Clegg denies Lib Dem kingmaker ambitions
Nick Clegg denies that his party wants to be the "kingmaker" at this year's general election
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Tuesday, 05, Jan 2010 01:53
By Elizabeth Davies
The Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg has declared that his party is "up for real change", not "up for sale" in any pre-election bargaining.
The statement was part of a lengthy editorial in the Times, and accompanied an appearance on the Today programme this morning, where Mr Clegg insisted that he was "not a kingmaker. the people are the kingmakers".
Such announcements come as the UK heads into what is effectively the start of the general election campaign, although the date of the election has yet to be announced. Most commentators now say it is likely to be called for May 6th, but election law means that it cannot occur later than June 3rd.
David Cameron, the Conservative leader, began his election drive in a speech at a drama centre in Oxford on January 2nd. Polls continue to place the Conservatives ahead, although their lead over Labour has narrowed in recent months. The latest YouGov poll, published on December 30th, placed them on forty points, with Labour merely ten points behind.
The Tories and Labour have both made repeated overtures towards Lib Dem supporters, the most recent coming from Gordon Brown on the Andrew Marr Show last Sunday.
If voting on election day reflects current polling, no party is likely to win a majority of seats in the House of Commons. Parties would therefore have to form a minority government and risk legislative paralysis, or seek to build a coalition. In December the bookmaker William Hill cut the odds of a hung parliament occurring in 2010 to 9/4.
In such a situation, the Liberal Democrats would be placed in an influential position. As the UK's third-largest party, they currently have the support of 17 per cent of the population, and could prove decisive in helping a party secure majority support in the Commons.
Much speculation has surrounded the Liberal Democrats' preference for a coalition partner. Although a September ComRes poll for the BBC suggested that fewer than one in five Liberal Democrat activists would like their party to join with the Conservatives, committed support for Labour has not been forthcoming. Mr Clegg has consistently insisted, as he did in the Times today, that he would join with whichever party secured the "strongest mandate" from the British people. It remains unclear whether Mr Clegg would determine this mandate based on a party's number of seats, or national vote share.
Today Mr Clegg was adamant that there would be no pre-election bargaining with the Liberal Democrats, as both Labour and the Conservatives seek to win over voters. He wrote in The Times: "I can promise voters wondering whether to put an 'X' against the Liberal Democrats that there are no backroom deals or under-the-counter 'understandings' with either of the other two parties."