WILL HUTTON (ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL COMMENTATOR) - 2nd May 2010
Still on the UK election - in the last week or so, somehow or other the
Brits have managed to tie an amazing conglomerate of issues into their
campaign. 'Cleggmania' of course, maybe a hung parliament, their loony
first-past-the-post voting system, plus the role of the sneaky Goldman
Sachs Bank in Britain's financial woes, the economic crisis in Greece,
the possible domino effect on the rest of Europe, including the UK -
and even the nasty spectre of a full-scale financial meltdown, "Global
Financial Crisis Round 2", if you like - and, dare we mention it,
Gordon Brown's now infamous 'bigot' insult. So with four days to go and
the third of three unprecedented leaders' debates behind them, we
talked from London with our old mate, Will Hutton - writer, political
commentator, economist, former editor of 'The Observer' newspaper - to
get Will's view on all this.
GEORGE NEGUS: Will, it is good to see you. We are living in
interesting
times, as somebody said, but the you lot didn't have to go to so much
trouble to make this election as interesting as it is for the rest of
us. You must have been taking your 'interesting pills' because it has
changed, hasn't it, from what we thought it was going to be, hasn't it?
- Totally predictable and dull to anything but.
WILL HUTTON, ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yeah, it is without
doubt the most uncertain general election that Britain has had,
probably since the 1920s, and even earlier. I mean, even now, you
couldn't put your hand on your heart, and say what the result will be.
It will certainly be a hung parliament.
GEORGE NEGUS: You are prepared to go that far and say
definitely a hung
parliament?
WILL HUTTON: Yes, it will be a hung parliament. I think - I was playing
around before coming on air tonight with - you can do it too - the BBC
has on its website - you can play around with various percentages of
the popular vote between the Conservatives, the Labour Party, the
Liberal Democrats, and I was playing around with it and I think we'll
end up with around 280, 290 Conservative MPs, 240, 250 Labour MPs and
around 90 Liberal Democrat MPs. That would mean that no party will have
a majority in the House of Commons - you need 321 MPs for that. It
means two things could happen on Friday morning - the first thing could
be you'll have scenes of David Cameron waving to adoring crowds as he
leads a minority Conservative government in Britain. That's one
scenario. A second, and really more interesting option is that Gordon
Brown resigns and the Labour Party says to the Liberal Democrats, "OK,
you have got more in the popular vote than we did and true, we have
more MPs than you have, but you Clegg, be leader of a formal
Labour-Liberal Democrat coalition government that will last for two
years, maximum, and we'll have a referendum on an new voting system at
the end of that period, and a general election after that - A
time-limited Labour and Liberal Democrat coalition led by Mr Clegg."
One or two Labour Cabinet ministers don't want to go as far as Mr
Clegg. One does - not publicly of course, deeply in private. I think
whether Brown can be persuaded to go, whether this could happen, is
actually deeply speculative but viewers in Australia, you should know
that it's game on in British politics. The most amazing things could be
happening in the next week.
GEORGE NEGUS: And you can't get the grin off your face. It
really is an
amazing situation but there are so many imponderables are what you just
said. I have not heard that theory at all. So it is the first for
Australia. Tell us about the Cleggmania factor. How much of the rise -
you've actually said yourself that the Liberal Democrat insurgency is
serving the country well because you think this is an epic and
crucially important election, how much of the Clegg whole phenomenon is
because of his performances in the first-ever televised leader debates?
Is that what really made the difference?
WILL HUTTON: It made a difference. The Liberal Democrats have always
done well in British general elections because they get a bit more
exposure - 3 or 4 percentage points in the popular vote. But this was
something completely out of the ordinary. They jumped 12 percentage
points in the opinion polls after that first and I think what it has
shown is that the British first-past-the-post voting system can't
handle three parties. Individual voters don't know who to vote for, and
they have to vote for the second-best person in a particular
constituency. They don't know whether it's best to vote against
somebody or for somebody the way the dice has fallen. It is really an
impossible situation. And you could get the situation in which the
Liberal Democrats get very close to the Conservative Party in popular
votes because it is evenly spread around the country and not focused
like the Conservative vote, and focused like the Labour vote. And they
will get very many fewer seats.
GEORGE NEGUS: We Australians, Will, not only can we beat you
at cricket
but we do have preferential voting, for goodness sake. I mean it is
pretty loony that after all these years, the British system can't
handle more than two parties. That is like almost inexplicable to us,
because even though most Australians don't understand preferential
voting, at least we have got it.
WILL HUTTON: You also have - and I completely agree with - as I
understand it - it is compulsory to vote in Australia. I think you have
a more vigorous democracy because of it. I mean that is what I think as
an outsider looking at Australia. I know Australians might say, "what
is he talking about?" I think it is a fairer system too. In Britain you
have this situation where you can get the 35%, 36%, 37% of the popular
vote, and form a majority government. Actually the defenders of it say,
"Well, that brings solid government." Actually, I think it brings very
poor government in Britain. You have this duopoly of Labour and
Conservative and many things that are wrong in British politics - you
know the expenses scandal, all the rest of it. And the way in which the
two parties operate - both of them - they kind of have a natural right
to govern and that gives a certain complexion to the way politicians
think about doing a career in politics. I think the Liberal insurgency
has really served Britain well. The voting system has got to change.
