Interesting, but I can’t see it playing out the way you describe. Some parts of the NHS changes are covered by the coalition agreement, so all but the most awkward LibDems won’t vote against those. However, those parts that either aren’t in the coalition agreement, or directly contravene it, stand a good chance of being amended or voted down.

I’d love to see everything about this bill die on its arse, but sadly I don’t think it will. But you do get the sense that Lansley is in retreat on some of the worst aspects. This is actually an example – so far – of the LibDems being able to temper some of the worst Tory instincts.

Evan Harris very interesting on this in last week’s Guardian politics podcast. He reckons there’s a serious chance of mass defections from the LibDems if LD MPs are whipped to vote for something that directly contradicts both the coalition agreement and the recent conference amendments.

Also the Orange Bookers love the NHS reform so why would they betray their prinicipals to vote against it. Indeed the same reform is in the Orange Book.

Peter @ 2 beat me to it. I suppose the Lib Dem leadership might choose to oppose the reforms out of political expediency; but equally, they might see this as a golden opportunity to get an Orange Book policy through Parliament without the inconvenience of asking for a mandate from the electorate (or their own grassroots members), and thereby revealing their true colours. My guess is they’ll make just enough objection-y, amendment-y noises to deflect some of the shit onto the Tories, while privately celebrating the advancement of David Laws’ plans to replace the NHS with an any-willing-provider-based social insurance scheme.

This is a rather sensible piece (except for the guff about sacking Lansley).

Much of the bill/reforms is in the coalition agreement and much of that is just a continuation of Labour policy so it is hard to see how those elements can be stopped.

Those aspects outside the coalition agreement identified in the Lib Dem motion are remediable though. As Dan says it is utterly different from tuition fees as this is a) not in the coalition agreement and b) subject to a clear view from the party democratically.

How could the Liberal Democrats save the NHS? They can’t even save themselves.

Discussing the Liberal Democrats is a complete irrelevance. They are doomed to obscurity for their breach of trust to the electorate.

The only real questions are who will be the 3rd party in British politics (and maybe 4th even since Lib Dems could dream of reaching such heights)? Will Labour be able to unite people in opposition? Or will all of the political parties suffer upheaval from grass-roots activism?

The best response to any question regarding the Liberal Democrats should simply be; “not relevant; let’s talk about the issues”.

@2 Peter:

The LibDem manifesto said:

- scrap SHAs
- right to register with any GP
- allow employees management buyouts of hospitals (sorry, “staff co-operatives”)
- make PCTs elected, these “health boards” would commission services
- stop paying private ISTCs more than the NHS
- integrate NHS and social care

In addition there are the usual platitudes of better care, reducing bureaucracy and administration.

The first three are part of Lansley’s plans. However, the LibDem manifesto does not talk about Monitor beefed up to enforce competition law. Nor does it say about creating a healthcare market. Indeed, the LibDem manifesto talks about a public system (if you call management buy-outs, sorry, “staff co-operatives”, as being public) without a competitive market.

I would like to know why the Orange Bookers stood for election on their manifesto if they did not agree with it. If they agree with the Lansley Bill they clearly do not agree with their own manifesto.

Or are these politicians lying to the electorate?

I agree with Rowan in that I do not think the Health Bill will be changed in the Commons. It may be changed in the Lords, not because of Lady “I am 80 you know, so listen to me” Williams, but because the cross-benchers has a lot of very skilled and concerned healthcare experts. (Actually Lady Williams really hasn’t quite got the right end of the stick over Lansley’s plans, but at least she’s got the stary-eyed LibDems to rebel, however weakly.) The problem is that Lansley will reject the majority of the Lords amendments and the Parliament Act will be waved over the Lords to stop them complaining.

I disagree with Rowan n that I do not think that he “is in retreat on some of the worst aspects”. The worst aspect is the healthcare market with Monitor as the super-powerful economic regulator enforcing competition law. Lansley has not softened on this policy. Indeed, even his so-called u-turn on price competition includes a clause that says that Monitor will still have the right to set different rates for different providers (hence allow price cutting).

