Mehdi Hasan

Mehdi Hasan’s polemical take on politics, economics and foreign affairs

Should social democrats mourn the departure of Chris Huhne?

The ex-Energy Secretary isn't exactly the lefty he's made out to be.

By Mehdi Hasan Published 03 February 2012 16:24

So Chris Huhne has gone off to defend his innocence in court. Arise Ed Davey!

If the former Energy and Climate Change Secretary is found innocent, will he become a lightning rod for left-wing, anti-coalition dissent on the Lib Dem backbenches? Much is made, for example, of his SDP past.

I was on BBC2's Daily Politics earlier discussing the fallout from the resignation, and host Andrew Neil made the same point on air that he'd made earlier on Twitter:

Clegg's nightmare: Huhne found innocent and rises from backbenches to lead social democrat wing of Lib Dems

It's a point also made by Benjamin Ramm, editor of the centre-left Liberal magazine:

Chris Huhne should not be underestimated: he remains a key figure in the party. Huhne successfully portrayed himself as an outsider, playing on his SDP background to appeal to the Left of the party - despite being a contributor to the Orange Book - and has made it known that he would have favoured a Lib-Lab coalition.

I'm not sure I buy this. Some points to consider:

1) Huhne, a multimillionaire ex-employee of the ratings agency, Fitch, was a contributor to the notorious Orange Book and is believed to have only adopted a leftist stance to try and justify his "insurgent" campaign for the Lib Dem leadership, up against the "Establishment" and centre-right candidate Nick Clegg, in 2007.

2) Huhne spent a great deal of time in the run-up to the 2010 general election briefing journalists that a deal with the Conservatives - whether confidence-and-supply or full coalition - was not out of the question and something he'd be happy to support.

3) Huhne, as David Cameron acknowledged in his response to the former's resignation letter this morning, was one of the lead negotiators on the Lib Dem side during the coalition negotiations in May 2010 and, thus, one of the architects of the subsequent, right-wing Con-Dem coalition.

4) One of the Labour negotiators told me once that he was "shocked" at how hostile Huhne had seemed towards a coalition deal with the Labour Party and how he'd walked into the negotiating room calling for Tory-style in-year spending cuts - in direct contradiction to the Lib Dems' own pre-election position on the timing of austerity measures.

5) In August 2010, it was Huhne who was put up by the Lib Dems alongside Tory chairman Sayeeda Warsi in the coalition's first, joint, party-political press conference. Huhne (falsely) claimed that Labour overspending, rather than a collapse in taxation, had been the cause of the record budget deficit and then nodded along as Warsi bizarrely accused Labour politicians of "illegal" and "criminal" behaviour over their handling of the economy.

6) Huhne voted for every single one of the coalition's "regressive" cuts to spending on public services, infrastructure and the welfare state over the past 21 months. As Labour peer Helena Kennedy told him on Question Time in June 2010: "You are providing the sheep's clothing for a very rapacious government that is going to cut spending." On the same show, Labour's Peter Hain rightly castigated the then Energy Secretary for trying to draw a (false) comparison between the British and Greek economies: "No serious economic commentator, and you used to be one before you got into government, believes our economy is anything like Greece."

Then again, having said all of this, I have to also admit that there was no one else in Cabinet who stood up to Cameron and Osborne in the way that Huhne did - over, for example, the negative Tory campaign during the AV referendum and over the Tories' links withe City - which is why the Cameroons won't be sad to see the back of him. Plus, given the size of his ego and his ambition, an innocent, revitalised Huhne could just choose to attack the coalition from the backbenches, and from the left, in order to further his own career, regardless of the fact that his recent record suggests he isn't a lefty. But my own suspicion is that his political career is over.

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Tags: Chris Huhne Liberal Democrats

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19 comments

Sat, 2012-02-04 20:06 — Matt Thompson (not verified)

UKIP UKIP UKIP UKIP UKIP. Social Democrats are out of date.

Fri, 2012-02-03 17:09 — New statesman

Nasty little man - good riddance all round. Even if not convicted/ steps down from his parliamentary seat he will probably lose in Eastleigh at the next election, his majority of under 4,000 looks hard to defend

Fri, 2012-02-03 17:18 — Cyprian Latewood (not verified)

"I was on BBC2's Daily Politics earlier"

Three paragraphs in and Hasan has already referred to himself. A new record?

Sat, 2012-02-04 20:50 — Awake!

So to be clear:
An MP doing 34 mph can lose his job because he potentially swapped points with his misses and denied it?
The argument being that it makes him a bad person and therfore not fit to govern??
This is set up isn't it?
Hey let's disable all the airbags in our cars cause they involve some petrochemical processes, u know to make the plastic rubber inflatable thingy- that'll learn them!!
And look at mehdi, declaring that huhne isn't a leftie_animal farm all over again!! I thought he was the chief snaek on the tories mehdi hahahaha... dosen't take long to 'see' this game, the level of 'the players' so low...

Fri, 2012-02-03 17:45 — Geoffrey Payne (not verified)

Because of the power of patronage and "collective responsibility" it is hard to know what anyone believes in the cabinet these days. Did Peter Hain really support the war in Iraq? The reason we should mourn the departure of Chris Huhne is simply because on the crucial issue of global warming he fought his corner against a Conservative party that no longer takes the issue seriously. I am not sure his replacement has the same sharp elbows.

Fri, 2012-02-03 18:19 — thomas5

then shouldn't we ask why did tax revenues collapse under Labour?

Obviously Labour's economic model was unsustainable when matched with their regulatory model.

Until they find a way to offer coherent policies the prospect of Labour returning to government (in a coalition or otherwise) is a very bleak future for the country.

