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After an inconclusive general election in Britain and no party with an overall majority for the first time in almost 40 years, moves are under way to put together a new government. The opposition Conservative party emerged as the largest in the new parliament, and its leader, David Cameron, has said an agreement is needed fast, and that he is making a big, open and comprehensive offer to share power with the Liberal Democrats. Marco Werman talks with Laura Lynch in London. Download MP3
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MARCO WERMAN: I’m Marco Werman. This is The World. The horse-trading has begun in Britain. Yesterday’s general election did not produce a clear winner. The Conservatives led by David Cameron, got the most seats in Parliament, but not enough to govern alone. Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s Labour Party lost a lot of ground and came in second. And the third place party, the Liberal Democrats, may now hold the balance of power. The World’s Laura Lynch is following developments in London. She says there’s a lot of political uncertainty now in Britain.
LAURA LYNCH: Voters gave no one party an outright majority and that means the country doesn’t know who is going to be in charge, but as you said, it is now the third party, the Liberal Democrats, who are the king makers here. They hold the balance of power and the ability to build a coalition. So their leader, Nick Clegg, spoke first today and talked immediately about changing a system that saw his party win more votes than ever before and still manage to lose the number of seats it held in Parliament. Here’s Nick Clegg this morning.
NICK CLEGG: This election campaign has made it abundantly clear that our electoral system is broken. It simply doesn’t reflect the hopes and aspirations of the British people. So I repeat again my assurance that whatever happens in the coming hours and days and weeks, I will continue to argue not only for the greater fairness in British society, not only the greater responsibility in economic policy making, but also for the extensive real reforms that we need to fix our broken political system. Thank you very, very much.
LYNCH: Now that is Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg. He’s named his price for his cooperation and he also promised the Conservatives, the party with the most votes and the most seats, is going to get the first chance to make a deal with him.
WERMAN: You know, Laura, I just have to ask this; it doesn’t seem logical that the Liberal Democrats, who ran on a platform that seems to parallel that of Liberal Democrats’ capital d here in the United States, they joined forces with the Conservative Party. Explain that or are we just looking at a fairly elastic set of principles here?
LYNCH: Well I think that’s what you’re going to see in the coming days, how elastic those principles are. It’s going to come down to the talks between the parties and how far they are willing to compromise or not in the name of making a deal. Here’s what happened next today, before Mr. Cameron got a chance to say his piece about what he thought of what was going on and what kind of a deal should be made. The Prime Minister, he’s still the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, got out there and he made a point of getting out there in front of Downing Street to show everyone that he still is the Prime Minister and he still is the resident of Downing Street. He also made it clear that if Mr. Clegg can’t make a deal, he’s willing to talk to him and then Mr. Brown made an offer that he hoped Mr. Clegg can’t refuse.
PRIME MINISTER GORDON BROWN: Clearly, should the discussions between Mr. Cameron and Mr. Clegg come to nothing, then I would, of course, be prepared to discuss with Mr. Clegg the areas where there may be some measure of agreement between our two parties.
LYNCH: And so here’s what Mr. Brown is putting on offer: he is saying that he will hold a referendum on electoral reform, something that the Liberal Democrats have long demanded. The other thing that was interesting about what Mr. Brown was saying today was he was telling Mr. Clegg and Mr. Cameron take your time, take all the time you need, you discuss it and then if it doesn’t work out, come and talk to me.
WERMAN: So as things get sorted out here, Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats kind of cast as the king makers. Gordon Brown is still the Prime Minister. Where does this leave David Cameron on the Conservatives?
LYNCH: Well, he’s the guy who’s got to try and make a deal now and as we were just discussing, for his party, it’s a tough call. There are several areas where they do disagree with the Liberal Democrats on several issues. Immigration they’re not together. When it comes to Europe and the degree of cooperation with Europe, they’re not exactly in sync. Mr. Cameron, when he met with the media finally, he tried to gloss over those differences in the name of building a coalition.
DAVID CAMERON: I want to make a big, open, and comprehensive offer to the Liberal Democrats. I want us to work together in tackling our country’s big and urgent problems, the debt crisis, our deep social problems and our broken political system.
LYNCH: Now, Marco, just quickly, when Mr. Cameron speaks of fixing the broken political system he doesn’t go as far as Mr. Brown in offering the Liberal Democrats a referendum. He only talks about having a commission look into the problems with the system. So there is so much at stake here between the parties over the next little while as they try to see who can make a deal.
WERMAN: You know Laura, this isn’t exactly the stalemate in Florida in 2000, but I’m just wondering how do Brits feel with this kind of sense of uncertainty?
LYNCH: Well I guess, Marco, you’d have to maybe think that because of the way they voted maybe this is exactly what they were voting for. Maybe they did want to have parties who were going to have to cooperate with each other toward a common goal. Now, do they feel better when they see the pound taking a tumble on the currency markets? It has rebounded somewhat. Do they feel better about the uncertainty on the financial markets around the world when this is happening? I’m betting probably not. So they would probably like to see a deal done sooner rather than later.
WERMAN: And as I understand it, when and if that transfer of power changes the Queen will actually be Prime Minister for all of one hour.
LYNCH: It is a another quirk of this, what must seem, a terribly quirky system to a lot of Americans, but this Parliament is going to be a very different Parliament, unlike one that people have seen here in a generation. The last time you saw a Parliament coming in in this fashion was in 1974 and under the very same kinds of circumstances with a great degree of financial instability.
WERMAN: Wild times. The World’s Laura Lynch in London. Thank you so much.
LYNCH: You’re welcome.
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