Gordon Brown has today done what some of us have been calling on him to do, and reach out clearly to the Liberal Democrats. In an interview with the Independent, he talks of a “new politics” and the creation of an anti-Tory alliance, while just stopping short of reiterating the appeal in the first week of the campaign in the same newspaper by Andrew Adonis, for tactical voting to keep the Tories out of office.
From Andrew Grice’s report:
Does his “progressive alliance” mean encouraging anti-Tory tactical voting by Liberal Democrat supporters, as Lord Adonis did in his recent article in The Independent? Mr Brown repeated the Transport Secretary’s appeal, saying Labour was also ready to “move forward to the next stage of constitutional reform” such as fixed-term parliaments and possibly a written constitution. But he stopped short of giving a nod and wink to Labour supporters to back the Liberal Democrats in the seats where they go head-to-head with the Tories in the South and South-west of England.
Brown may well have to go further, either in the remaining TV debates or elsewhere, if he is truly to make an impact on the voting intentions of Liberal Democrats and create the climate for a Labour-Liberal coalition.
Evidence of that, as if any were needed, comes in today’s Daily Telegraph, where Nick Clegg has chosen to attack Brown as a “desperate politician” and portray him as a road-block to political and constitutional reform. Just like in the first TV debate, Brown flirts and Clegg resists his advances, this time playing to the gallery of the right-wing press, distancing himself from Labour and — perhaps — appealing to the soft Tory vote.
To be fair, there is some truth in what Clegg says, in that Brown was very late to the electoral reform party, apparently only signing off on the (still non-proportional) Alternative Vote system minutes before he announced it at last year’s party conference. And many of his closest allies — from Nick Brown to Ed Balls — are said to be relatively conservative on these isues. However, just as Clegg implies Brown is too late, Clegg himself may be indanger of not moving with the times. For if Brown is truly to embrace a liberal democratic agenda — and it is a big if — Clegg will one day soon have to rid himself of the “nonsense” (in the word of Lord Adonis) of “equidistance”.
Content from our partners
Related
