they are now. An’ there’s Lib’rals an’ they want to make things better by alterin’ them jus’ a bit, but not so’s anyone’d notice, an’ there’s Socialists, an’ they want to make things better by taking everyone’s money off ‘em and there’s Communists an’ they want to make things better by killin’ everyone but themselves.”

From “The Social Contract”, by Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1762):

The English people thinks it is free; it is greatly mistaken, it is free only during the election of Members of Parliament; as soon as they are elected, it is enslaved, it is nothing. The use it makes of its freedom during the brief moments it has it fully warrants its losing it.

Those seem to me to be the two most important reflections. Am I missing anything else?

In today’s number one soaraway Sun:

SIXTEEN Page 3 Girls in all their glory represent the very image of freedom in this country.

But if Labour or the Lib Dems win the election, this could be the last time they are allowed to pose together.

MPs Harriet Harman and Lynne Featherstone will move swiftly to change the law and ban Page 3 forever.

Our national treasures – who even enjoy the Royal seal of approval from our future King Prince Charles – will be no more.

And at a stroke the very liberties that put the Great into Great Britain will be torn asunder.

The radical ideas of the 17th-century philosopher John Locke helped shape our freedoms enshrined in the Bill of Rights and, later, America’s Constitution.

Lib Dem frontbencher Featherstone was cheered by women’s rights activists when she declared she would “love to take on Page 3″.

But our Poppy  said: “The basis of Lockean thought is his theory of the Contract of Government, under which all political power is a trust for the benefit of the people.

“His thinking underpins our ideas of national identity and society. Please don’t let those who seek to ban our beauty win. Vote to save Page 3!”

Poppy isn’t the only page three lovely who has immersed herself in the classics of modern Anglophone political thought.

Katie has opined that, “As the sixth US president John Quincy Adams said, ‘Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost.’ My thoughts entirely.”

And Hollie “thinks Gordon Brown’s hated NI rise shatters the three basic laws of economics”. She said: “As guru Adam Smith wrote in his seminal The Wealth of Nations, they are: a free economy, free marketing and laissez-faire government. That means Hands Off, Gordy.” [via WJ]

So this morning the intertubes is all excited about the prospect of what they’re calling on Twitter the #torycoup.

Roughly speaking, the idea is that in the event of a hung parliament, David Cameron isn’t going to wait patiently for Gordon Brown to deliberate at leisure over his future as prime minister, but is going publicly to declare victory and demand “the keys to Number 10″ (which is a funny expression, as the famous front door to 10 Downing St doesn’t have a keyhole in it); and that he’ll be cheered on in doing this by the rightwing press. The normally very sensible Sunder Katwala sets out the argument and the evidence over here, and a version of the argument has also been posted over here.

Count me as seriously unimpressed.

There’s a lot wrong with the British constitution, but one of its virtues is that things get made up as we go along. There’s something absolutely bonkers about lefties – of all people – getting all precious about the ways in which the Cabinet Secretary’s memo about the proper procedures in the event of a hung parliament might not be followed to the letter, or worrying that – my goodness! – the Queen might be drawn into political controversy. How undignified!

People are making analogies with the presidential election in the United States in 2000 — but what was striking then was far more the spinelessness of the Dems rather than the unscrupulousness of the Repugs. The bottom line is that politics is about power, and if the Tories are the only ones willing to play hardball, then – bluntly – good for them.  If the Queen discredits herself along the way by being pressured into being openly partisan, then that’s a good thing, as it’ll work to hasten the end of this stupid monarchy.  And if voters disapprove of what the Tories are doing, then they’ll punish them when they get the chance. That’s democracy.

There’s a fun discussion taking place on a friend’s facebook page about which operatic characters remind us of the party leaders in this year’s election.

I’ve gone for Gordon Brown as Wotan [Wagner: Der Ring des Nibelungen], the powerful, one-eyed brooding figure who’s made the running in the past, but now has a few problems and can’t work out how he can rescue his agenda without screwing everything up (and, as he sees it, at least, risking the end of the world), and who is doomed to fade into nothingness.

Nick Clegg is Don Carlos [Verdi: Don Carlo(s)]. He thinks he’s a romantic hero and a great crusader for political liberty, but he doesn’t really understand the nature of the game he’s playing in, and will ultimately get screwed over by more ruthless participants. (I’ve only a hazy memory of the plot of this one, so apologies if this isn’t getting it quite right.)

And David Cameron? It’s a tricky one, but I reckon he’s Escamillo [Bizet: Carmen]. Superficially attractive,  but really a shallow, arrogant, pompous arse — though one with the considerable advantage of being the only major protagonist still alive and not in police custody at the end of the drama.

Obviously, it’s the Lib Dems that have made this election both interesting and enjoyable. If it were just a straight Lab – Con fight, then we’d be seeing the formation of a Conservative government with a large majority, and to the extent that that outcome’s not really on the cards, we the (substantial majority of the) people have good reason to be grateful to the Liberal Democrats.

That said, I’m finding it hard to see how the party will be able to do well out of the parliamentary shenanigans that are likely to follow. In the first place, there are the kinds of considerations laid out in this post from Brian Barder, which walk us through what the apparently agreed constitutional sequence of events is going to be in the event of a hung parliament. Now, I’m not so concerned about this kind of thing, as I think Brown is likely to quit fairly promptly in the event of a heavy defeat, for the inter-related reasons of not wanting to come across like Ted Heath after February 1974, and not wanting to doom Labour to an even worse defeat in a second general election, having visibly tried and failed to hold onto power after coming in third. But until he quits, the political initiative rests with him; and as soon as he quits, it passes over to David Cameron. People write as if it’s the choices that Clegg makes that will prove decisive after Thursday; but he’ll only ever be reacting to agenda set by others, and “screwing over the Lib Dems” will always be pretty high on those agenda.

If the Lib Dems were a clearly disciplined parliamentary force, and if Clegg were clearly a superb parliamentary tactician, then things might be different. But not even Lib Dem propagandists pretend that either of these is true. The Lib Dems are less centralised than the other parties, which suits them well when it comes to local campaigning, but this will be a source of weakness in a serious political fight at Westminster. And another of those things that isn’t being discussed much is this, that if there’s a hung parliament, the Lib Dems will be under sustained political pressure for the first time in their 20+ year existence, and there’s no reason to think that they’ll handle it at all well. (They can’t even get enough of a grip to run Oxford City Council, for goodness’ sake; it’s just fanciful to think they’ll somehow begin to function effectively as a political force when the stakes are about a billion times higher.)

So on the most straightforward reading of the situation, if there’s a hung parliament, Clegg’s bluff will be called. He can threaten to bring down a Tory government in a vote on the Queen’s Speech, but he’ll only perform if there’s reason to think that the Lib Dems will do even better in a second general election — and if I were David Cameron I’d be relishing the prospect of fighting all those Lib Dem / Tory marginals again in those circumstances. So what’s Clegg to do – if he isn’t to waste what ought to be the best Liberal opportunity since the Second World War? Answers in comments, please.