Lansley knows that the Conservatives have enough LibDem ministers to give them a majority, and those ministers will never vote against the coalition. If Labour wants to stop this Bill they should target Tory MPs. I would start with Tory MPs who have hospitals in their constituencies, and particularly those hospitals that have debts that mean that they cannot achieve FT status (there are 20-30 such hospitals, not all in Labour constituencies). If I was in charge of the campaign I would make sure that those MPs know exactly what will happen to their hospital under Lansley’s plans and what would happen to their vote should the public blame them for the closure of their local hospital. Indeed, I would orchestrate local Labour activists to make sure that the public in those constituencies would know about what Lansley’s plans would lead to, while leaving a wide open door for the Tory MP to be able to vote against the Bill as an honourable act (ie, don’t push them in a corner to justify Lansley’s Bill).

If this Bill is to be substantially amended, or dropped altogether, it will be because of Tory disquiet. The LibDems are now irrelevant.

“Can the Lib Dems save the NHS”

“Much of the bill/reforms is in the coalition agreement and much of that is just a continuation of Labour policy so it is hard to see how those elements can be stopped” [4].

That sounds like a NO then ……… from the horses mouth so to speak?

@Richard

The Orange Book goes further and well into the territory of any willing provider.

Agree on your assessment of electoral arithmetic meaning that Lib Dems with their myriad of Ministerial roles and PPS’s will choose career over principle and not resign. But the marketisation of health and indeed education is the preferred endgame of the economic liberals that now run and lead the Liberal Democrats.

For all the integrity of the like of Charles Kennedy and perhaps even Menzies Campbell they do not have the votes.

Your tactic of targetting Tories with hospitals in their constituencies is a good one.

I think that the Liberal Democrats will do nothing which may lead to a General Election, or do anything which will mean they lose their delusory ‘power’. They have all always been right-wing. We can at least trust them to try to stay where they are.

@OP

I’m sorry to say that this post started off well but then ended up advocating political suicide. Honestly, where to begin…

Okay, you’re right to argue that the Lib Dems should oppose the Lansley reforms as currently proposed. I think there’s no doubt that they will as the party voted to do just that at conference and our MPs will have to be very careful about alienating the activists on this. This is particularly relevant because the boundary reviews will force all of them to apply for reselection for their seats – if they piss off the people they need to a) reselect them and b) campaign for them then they might as well resign from parliament now.

The overall Lansley proposals are not in the coalition agreement so our MPs can vote against them without any qualms (and I imagine that some tory MPs will rebel as well given the potential unpopularity of the reforms in their own constituencies). In particular, I expect that Tim Farron will act as a rallying point for any rebel backbenchers.

However, certain parts of the proposals could be made to be in keeping with our manifesto. Turning PCTs into elected and accountable bodies, for example, would be a success and, given that the tories know that the proposals in their current form are toxic, they’ll probably be willing to accept amendments to radically change them. I expect that the vast majority of the proposals will be watered down into non existence.

But the idea that they should call for Lansley to be sacked is madness. Quite simply, this coalition is going to last until 2015. Imagine what tories would do if Lib Dems demanded Lansley was sacked, let alone managing to actually get him sacked. They would be furious. Even if someone more moderate was put in place on the NHS then they’d still want revenge for it elsewhere. Chris Huhne and his green measures would probably be their chosen pound of flesh. And it would certainly mean the death of stuff like lords reform, or a sensible policy on prisons, or the human rights act.

All it would achieve is to poison and divide the coalition. And in those circumstances Lib Dems and progressives would be the losers as Cameron would be forced to throw more and more red meat to his backbenchers.

The Lib Dems should definitely oppose the proposals as they currently stand. But to ask for Lansley’s head would be insanity and would only damage any chance of mitigating tory excesses in future.

