THE GUARDIAN: A Lib-Con deal was the only responsible choice. And our shared aim is to build a fairer society by a radical dispersal of power
The third runway at Heathrow has been cancelled. ID cards have been scrapped. There will be no more child detention. And reform is now under way to make taxes fair for millions of ordinary people.
These are some of the early achievements of a government that had its first cabinet meeting just two days ago. A new government but, more important, a new kind of government: plural, diverse; a Liberal Democrat-Conservative coalition that defies the rules of old politics.
I know the birth of this coalition has caused much surprise, and, with it, some offence. There are those on both the left and right who are united in thinking this should not have happened. But the truth is this: there was no other responsible way to play the hand dealt to the political parties by the British people at the election. The parliamentary arithmetic made a Lib-Lab coalition unworkable, and it would have been regarded as illegitimate by the British people. Equally, a minority administration would have been too fragile to tackle the political and economic challenges ahead.
So, given that the people told us, explicitly, that they didn't want just one party in charge, we had a duty to find a way for more than one party to govern effectively. And we have.
That's the pragmatic analysis. But what I think has surprised all of us in the government this week is the strength of the agreement on principle, too. No government – whether it's a coalition of parties, or a coalition of rivalries as in the Blair-Brown governments – is able to survive without a core set of common assumptions and aspirations. >>> Nick Clegg | Friday, May 14, 2010
