How many more anniversaries will there be?

Today is the first anniversary of David Cameron becoming Prime Minister and tomorrow is the first anniversary of the Coalition's formation - as I have said before, the first few hours of David Cameron's premiership were as the head of a minority Conservative government as the Liberal Democrats only approved going into the Coalition in the early hours of 12 May.

In any case, today is an important day but the question many political commentators are asking is how long can the Coalition continue?

The election results were bad for the Coalition for an unlikely reason. The Lib Dems did badly, losing MSPs, AMs, thousands of councillors and - of course - the AV referendum. Although this was bad, it was also expected. The real damage came from the Conservatives doing rather well - increasing their number of councillors and winning the AV referendum.

Ironically, it would have been better for the Coalition if both of the governing parties had done badly in the elections as now the Lib Dems feel singled out - acting as the political equivalent of a human shield for the government's unpopular austerity measures.

I think the Liberal Democrats will remain in the Coalition if only because they would be wiped out in the general election which would immediately follow the break-up of the Coalition.

Incidentally, today is the 199th anniversary of Spencer Perceval's assassination (Perceval is the only British Prime Minister to have been assassinated). If the Coalition lasts to the 200th anniversary of Perceval's death, I can imagine laboured newspaper headlines linking Little P's sad end to the health of the Coalition.

How will tomorrow change the Coalition?

Tomorrow there will be elections across the UK, but it is the AV referendum which will probably have the greatest effect on the Coalition.

The Conservatives support the No campaign and the Liberal Democrats support the Yes campaign. This means that however the votes goes tomorrow, one of the Coalition parties is going to be very disappointed with the result. This alone perhaps wouldn't be a great problem for the Coalition, but the tone of the campaign over the last few weeks has become increasingly bitter.

I don't think we are about to witness the imminent collapse of the Coalition (although I might be wrong), but I do think the previously convivial relationship between the two parties will change. I expect David Cameron and Nick Clegg will be working hard in the next few days to convince the country and their respective parties of the strength of the government.

Protests have the opposite effect

As I have said before, the British people don't like violent protests. More than that, protests have little use in liberal democracies.

On Thursday, the Coalition faced its first rebellion in the House of Commons with more than half of the Liberal Democratic's voting against their own government. Yet, all the TV news reports that night, and all the newspapers the next morning, showed images of windows at the Treasury being smashed, flags being pulled down at the Cenotaph and the heir to the thrown being attacked. The story of the tripling of tuition fees and rebellion in the Commons was lost. I wonder if those protesters who decided to turn violent are pleased with themselves.

In the end, the bill past and tuition fees will rises. The protests have achieved little to change the will of the government. In dictatorships, change can often come from the streets as that is the only place where the people's voice can be heard, but this is not the cases in democracies where the government is chosen by the people.

Voting in elections is where the people are heard and their will expressed. Ironically, the demographic least likely to vote are those who were protesting last week. People aged between 18-25 (a group to which I belong) are far less likely to vote than any other age group. If they want their voices to be heard by those in elected office, they should actually vote in elections instead of rioting in the streets.

Even I understand this

I must confess, although I love politics, I have little knowledge of economics (budgets speeches tend to send me to sleep). However, I had no problem understanding the Spending Review - we've run out of money and all need to cut expenditure (all of us).

Even the Queen faces a 14% cut, although having been on the thrown for almost 60 years, Her Majesty has been through spending cuts before - unlike many of the civil servants currenlty working in government departments.

For the last decade, government departments have seen increased spending and investment every year, and for many who have grown up with that culture, it will be very difficult to change.

The UK we see today has come about as a result of the investment culture, what the UK looks like after a parliament of the cutting culture is anyone's guess.

Good or bad conference for the PM?

At the start if the conference season, I had thought that, in comparison to Labour and the Liberal Democrats, the Conservative conference would seem rather dull. In fact, it was one of the strangest and most interesting conferences due to it being hijacked by the Chancellor's announcement that child benefit would be cut for families with high incomes (most of whom are Conservative voters). George Osborne apparently announced his plan without talking to the Cabinet, something for which Mr. Osborne used to criticise Gordon Brown.

