5 Days in May: The Coalition and Beyond by Andrew Adonis

Author:Andrew Adonis [Adonis, Andrew]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9781849546058
Publisher: Biteback Publishing
Published: 2013-05-05T16:00:00+00:00

Gordon’s Monday statement stunned the political world, much as had David Cameron’s initial statement offering the Lib Dems a coalition on Friday afternoon. It opened up a serious Lab–Lib coalition alternative to the Tory–Lib Dem arrangement which by then had been nearly four days in the making.

There was no prevarication in Gordon’s statement either about the credibility of a progressive coalition or about his intention to resign the leadership to make that possible:

If it becomes clear that the national interest, which is stable and principled government, can be best served by forming a coalition between the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats, then I believe I should discharge that duty to form that government which would in my view command a majority in the House of Commons in the Queen’s Speech and any other confidence votes.

But I have no desire to stay in my position longer than is needed to ensure the path to economic growth is assured and the process of political reform we have agreed moves forward quickly. The reason that we have a hung parliament is that no single party and no single leader was able to win the full support of the country. As leader of my party, I must accept that that is a judgement on me. I therefore intend to ask the Labour Party to set in train the processes needed for its own leadership election. I would hope that it would be completed in time for the new leader to be in post by the time of the Labour Party conference. I will play no part in that contest and I will back no individual candidate.

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