@9

Thank you for demonstrating your ignorance. Now perhaps you could get back under your bridge with all the other trolls or do you still feel compelled to proclaim your ignorance for all to hear?

“George W. Potter @9

Thank you for demonstrating your ignorance. Now perhaps you could get back under your bridge with all the other trolls or do you still feel compelled to proclaim your ignorance for all to hear?”

The troll is not @9 it is you. You open with an insult and an Ad Hominem and fail to provide anything of consequence to back up any of your claims.

So not only are you a Troll Potter but you are also a hypocrite. I don’t have to agree with comment @9 to correctly identify as that which you claim others to be.

I don’t really care what your other rambling posts are about. This one alone shows your true colours. A hypocrite just like that scum Clegg.

@ Richard

“I would like to know why the Orange Bookers stood for election on their manifesto if they did not agree with it. If they agree with the Lansley Bill they clearly do not agree with their own manifesto.”

I don’t really understand this comment. Probably no candidate for the Lib Dems or any other party has ever agreed with everything in their party’s current manifesto; the range of opinions within parties just isn’t that narrow. We all know there are people in all three main parties whose views are at odds with the official party line on various issues, but they take collective responsibility and toe that line anyway.

If you mean: since the Orange Bookers dominate the Lib Dem leadership, why didn’t they stand for election on an Orange Book policy platform?, I suspect the answer is the same as the answer to: why didn’t the Tories mention the Lansley reforms in their manifesto? – i.e. it would have cost them votes. Though in the case of the Orange Bookers, there’s the additional problem of keeping the Lib Dem grassroots on board.

“in those circumstances Lib Dems and progressives would be the losers as Cameron would be forced to throw more and more red meat to his backbenchers.”

If the Lib Dems have a long term plan to be an independent political party, rather than just being the junior partner in a Coalition, then pushing Tories to the Right is exactly what they need to do in order to survive the next election. They need some wins which aren’t given to them out of charity by David Cameron, but which are forced from the Tories against their will.

I’m saying that they should brief against Andrew Lansley, just like the Tories have been briefing against Lib Dems ministers like Vince Cable and Chris Huhne moreorless since the coalition started. He’s obviously doomed, and it would benefit the Lib Dems to make sure they get the credit for getting rid of him and his reforms, rather than the credit going to backbench Tories.

You seem to think it would be a bad thing for the Lib Dems if the right wing of the Tory Party got upset, I think it would be a good thing for your party. If Cameron thinks that the Lib Dems will fold or wave through the various half-witted projects of the Tory Right, then he’s going to pander to them. If he knows that the consequences of trying to appease them will be that he has to drop the plans because he hasn’t got the votes, and for good measure that he’ll get his nose rubbed in it by the Lib Dems, then he’ll have to ignore them. Result – civil war in the Tory Party, and the Lib Dems scooping up votes from moderate centre and centre right voters.

@12

Sorry if you disagree but, funnily enough, when people spout complete and utter nonsense like:

“they have all always been right-wing”

Then clearly they’re living in their own little world divorced from any relation to reality.

And, incidentally, when it comes to my true colours, according to some Labour supporters I’m a right wing, orange booker reactionary and, according to some orange book Lib Dems, I’m a dangerous socialist lefty who belongs in the TUSC. Make of that what you will.

@14

In that case I must have gotten the wrong impression from your post. Lib Dems unofficially briefing against Lansley is probably a good idea. But raising the spectre of sacking him would be going too far and would just end up doing more harm than good.

I’m afraid it would be a bad thing if the tory backbenchers got too upset because if they did it would then mean that a lot of the Lib Dem achievements would be blocked. Like I said, Lords reform would be one area in particular where the tories would probably extract revenge. It may be electorally advantageous to have frothing right wing tories, but all it would do is shift the party from the centre (left) to the centre right as that would be where our supporters would be coming from.