Many Conservative delegates and MPs were greatly angered at the announcement but an opinion poll suggested that 83% of people support the cut. Although, as most commentators pointed out, about 83% of people aren't affected by the cut and it's easy to support someone else losing money.

David Cameron's speech on Wednesday was good, but not his best. There was a very sweet moment when the Prime Minister talked about Niamh Riley, a six-year-old girl from Salford who sent Mr. Cameron a £1 from the tooth fairy to help with the deficit. Mr. Cameron apparently returned the money with a thankful note advising Miss Riley to 'treat herself'.

To me, it seemed as if the bad headlines were affecting the PM (either that or his newborn had been keeping him up). George Osborne however was unaffected and unapologetic, he knows that there are worse cuts needed and that the government is going to become very unpopular in the next few months.

However, the next general election is a long way away, and the coalition hopes that by the time polling day comes, the economy will have been repaired and the government will get the credit. In the meantime, they will have to suffer through some very bad headlines and a few more hijacked conferences.

The fear of power

You may have thought that after 65 years out of power, the Liberal Democrats would be excited about having government ministers address their conference and putting Liberal Democrat policy into effect. However, the ordinary Liberal Democrat members are uneasy, and not just because they are in coalition with the Conservatives. After so long without it, power can be very frightening.

I should point out that to say the Liberal Democrats have been out of government since 1945 is somewhat inaccurate. The Liberal Democrats as a political party have only existed since 1988, before then they were two parties, the Liberal party (which used to formed governments in the 19th and early 20th centuries) and the Social Democratic party (which split from the Labour party in 1981). So, although the Liberals haven't been in government since the coalition during the Second World War, the Social Democrats were technically in power as part of Labour in the 1970s.

However, the membership of the Liberal Democrats is very different from the party itself. This is true of most political parties, but the Liberal Democrat members are a particularly interesting group. Unkindly described as "sandal-wearing" or "tree-huggers", in general they are dramatically to the left of their party leadership and the rest of the country. For most of them, being in power is a very strange experience, and in such a difficult time, with such a large deficit to deal with, many Liberal Democrat members are wondering if being in government is such a good thing.

Today Nick Clegg (David Cameron's Deputy Prime Minister) tried to convince his party membership that the coalition was a good thing. He was very careful not to sound triumphalism, but instead asked the party to trust that what he was doing is 'right for Britain'. Whether the Liberal Democrats will continue to follow their leader when the spending cuts begin will only be known at next year's conference.

Fun at the conference!

Conference season is here again, and there's always something of interest at this point in the political calendar, though normally it's one of the party leaders in some form of difficulty. However this year is interesting for very different reasons.

Next week is the Liberal Democrat conference which in previous years has been described as narcolepsy inducing, but this time the keynote speakers will be members of the government. Nick Clegg will give his traditional leader's speech as Deputy Prime Minister and Conservative MPs will be welcomed! Who would have predicted that a year ago?

Then, on Saturday 25th, the Labour party will begin by finally announcing the result of their leadership election. This is probably the most important moment of this year's conference season. The next leader of the Labour party will have an enormous influence on British politics in the next few years. The really exciting thing is, no one knows who the next leader will be!!

After the Labour conference, it's the Conservatives' turn with David Cameron's first conference speech as Prime Minister.

The first 99 days

For some reason the first 100 days in office is now seen by the media as a crucial point to measure the results and progress of a government. The accuracy of this gauge is questionable. How well could the government of Margret Thatcher be judged in August 1979? What were the merits of Tony Blair's time in office in August 1997?

Also, although David Cameron has been Prime Minister for 100 days, for the first few hours of his Premiership he led a minority Conservative government. The Liberal Democrats only formally agreed to the Coalition deal after midnight – meaning the Coalition's 100th day is tomorrow. In any case, the new government has done a lot in its first 99 days in power, although no one has really felt the benefits or pain of it yet.