GEORGE NEGUS: I hate to bring us up, but last time we spoke
about
British politics you said to me by next June, David Cameron will be the
UK's prime minister. Now can you put your hand on your heart, as you
said before, this amazing scenario you've painted means that wouldn't
be the case then? We will forgive you if you're wrong, but is that the
case?
WILL HUTTON: Well, at the moment, the opinion polls have got the
Conservatives at 34%, 35%. They've got Labour and Liberal Democrats at
a level pegging, broadly, on about 28%. And that's what's changed it.
What's changed it is the Liberal Democrats, who have made it impossible
for the Conservatives to win enough seats. The Conservatives always had
to win 117 seats to form a majority 23 of them, had to be from the
Liberal Democrats. They won't win that now. We could still have a
minority Conservative government. I think that as I talk to you now,
Friday, six days from the general election, the most likely outcome is
Cameron forming a minority Conservative government but the scenario -
there's a second likelihood, less in percentage probabilities, of
course, of a formal coalition between the two other parties. You just
couldn't tell, because the vagrancies of the electoral system, which
way it will fall. Amazing, it is completely amazing.
GEORGE NEGUS: It is. Somehow or other, you guys have managed
to roll
all sorts of other things into the election campaign. I mean Goldman
Sachs has got a big gong, the Greek economic crisis, whether GFC-1 is
going to become GFC-2. Do you agree with Larry Elliott who you probably
know from the 'Guardian' when he said that Greece - the question that's
now raised because of this whole situation in Europe - and we have been
running this election, he says, in a parochial bubble. The crisis in
Greece will change all that. It raises the question of whether Britain
could be the next to fall, after Greece. Is the situation in Europe
economically so tough and so difficult at the moment that who the hell
would want to be the prime minister of Great Britain?
WILL HUTTON: Well, there have been two big debt crises in Britain, in
'76 and in '93 - but the governments that handled that debt crisis were
kicked out of office, three, four years later. Jim Callaghan and John
Major, whoever's in power, the governor of the Bank of England says,
will not last long because of the severity of what has to happen. That
is the conventional wisdom of it. I actually think that the British can
handle this. We have just got used to the idea that you CAN put up
taxes. And if we put up taxes, and that is what we did both last time
around in the late '70s and in the early-mid '90s, we put up taxes by
five percentage points of GDP. You know, if we did that, you can solve
this crisis. Also extend the pension age out to 67 by 2020 and
actually, you know, it's game done. Also we can devalue. Greece can't
devalue inside the euro, neither can Portugal, neither can Spain, and
neither can Ireland. We're in a bit of a different situation so I do
think that we are potentially watching profound problems in the euro
area but I don't think it's in anyone's interest for them not to be
solved. I disagree with Larry Elliott in this respect, I am for the
euro - I think it is done a good job in helping the world get through
this really bad period without massive trade protection, competitive
devaluations, beggar-my-neighbour policies, all that could have broken
out in Europe, and it hasn't done so. Now it could do so. You should
worry about that in Australia.
GEORGE NEGUS: That's true. Will, we have to finish on this
question,
I'm afraid. You think that Cameron is still a chance, the Dead Man
Walking, as you call him, Gordon Brown, is probably not going to get up
in his own right and of course this unknown factor in the way of Nick
Clegg, but could this so-called - and I've got the article here from
the 'Evening Standard' - is the 'bigot' insult the end for Brown? Could
that be the nail in Brown's coffin? Ironically, something as relatively
minor as this so-called 'bigot insult'? Can we be sure of one thing -
is Gordon Brown gone?
WILL HUTTON: What will happen is you will be interviewing me in two
weeks' time and saying I'm playing back my prediction about Gordon
Brown like you have my prediction about David Cameron, but I don't
think Gordon Brown can survive this. He will try and persuade his
fellow members of the Labour Party that he should carry on but really
this is game over for him. He has performed poorly in the electoral
debates, you know, negatively, not talking positively about what's to
do in Britain, but saying the others represent a risk. That is not a
good strategy. And the gaffe, that big a gaffe is bad, bad news. The
thing is, it confirmed what a lot of people think about Gordon Brown
any way and that is why it was so damaging.
GEORGE NEGUS: Will, we will have to leave it there
unfortunately. We
can talk our heads off forever, I'm sure, but I will see you in a
couple of weeks' time over a warm beer.
WILL HUTTON: I am looking forward to it. We will have cold beer
actually. They even manage that now in Britain.
GEORGE NEGUS: Thanks a lot, Will. Thank you.