But above all, we don’t want that because a divided, in-fighting government is no good for the country. Brown and Blair showed us that.

I think a lot of analysis of coalition politics on here is based on some strange belief that there is a single continuum of belief from the right of the Conservatives to the Liberal Democrats, with both ends opposed to each other.

In actual fact, many of the (non-authoratrian) right of the Conservative party have found natural allies in the non-authoritarian Liberal Democrats (and indeed in some aspects of the Cameron government plans). Likewise there are natural alliances between the few remaining Wets and the remaining Social Democrats who both see more of a role for a paternalistic state.

To view everything as simply sitting on a line of how right-wing the MP is rather ignores this and simplifies politics to a ridiculous level.

I’d re-phrase the question to, “Can the Liberal-Democrats Save Themselves?” Any LD minister who prefers their career over saving the NHS must be looking no further than the next election, because unless the LDs do something to prove they aren’t just stooges they will be destroyed.

I suppose the worst of them will be planning which party to defect to.

This is a well thought-out OP and I hope more LDs than just Evan Harris are reading it.

Cherub,

Please note that in electoral cycles governing parties are often unpopular, then become popular again in time for the next election. I wouldn’t be surprised to see this happen with the Liberal Democrats (remember how many parties have been written off early in their term of government/opposition).

@19 Watchman

Well, time will tell. They’ve got an uphill struggle though. What are the odds that Clegg will lose his seat at the next election?

No doubt they are hoping their gerrymandered boundaries and five-year term will benefit them, but with commodity price inflation, poor growth and increasing resistance to their policies I see some strong parallels with the Heath government. If they become lame ducks for two or three years they will pay through the nose for it.

Cherub,

I guess Clegg will hold on to his seat, but probably not by a great margin. I am happy to revise this due to events though.

I can see the parallels with Heath as well (my major concern with the government) although the major difference is the quiet radicalism still being pushed by some ministers – Heath never really changed much for all his good intentions, whilst Cameron and Clegg seem to be bringing change about (at least I assume so, otherwise what is all this March 26th protest for).

Of course, we could assume they are just doing what they think best for the country and are not concerned with re-election, but that seems rather unlikely to be fair, even for a Liberal Democrat…

@13. G.O.

I don’t really understand this comment. Probably no candidate for the Lib Dems or any other party has ever agreed with everything in their party’s current manifesto; the range of opinions within parties just isn’t that narrow. We all know there are people in all three main parties whose views are at odds with the official party line on various issues, but they take collective responsibility and toe that line anyway.

I think you are being too kind. I think that very few candidates know their party’s policies. Even those that profess a special interest in a policy. I doubt that the Orange Bookers could be bothered to read their manifesto. But remember that the LibDems are special and different to the other two large parties: their policies have to be agreed by their conference they cannot make policy in secret like Labour and the Conservatives. Hence there is no excuse for the Orange Bookers not to know their party’s policy, and if they stand for election as a LibDem candidate there is no excuse for them not to accept their party’s manifesto. Remember, the Orange Book is not official party policy.

If you mean: since the Orange Bookers dominate the Lib Dem leadership, why didn’t they stand for election on an Orange Book policy platform?, I suspect the answer is the same as the answer to: why didn’t the Tories mention the Lansley reforms in their manifesto? – i.e. it would have cost them votes. Though in the case of the Orange Bookers, there’s the additional problem of keeping the Lib Dem grassroots on board.

That is very true.

@15 Potter

Learn to read.

I wasn’t discussing disagreeing with you. I was pointing out your blatant hypocrisy and reliance on insults rather than actually having a substantive argument.

Go back to comment @11 and see just what kind of troll you are. Maybe you need a bit of introspection before you start judging others.

[14] how cynical – policy driven by the prospect of political capital rather than evidence or the wishes of the electorate?

Of course few politicians have to worry about how our health system will affect them personally, because most are wealthy enough to opt out, or if they do decide to slum it with the rest of us are fawned over by hospital management.