The really interesting question, which has been asked since the start, is how long will it last? If it does break apart, the first cracks in the Coalition won't come from the Cabinet, most of them have found that they like their colleagues from the other party and are enthusiastic about being in government. If it happens, descent will come from the backbenchers, the 1922 Committee or disgruntled Liberal Democrat MPs, who can and will stand up to their leadership. One thing both Coalition parties have in common is a proclivity for regicide, unlike Labour.

There is a sense of limbo in British politics at the moment, partly because there currently isn't a Labour leader, but also because a coalition in the UK still feels strange, especially one between such unlikely bedfellows. In time, as policies are implemented and the novelty fades, things will change, but on the 99th day it's impossible to say how or when.

Can 'divide and conquer' work for Labour?

Labour's main strategy since the formation of the coalition has been to split the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats apart. It is an obvious approach, but one which may rebound if not done wisely. This has implications for the Labour party leadership election as each candidate wants to show that they are the wisest one of all.

David Miliband attempted on Twitter to convince Liberal Democratic MPs to vote against the coalition's budget, calling Nick Clegg a "dumb waiter" of the government. The budget passed with ease.

The problem is that Labour's attempts to prize the governing parties apart might end up bring them closer together – uniting them against their common political enemy.

Mike Smithson of politicalbetting.com has predicted that the coalition will fall on 6 May 2011, though not as a result of Labour. The date of the prediction is the day after the proposed AV referendum. Whatever the result, one of the coalition parties will be very unhappy on that day (the Conservatives if AV wins, the Liberal Democrats if it doesn't).

The next Labour Leader, whoever they are, will have to act very carefully next May if they want to continue the 'divide and conquer' strategy with the coalition.

If the next Labour Leader acts wisely, we might see the collapse of the coalition, an election and maybe even a Labour Prime Minister by this time next year. Acting unwisely may lead to a successful coalition lasting for a full five-years and Labour out of office for a generation.

Power and titles

In the last government Peter Mandelson developed a reputation for collecting governmental titles and honours. By the end, his full title was The Right Honourable, the Baron Mandelson of Foy in the county of Herefordshire and Hartlepool in the county of Durham, First Secretary of State, Lord President of the Privy Council and Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills. William Hague once joked that "it would be no surprise to wake up in the morning and find that he had become an archbishop".

One title never bestowed on the Lord Mandelson however, was that of Deputy Prime Minister. Indeed, the office of Deputy Prime Minister was vacant throughout Gordon Brown's premiership. The history of that office is a peculiar one, mainly due to the fact that it is relatively new.

Offices of State in the UK normally have ancient histories. There has been a Chancellor of the Exchequer, for example, since the early 14th century. The office of Deputy Prime Minister however, was only created in 1940 following the formation of a coalition government - that sounds familiar.

Back then the political parties had united together to better fight the Second World War, and Conservative Prime Minister Winston Churchill wanted to give the leader of the Labour party, Clement Attlee, a title of high authority. So he created the office of Deputy Prime Minister.

Since the Second World War the title has been used sporadically. Prime Ministers have been reluctant to give it away for fear that it would create a possible rival. This meant that in recent years, when the title was used, the Deputy Prime Minister was normally someone who the PM didn't feel was a threat to his or her leadership. John Prescott for example had no desire to remove the word 'Deputy' from his title.

A problem for any Deputy Prime Minister is that the title doesn't have a defined role or job in government other than filling in for the PM when he or she is off at international summits or on holiday. American politician John Garner, who served as Vice President during Franklin D. Roosevelt's first two terms in the White House, once infamously described the Vice Presidency of the United States as "not worth a bucket of warm piss." Some British politicians have felt a similar sentiment could apply to the Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

So when David Cameron appointed Nick Clegg as his Deputy, the Prime Minister wanted to make clear that this was not just an empty title given to make the Liberal Democrats feel a false sense of prestige. As a result, Mr. Clegg was also given special responsibility for political and constitutional reform.