Sun, 2012-02-05 22:58 — Kosimba (not verified)

rikkeh - for gods sake labour didn't lose it was a hung parliament. that means that nobody won. Incredible how the right wing press in this country has managed to convince people, even many of those on the left that the Tories had somehow won and it would be immoral to do anything but go with them. Lib dems will be massacred at next election when with labour they would have got PR and then another election, fools.

Fri, 2012-02-03 18:38 — Rikkeh (not verified)

Very thin evidence there to trash the guy's reputation with. Taken in turn:

1) He's rich (so what? Even Lenin was rich) and wrote for the Orange Book (on polluter pays taxation if I remember correctly- what's so horrific and right-wing awful about that?)

2) He admitted the Libs might go into coalition with the Conservatives. Well, yes, and they did. How should that change anyone's perception?

3) He helped put together the coalition deal. Again, what does that prove? It only makes sense when we look at...

4) one of your anonymous sources said he wasn't a nice negotiator with Labour. Well, David Laws has gone on record to say that Labour were terrible negotiators who refused to admit they'd lost. It's your strongest point, but your source is gossip.

5) He did a joint press conference in which he trashed the previous administration. What party coming into power in dire economic straits wouldn't?

6) Cabinet minister votes with government. In other news, bear defecates in woods. Film at 11.

I know it's Friday afternoon, but you can do better than this, surely?

Fri, 2012-02-03 18:54 — Bee (not verified)

''Very thin evidence there to trash the guy's reputation with''

He had an affair while he was married. He looks like a thinner version of Newt Gingrich.

This automatically makes me suspicious of the man

Fri, 2012-02-03 19:31 — Sam (not verified)

Clearly Chris Huhne is not the kind of leftie that Mehdi Hasan is, but I suppose that's why the SDP left Labour.

Ed Miliband voted to extend detention without charge to 90 days yet the NS still acted as a propaganda wing for his campaign. People in glass houses and all that.

Fri, 2012-02-03 20:05 — Hugh Markey (not verified)

What's in a name? OK, so Chris Huhne is not the Minister for Hot Air but his position has been pretty toxic for the last twelve months or so.
Of course some back-woods Tory MPs can almost taste victory as Huhne goes down despairingly to defeat.
No, its' not a case of another powerful man being sunk by a woman; this is no Cleo and Tony disaster, no way!
Chris has simply put his faith in the British sense of fair play and in the British justice system - particularly the jury system which this government was about to abandon.
The pertinent question for this potential jury is - Have you ever watched 'Top Gear'?
Not all men who watch this sad programme have erectile tissue for brains but in it's mystic way it's in the same fantasy ball park as rhino horn.
Yes, we are aware of the fact that Top Gear's presenter has a visage resembling the back-end of a bus, a rear-ended bus, but if he were a pulchritudinous hunk, rather than an obsolescent hulk, Top Gear wouldn't have such a sad, naive following.

Grindingly Obvious
Chris has got to pray for twelve angry men and Henry Fonda!

Fri, 2012-02-03 20:26 — Derick (not verified)

Liberals. Tories pretending they are not Tories, sitting on the fence with their ears to the ground on both sides simultaneously, listening for which way the wind is blowing.

Same as they've always been.

Trust me, Shetland is infested with the brutes

Fri, 2012-02-03 21:41 — mcquade

"Well, David Laws has gone on record to say that Labour were terrible negotiators"

Which not a word of which was believed by political commentators. What they did et right though was that Laws was trying to rehabilitate himself, although he's deluding himself if he thinks the public will not be outraged if he's ever rewarded with a government post. I'm already looking forward to the headlines in all the tabloids.

Fri, 2012-02-03 21:47 — Anthony (not verified)

Hopefully we wont have to put up with those ghastly wind turbines that constantly break down when it's to windy. VOTE UKIP !!!!

Mon, 2012-02-06 13:35 — mike cobley (not verified)

Huhne and Clegg were both in the European parliament at the same time, knew each other well and held a lot of views in common. Since May 2010, Huhne has gone along with the Coalition line and remained steadfast in his support for it, and therefore for its policies. In short, there isn't a social democrat bone in the man's body. Also, anyone trying to sully the principles of modern social democracy by pointing at Lord Owen and the pathetic Sue Slipman is indulging in desperate barrel scraping.

Sat, 2012-02-04 11:17 — Fergus Pickering (not verified)

Mr Markey, did this man get his wife to take his speeding points? If she pleads guilty then down he goes. I've no idea what Jeremy Clarkson has to do with it.

Do you mean that a fair minded, male, car-driving jury won't understand what the fuss is about?

Sat, 2012-02-04 17:48 — David Lindsay

Chris Huhne had very close ties to the International Marxist Group while at Oxford. Well, of course he did. Three toxic streams flow into our present Political Class: the 1970s sectarian Left, the 1980s sectarian Right, and the SDP. They are far from distinct.

The only British Minister ever known to have been an agent of the Soviet Bloc (specifically, of Czechoslovakia) was John Stonehouse, the Labour MP most closely associated with the proto-Thatcherite Institute of Economic Affairs in the days when it was still trying to persuade both main parties, and later the only MP ever to have sat in the English separatist interest, before, having left Parliament, he joined the SDP. In Stonehouse, the three toxic streams met. He cannot have been the only one. He was not. And he is not.

Sue Slipman, one of David Owen’s closest allies, had been a Communist Party member of sufficient prominence to be made President of the National Union of Students, a position by then openly in that party’s gift, only a very few years before joining the SDP that she told to “retain the classless opportunities provided by Thatcherism”, to “civilise the Thatcherite project”, and to “be a friendly critic of Thatcherism”.

One could go on.