@19. Watchman

Please note that in electoral cycles governing parties are often unpopular, then become popular again in time for the next election. I wouldn’t be surprised to see this happen with the Liberal Democrats (remember how many parties have been written off early in their term of government/opposition).

We know that this is an unusual government in many ways. After all, it took a few months for the government approval ratings to go negative, whereas it took Blair two years. I do not think that you can use past historical evidence with this government.

The problem the Lib Dems have is trying to show that in coalition they have made a difference. The policies of raising the income tax threshold and the pupil premium do not count because they are policies that the Tories wanted to do: their influence has been to make Tories be Tories. The public (if you can talk about them this way) wanted to see the LibDems acting as a brake on Tory policies. Part of the problem is that the speed of the Maoist changes of this government are so fast that we do not know of the LibDems have had a change or not. Indeed, the speed of the Maoist changes surprise most Tories. The public do not see LibDems as a brake, they see them in the Tory slipstream.

Worse, where the public look towards the LibDems to act as a restraint, they have had no noticeable effect. For example, tuition fees. Yes, there were LibDem changes (in particular the silly “if you charge over £6k you won’t be allowed to spend the money” clause) but the public see tuition fees as a LibDem failure rather than a bad Tory policy made slightly better by the LibDems.

Getting back to the OP, the Health Bill shows no sign of LibDem influence. IMO Lansley made a very serious mistake here. He could have put some LibDem policies into the Bill. For example, he could have interpreted the LibDem “elected health boards” to be governing boards of GP consortia (ie, in parallel to the board of directors) and created something similar to the toothless Foundation Trust council of governors (which are elected, and are very cheap to implement – for my local trust the cost is £75k for a trust with an annual turnover of £130m). However, Lansley is very arrogant and intransigent, he will not allow compromise, even relatively benign compromises.

@22 Richard

“But remember that the LibDems are special and different to the other two large parties: their policies have to be agreed by their conference they cannot make policy in secret like Labour and the Conservatives. Hence there is no excuse for the Orange Bookers not to know their party’s policy, and if they stand for election as a LibDem candidate there is no excuse for them not to accept their party’s manifesto”

No; but there’s a powerful motivation to cooperate with a coalition partner whose policies they find preferable to the policies in their own party’s manifesto. They get the policy they wanted, but get to blame someone else for it.

@16 – Frankly I think your chances of getting any decent Lords reform past the Tory backbenches, let alone the Lords themselves are somewhere between vanishingly small and zero.

Let’s face it, aside from votes for prisoners the coalition hasn’t passed too much that’s been unpalatable to the Tories so far. Given that they needed you more than you needed them at the start of the coalition, I think that ratio needs to be improved. And making Cameron (and the Tory right) think they don’t really have to consider Lib Dem MPs’ opinions won’t help there.

I’d also point out that right now much of your vote is coming from the centre-right – polling shows that current LD supporters favour the Tories by about 3-1 in a straight fight with Labour, whereas May 2010 LD supporters favoured Labour 2-1. So it wouldn’t make too much of a difference there, and it could save a lot of Lib Dem MPs from being defeated by the Tories.

That’s aside from the fact that acting as the ‘grown-up’ and measured party would allow you to improve your standing amongst relatively apolitical voters who currently distrust you because of perceived breach of trust. And that you have zero chance of winning back centre-left voters when you aren’t emphasising the differences between you and the Tories.

@27

http://www.scribd.com/doc/45615933/Lib-Dem-Achievements-in-Government

64% of our manifesto isn’t bad.

Quick warning re the link @ 28 (George Potter):

Clicking this link seemed to lead to the appearance of ‘scareware’ fake alerts on my system – looked like that ‘Security Tool’ (?) malware that I think has been popping up a lot lately. Malwarebytes seems to have got rid before any probs, but thought it best to give a heads up.