Most people get sudden onset narcolepsy when politicians start to discuss constitutional reform, but Liberal Democrats have been talking about it for years and now their leader is in a position to actually do something about it.

The coalition document, which sets out a plan for the government's next five years in office, talks of a new voting system for the House of Commons and an elected House of Lords. Fixed-term parliaments are already planned.

Nick Clegg also holds on to one of Peter Mandelson's old titles, Lord President of the Council. Normally, the Lord President has a propionate role in the State Opening of Parliament, but last Tuesday Nick Clegg chose to remove himself from the ceremony. Perhaps this was a sign that he plans to be a reformer. In the end though, he may have some impressive titles, but it's the Prime Minister who has the power and the last word on policy.

The power of 1922

It's often said that, due to the UK's wonderfully bizarre unwritten constitution, it's a lot easier to remove a Conservative Prime Minister from power than it is to remove a Labour Prime Minister. There are mechanisms for removing a Labour PM, but they're convoluted and, more than that, Labour MPs tend to be unwilling to use such mechanisms. This is not true of Conservative MPs who have a belligerent tendency, not to mention the fact that they can remove their leader with a very straightforward mechanism which rests in the infamous 1922 Committee.

The committee was actually formed in 1923 but was named after the year in which its founders were elected. However, when Conservatives hear '1922', they don't think of the general election which took place in that year, they think of something far more dramatic.

On Thursday 19 October 1922 Conservative MPs gathered at the Carlton Club in London to discuss the coalition government which consisted of Conservatives and Liberals. Does this sound familiar? The difference between that coalition government and the current one is the Prime Minister in the 1922 coalition was a Liberal (David Lloyd George), despite the fact that the Conservatives were the largest party in the Commons.

Austen Chamberlain, the leader of the Conservative party and Chancellor of the Exchequer under Lloyd George, strongly supported the continuation of the coalition as did most of the leadership of the party. But many of the ordinary Conservatives MPs did not like linking themselves to an unpopular Liberal Prime Minister. So on that day in October 1922, there was a vote of the members present at the Carlton Club, effectively on whether to remain in the coalition or not. The party leadership lost the vote, 187 to 87, and as a result Chamberlain resigned as leader, the coalition collapsed, an election was called and the Conservatives won a majority in the Commons. Ever since, '1922' has been shorthand for the devastating power of ordinary MPs when they become sufficiently disgruntled.

The new Conservative MPs who entered Parliament in the 1922 election formed a committee of backbench MPs – the 1922 Committee – which continues to this day and is far more powerful than equivalent groups in any other mainstream party. For example, an immediate vote of confidence in the leader of the Conservative party can be called if just 15% of MPs write to the 22's chairman asking for one, and Conservatives are not timid about using this power either. It was most recently used less than seven years ago to forcibly remove Iain Duncan Smith from the leadership.

Perhaps this is why yesterday David Cameron changed the rules of membership of the 1922 Committee. Previously, only Conservative MPs who were not part of the government were allowed to be members of the 22. At the Prime Minister's request, this rule has been changed and now all Conservative MPs are allowed to join. This is significant as members of the government are far less likely to vote against their Prime Minister in any vote of confidence. The 22 has other powers, such as overseeing elections within the Conservative party, including the selection of Conservative chairpersons of Parliamentary committees, which can now be influenced by the government.

Interestingly, the vote to change the rules wasn't that close - 168 supported the change, 118 were opposed. Of course, when you consider the fact that there are 147 new Conservative MPs, it is not too surprising as they wouldn't want to upset the leader who has just brought them into Parliament, but many of the older Conservative MPs were very angry at this change.

David Cameron should perhaps be careful; even after these changes, the 1922 Committee is still extremely powerful and past experience shows Conservatives are not coy about using their power.