The Coalition Effect, 2010-2015

645 Pages·2015·3.117 MB·English

by  Anthony Seldon, Mike Finn

The Coalition Effect, 2010–2015
The British general election of May 2010 delivered the first coalition
governmentsincetheSecondWorldWar.DavidCameronandNickClegg
pledged a ‘new politics’ with the government taking office in the midst of
theworsteconomiccrisissincethe1930s.Fiveyearson,ateamofleading
expertsdrawnfromacademia,themedia,Parliament,Whitehallandthink
tanks assesses this ‘coalition effect’ across a broad range of policy areas.
Adopting the contemporary history approach, this pioneering book
addresses academic and policy debates across this whole range of issues.
Didthecoalitionrepresentthenatural‘nextstep’inpartydealignmentand
the evolution of multi-party politics? Was coalition in practice a historic
innovation in itself, or did the essential principles of Britain’s uncodified
constitution remain untroubled? Fundamentally, was the coalition able to
deliveronitspromisesmadeintheCoalitionAgreement,andwhatwerethe
consequences –for the country and the parties– of this union?
AnthonySeldonisaleadingcontemporaryhistorianandpoliticalcommen-
tator, and the 13th Master of Wellington College. A Fellow of King’s
College London, he has authored or edited over thirty-five books on
contemporary history and politics. With Peter Hennessy, he co-founded
the Institute of Contemporary British History, now part of King’s College
London.
The isthe eighth ‘Effect’book he has edited.
Mike Finn is Director of the Centre for Education Policy Analysis and
Lecturer in the History of Education at Liverpool Hope University. He
has taught history and politics at a number of institutions, including as a
Research Fellow of Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, and as a Bye-Fellow of
Magdalene College, Cambridge. In 2006 he was Head of Research and
political speechwriter to the Leader of the Liberal Democrats during the
transition from Charles Kennedy toMing Campbell.
In 2001 he won the Palgrave/Times Higher Education Humanities and
Social Sciences writing prize. A former Kennedy Scholar at Harvard Uni-
versity,heistheeditorofTheGoveLegacy:EducationinBritainafterthe
Coalition (2015).

The Coalition Effect,
2010–2015
Edited by
Anthony Seldon and Mike Finn
Assistant editor
Illias Thoms
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CONTENTS
Contributors page viii
Acknowledgements xv
David Cameron as Prime Minister, 2010–2015: The verdict of
history 1
Anthony Seldon
Part I The coalition and the government of Britain
1 The coming of the coalition and the Coalition Agreement 31
Mike Finn
2 The coalition and the constitution 59
Martin Loughlin and Cal Viney
3 The coalition beyond Westminster 87
Neil McGarvey
4 The coalition and the executive 113
Peter Riddell
5 The coalition and Parliament 136
Philip Cowley
vi / Contents
Part II The coalition and policy
6 The coalition and the economy 159
Paul Johnson and Daniel Chandler
7 The coalition and energy policy 194
Dieter Helm
8 The coalition and infrastructure 209
Julian Glover
9 The coalition and society (I): Home affairs and local
government 228
Tony Travers
10 The coalition and society (II): Education 257
Alan Smithers
11 Thecoalitionandsociety(III):Healthandlong-termcare 290
Howard Glennerster
12 The coalition and society (IV): Welfare 317
Nicholas Timmins
13 The coalition and foreign affairs 345
Michael Clarke
14 Europe: The coalition’s poisoned chalice 370
Julie Smith
‘What the coalition did for women’: A new gender consensus,
15
coalition division and gendered austerity 397
Rosie Campbell and Sarah Childs
16 The coalition and culture: ‘Bread, circuses and
Britishness’ 430
Rory Coonan
vii / Contents
Part III The coalition and political culture
17 The coalition and the Conservatives 467
Philip Norton
18 The coalition and the Liberal Democrats 492
Mike Finn
19 The coalition and the Labour Party 520
Guy Lodge and Illias Thoms
20 The coalition and the media 553
Peter Preston
21 The coalition, elections and referendums 577
John Curtice
Part IV Conclusion
22 Conclusion: The net coalition effect 601
Mike Finn
Index 608
CONTRIBUTORS
RosieCampbellisReaderinPoliticsatBirkbeck,UniversityofLondon.
She has research interests in voting behaviour, political participation,
representation, political careers, and gender and politics. Rosie is Vice
ChairofthePoliticalStudiesAssociation’s(PSA)ExecutiveCommittee.
She teaches modern British politics and research methods. Her book
Gender and the Vote in Britain was published in 2006 and she has
recently published in the British Journal of Political Science, British
Politics, Political Quarterly, Political Studies and the British Journal
of Politics and International Relations.
Daniel Chandler is an economist at the Institute for Fiscal Studies.
Previously, he worked in the Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit and in the
Deputy Prime Minister’s office, where he led projects on welfare policy
and social mobility, and at the Resolution Foundation think tank,
where he co-wrote the Commission on Living Standards. He has a BA
in History from Cambridge and an MSc in Economics and Philosophy
from LSE, and pursued graduate study in economics and politics at
Harvard,wherehewastheHenryFellow.Hiscurrentresearchinterests
include housing, labour markets, living standards and inequality.
Sarah Childs is Professor of Politics and Gender at the University of
Bristol. Her research centres on the relationships between sex, gender
and politics. It is concerned, both theoretically and empirically, with
questionsofwomen’sdescriptive, symbolicandsubstantiverepresenta-
tion.Shehaspublishedextensivelyonwomen’spoliticalrepresentation
in the UK since 1997, especially regarding the feminization of British