22 Days in May

I read 22 Day in May by David Laws this week. It's a curious book. He's not a great writer but he's an engaging one nonetheless because you feel there's a real honesty in it. And there's something admirable about just not trying to justify or defend why he had to go. You can talk about your personal experiences in public life without having to talk about your actual private life.

I'm actually going to use the coalition agreements as the basis for my policy discussions. But I just wanted to make some basic observations:

The only options were confidence and supply or coalition between Lib Dems and Conservatives. Labour did not really want power. And in a sense this was always inevitable. For a coalition to be formed, it would always have to be a new broom rather than a propping up. Lib Dems who wanted to ally with Labour should have been hoping for a small conservative majority which could be toppled next time.

I'd forgotten that the election was fought over a £6billion phony war. The £6 billion itself was such a drop in the ocean that, whatever your views on timing for fiscal retrenchment, it was always worth doing it to please the markets. But the symbol also made the following budgets and spending reviews more likely.

The Treasury and the Bank of England came close to overstepping their constitutional role. I think their role in a hung parliament will need to be discussed more fully before 2015.

Laws talks about the importance of negotiating without knowing what role you might be given but I do think it's crucial that coalition plans include opinions on what roles you would want your party to have, if not the people.